I have ridden Filly 3 times now and I am now becoming really comfortable on her. We have continued to work on forwards and inside leg isolations. Rhythm and relaxation at walk seems pretty much a given now but is checked out each time.
Filly has been testing me with the inside leg isolations, pushing into the leg or just ignoring it. I needed a more effective phase four so resorted to a riding crop. Of course I make sure all the phases are still there when asking for a turn. Eyes turn first, the belly button which twist my hips in the saddle, then leg, then more leg. If this fails to have the desired effect of getting a turn around the leg I then resort to the stick. A few sharp smacks on my own leg to get her attention and if there is still no response some taps on her side just behind by boot. Not hard taps but ones that increase in frequency, not force, until I get a response.
As you can see there are way more than 4 phases here and I stop at whichever one gets a response. I could tell that she was just testing my leadership with the lighter phases because after just a few uses of the stick she was responding to very light phases. It is not as though we have had a gradual improvement in the quality of the response as she learned the aids. She knew the correct response but was just seeing who was going to be the leader.
I noticed after the last ride on Sunday that she was a little lethargic so she got yesterday off being ridden to recover. That does not mean that we could do no playing however. In the evening I went to the yard and we played in the indoor school for a while. I started out with circling her and making sure that she had no brace in any of her zones that could be hindering the riding. I felt that there was a brace in zone 3 / 4 and so spent sometime getting her to circle for a step or two on three or four tracks (i.e slightly sideways). This actually required quite high phases of pressure with the stick and flag to get her to move her hind quarters out. We played with this until I could get her to cross her hind legs over on just my body energy.
I also played a lot with sideways along and across a pole. This was to again make sure that I had control of the placement of each individual foot. As a real test I got her to stand with a front leg either side and a hind leg either side of the pole. This requires that I can control the accurate placement of each individual foot.
To date I have been mounting from the ground, but in future I also want to be able to mount from a mounting block or fence. This requires that Filly comes to the mounting block and positions herself so that I can easily get on. I am not one who is willing to move the block to her, stand on it, have her move, get off the mounting block, move it to her new spot etc.etc. And besides you can't do that with a fence. To aid in getting her into the correct position to be mounted we worked on her sideways towards me. I had done this in the past and was amazed at how well she remembered. Pretty soon I was standing on the mounting block and able to get her to come over to me at liberty and then manoeuvre her into a suitable spot to be mounted. Just to add a nice purpose I then used the stick and flag to drive her head around away from me in a neutral lateral flexion, leant over her back and fed her a treat on the other side to where I was standing. This got loads of stuff done in one hit. Driving game in zone 1, lateral flexion, carrot stretch, friendly game above zone 3, all with a decent standstill.
After the time I have spent at James I am really beginning to get a much better idea as to how all the ground games can be used to get better ridden results. This make the ground games even more fun as they have a much stronger purpose.
Filly has been testing me with the inside leg isolations, pushing into the leg or just ignoring it. I needed a more effective phase four so resorted to a riding crop. Of course I make sure all the phases are still there when asking for a turn. Eyes turn first, the belly button which twist my hips in the saddle, then leg, then more leg. If this fails to have the desired effect of getting a turn around the leg I then resort to the stick. A few sharp smacks on my own leg to get her attention and if there is still no response some taps on her side just behind by boot. Not hard taps but ones that increase in frequency, not force, until I get a response.
As you can see there are way more than 4 phases here and I stop at whichever one gets a response. I could tell that she was just testing my leadership with the lighter phases because after just a few uses of the stick she was responding to very light phases. It is not as though we have had a gradual improvement in the quality of the response as she learned the aids. She knew the correct response but was just seeing who was going to be the leader.
I noticed after the last ride on Sunday that she was a little lethargic so she got yesterday off being ridden to recover. That does not mean that we could do no playing however. In the evening I went to the yard and we played in the indoor school for a while. I started out with circling her and making sure that she had no brace in any of her zones that could be hindering the riding. I felt that there was a brace in zone 3 / 4 and so spent sometime getting her to circle for a step or two on three or four tracks (i.e slightly sideways). This actually required quite high phases of pressure with the stick and flag to get her to move her hind quarters out. We played with this until I could get her to cross her hind legs over on just my body energy.
I also played a lot with sideways along and across a pole. This was to again make sure that I had control of the placement of each individual foot. As a real test I got her to stand with a front leg either side and a hind leg either side of the pole. This requires that I can control the accurate placement of each individual foot.
To date I have been mounting from the ground, but in future I also want to be able to mount from a mounting block or fence. This requires that Filly comes to the mounting block and positions herself so that I can easily get on. I am not one who is willing to move the block to her, stand on it, have her move, get off the mounting block, move it to her new spot etc.etc. And besides you can't do that with a fence. To aid in getting her into the correct position to be mounted we worked on her sideways towards me. I had done this in the past and was amazed at how well she remembered. Pretty soon I was standing on the mounting block and able to get her to come over to me at liberty and then manoeuvre her into a suitable spot to be mounted. Just to add a nice purpose I then used the stick and flag to drive her head around away from me in a neutral lateral flexion, leant over her back and fed her a treat on the other side to where I was standing. This got loads of stuff done in one hit. Driving game in zone 1, lateral flexion, carrot stretch, friendly game above zone 3, all with a decent standstill.
After the time I have spent at James I am really beginning to get a much better idea as to how all the ground games can be used to get better ridden results. This make the ground games even more fun as they have a much stronger purpose.
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