Riding Filly in the big field

Hi All. Many asked for a video of Filly, so here is one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGuLXwvZRTk . Think I got the aspect ratio a bit wrong, but you can at least see her being ridden.
It was her first ride in the big field at our livery yard. Prior to this it has been a swamp.
I set out a 20m by 40m arena with little markers and also a Stacey Westfall clover leaf pattern. I was trying to keep everything as consistent and familiar as possible for her and we had been doing lots of these patterns in the school.
I, of course, did a proper prepare to ride ground sequence prior to riding her. After all my mentor, James Roberts, was most definitely watching from horsemens heaven and I did not want to get up there myself one day to be given a telling off. He sits on my shoulder everyday and speaks to me. Before I rode I asked my wife what James would say. "Stop messing about and get on" was her reply. That's what I thought James had just said so I mounted with confidence and had a good ride.
You may notice she is a little lame, particularly at walk. This is due to a conformational issue plus some foal hood injuries which we are slowly overcoming. Interestingly she only feels lame to ride when she is a little stressed like in this video. Today I rode her in the outdoor school and she felt absolutely perfect .
I did know I was on the wrong lead at canter, but rather than make her feel wrong for it decided to just change the circle direction on this occasion.
Not the prettiest ride I know, but for me given Fillys background it felt fantastic. I was so proud about how calm she held herself and how honest a ride she gave me. She really is a great partner.

Relaxation at Canter

Rode again yesterday even though I had a cold and felt miserable. Filly always cheers me up :)

More of the same, but we tried some of the yields at trot. They were even more responsive but given slightly grudgingly. We've been through this sort of thing with Filly before. What she needs under these circumstances is lots of reassurance and rubs. It's surprisingly tricky to apply the aids and give reassuring rubs remaining in balance during a rising trot !

We then spent sometime at canter trying to get rhythm and relaxation. I follow the classical method of training as modified by James Roberts. So for each gait I am looking for Rhythm, Relaxation, Forwards, Straightness, Flexion, Collection. In that order and if I loose one we go back a step to fix it. So as we have done very little canter work we needed to get the rhythm and relaxation first. As there is no straightness in this I was not too worried about where we went just so long as we maintained gait and kind of went around the school.
In fact Filly quickly told me should would prefer to do a 15m circle around a cone we had been working with earlier so I just let her do that whilst she worked on her rhythm. After around 5 minutes of continuous canter she gave a huge relaxing snort and lowered her head. A few more strides with relaxation for her to really get the feel and that was job done. Slight relaxing of my body and we stopped in two strides !
I feel the right way to go with this stage of the progression is to just set it up so we can stay out of their way and let them figure out how to canter nicely. There is no way that I can really influence this other than to stay out of their way with balance and stay off of their heads to leave them the freedom to explore their own bodies and how they move with 90kg perched on top.

Getting the Feel lighter

Continuing to ride Filly as much as weather and work allow.
She is getting so light now that I can barely move without getting a response :) . If I ask even a little too firmly I get the response but also a "get off me I'm doing it" expression. This is great for my riding and feel.
Even if I raise my heel I get a snarky look to remind me to use my calf muscle first. Not sure if she actually feels my heel rise, because it's not touching her, or can visually see my foot move.
I can even do neutral lateral flexions without using the reins, just the inside leg. As long as there is no forwards intention in my body she stays still for this. This is teaching me to be hyper aware of my body energy.
For all the gross moves, turning, stopping etc my reins are pretty much redundant. As a result I can now use my reins to start to shape her body a little. Backup with a nicely rounded poll is easy now, and we have just started getting some really nice fore quarter yields isolated form the hind quarters.
This is still all at walk. I want to get this really really good before progressing to the higher gaits too much. We do some trotting and cantering, but with only a little peppering in of the leg. Response is good to the leg, but with her history of extreme head tossing in the past I am being careful not to resurrect the behaviour.
But I am having trouble giving her the idea of collection whilst moving forwards. I'm going to review some of the Karen Rohlf DVD we have on the subject, but if anyone has other clues as to where to start please let me know !