Soaring With Eagles (Part 2)

(This is Part 2 in the series of blog posts written about the Level 3/4 Clinic with Jesse Peters, if you have not yet read Part 1, please go here now.)

Part 2: Expect A Lot, Accept A Little...

Learning to expect a lot of my horse had become a theme for the weekend.

After we all had a wonderful lunch prepared by Stacy Peters, we each had the opportunity to take a 20 minute private lesson with Jesse to work on something specific to our individual needs. I was a little nervous because I was the only one who ended up choosing to ride for my lesson, but I knew it was what we must work on if the rest of the clinic were to go smoothly. Hesitantly I saddled up and quickly had Jesse advise on saddle fit with my new Equipedic pad. Then, Jesse had me get on and start doing the figure 8 pattern around two cones at the walk. My responsibilities were to have a strong focus on where I wanted to go, use my whole body and energy, support with my legs and finally my stick. Amazingly, Rydel did great and we were doing perfect figure 8's in no time! Next he has us alternate which cones in the arena we were doing the pattern around so that we could use more space and work our way up to a trot. During this time, Jesse instructed me to focus on the downward part of my posting trot so as to not drive her forward and ride more in a more extroverted manner than she needed. He also had me wait to correct her until she had made a full downward transition. In other words, I was not to correct her when I simply anticipated she was about to walk. Pretty soon we were both gaining confidence and relaxing and as we did, Jesse had us use more and more of the arena until we were riding follow the rail around the entire arena at a trot. Rydel even offered to canter which was a BIG deal, because she typically hates doing it.

Rydel still has a negative opinion about moving forward.

Slowly we both became more comfortable!

Rydel offers to canter with a nasty face- probably because I was so stiff and surprised!

Slowly we both became more comfortable with the idea of moving forward at the trot and canter and Jesse helped me loosen up and learn to ride like an extrovert as Rydel started wanting to move forward more and more. After our lesson I felt like a new person, I had much more confidence in my ability to be a leader while in the saddle, and it felt great that Rydel was able to relax and not get right brained during our ride. (Major points for Jesse here!) Later that evening we all rode in the honeycomb (series of round pens within a big round pen). Here we practiced carrot stick riding with out much aid from the reins. We played with a million transitions including indirect turns to change direction. Jesse also taught us the helicopter game which helps us exaggerate our body movement to help the horse find our focus. It was a great tool for me and Rydel caught on really quickly!

Moving forward a lot more willingly now

Practicing the helicopter- look how relaxed Rydel is!

We ended our evening of riding playing "can you" with a partner and then going on a group trail ride which was so much fun!! The final challenge was some more cantering practice in the round pen using the question box. I was so proud of how well we both did. I never expected our riding to be that good, and while there were plenty of people in the clinic who did better than us, Rydel definitely deserved a blue ribbon for how quickly she was able to pick things up and how much she was offering me at the end. I truly cannot wait to start riding more and more. Freestyle was a major highlight of this clinic and I'm so glad I pushed myself to do it! :D