Jessica Wisdom Clinic Day 1

I am a slow clinic recap writer. This clinic was last weekend, and I'm finally getting around to putting my thoughts down.

I've admired Jessica Wisdom for a long time. She's an awesome rider, and she has Cardi! Cardi is THE BEST.

What a sexy hunk of horse flesh!

Anyway. Last year, there was talk in my local club/GMO about bringing Jessica up to teach a clinic. And we actually did it! It feels like a lot of the time, the club has ideas and doesn't follow through with them. Well, I'm the president now, so I get to push things ;) 

It was a super great weekend, even beyond the riding part. We got to socialize with Jessica, and not only is she a great teacher, she's a great person and fun to be around. 

I will try my best to summarize what happened both days in my lessons. Lots of good stuff for me to think about, and I don't want to forget any of it! Thankfully, my trainers videoed me, and stood right behind Jessica, so I've got that to study (amazing!!). 

Day 1 highlights:

-Always riding to where you could have a good halt. Could I halt right now if I wanted to? Do I have enough control? (Spoiler alert...usually not). I used lots of half halts to keep Tony listening to me, and going along at MY pace, not his. 

Collecting that ridiculously long back!

-Keeping Tony 6 feet long on both reins. This was an awesome visual that changed how I thought about collection. Imaging Tony is 6 feet long from nose to tail. Now, keep riding him 6 feet long, even though he wants to be strung out at 7 or 8 feet. AND keeping him 6 feet on both reins. I was good at keeping him shorter on his right rein, but let that left rein go way too often. 

-Being fired from my right rein. Speaking of which...I got fired from using my right rein. I was too good at bending to the right, to where there was too much bend, and terrible at bending to the left. 

-Riding hind legs into the hands/reins. Also applying to the 6 feet long principle. Imagining riding Tony's hind legs into my hands really helped me to get him bringing his hind end more under himself (at least a little bit...dude is so freaking long). 

-Shoulder fore visuals. Two that really helped were imagining which feet you'd see from straight ahead- inside hind is between front legs. Just slightly, and less neck bend than I tended to put in. The better visual for me was imagine the outside hind leg is a flashlight and is shining out the right nostril, not the shoulder, where I had it pointed. 

So much cuteness!

-Shoulder bulging. Ah the shoulder bulge. So much bulge and running out the shoulders. The best visual I got for helping me to keep it reined in was imagining arrows that point out in the direction of travel coming out the ribcage, not the shoulder (in the bend, especially in leg yield).

-5.4.3.2.1. trots. This really helped me regulate Tony's tempo, and keep him at my pace. Find my five trot, and decrease or increase by increments on my time. Just a good mindset to keep. 

-Canter snowman. This is an exercise I've done before, and I love it. Super helpful for our rushy canter. It's basically a 10-meter trot circle at the top of a 20-meter canter circle. So, canter your 20-meter circle, and at the top, change the bend, and trot the opposite direction in a "4" trot (see previous point) in a 10-meter  circle. At the completion of the circle, change bend, and canter in a "little" canter (Tony's canter is not so little, but we were getting pretty good). Rinse and repeat. If I got a really good canter going, I would do an extra 20-meter circle. The trot circles really helped us stay flexible and kept us from getting too flaily. 

Canter! So much beautiful canter!

-Best canter ever. Finally, Tony had his best canter moments ever! Watching the video, we still need to majorly work on our canter transitions (I throw away the reins and Tony lunges his giant head and shoulders forward), but he had moments of true roundness, which hasn't really happened before. Getting the canter on this beast has been ridiculous, and I am so happy we're finally getting there! 

So Day 1 was awesome! Great lesson, and Tony was a good boy. Day 2, he was definitely tired and behind the leg. That will be my next post though :)