Tom Graham 14th June

Newsflash: have been threatened with working without stirrups, if I am brave (mad?) enough next time!

So explained to Tom that I wanted to work on/check my understanding of warming up.

So for me Tom warms up based on the first three scales of training

but firstly I need to check that I have reaction, will he walk / halt crisply?

Once we have reaction then start to think

Is the rhythm good or bad? (good is relative to where you and the horse are, not an absolute scale )

Do we have equal suppleness left <-> right? Can you take left flexion and move Chorrie away from the left leg with the same ease you can take right flexion and  move Chorrie away from the right leg?

Contact is it even ?

Do we still have reaction? Do we still have rhythm, suppleness and contact?

Then onto trot work again work through reaction, rhythm, suppleness and contact and so on and so forth.

The take home message was to evaluate what you have and to keep revisiting and evaluating. I have lots of exercises now to use.

The other lightbulb moment was leg yield we're pretty good going away from the right leg not so the left leg Tom finally got me to twig how to ride the shoulder first and not get him quarters leading.

Alison's lesson

Watched a bit of Al's lesson, looking really good one lightbulb moment for me was Tom saying that a lot of horses canter left because we are on the left rein not because we are aiding for left canter.

So to test on a straight line can you pick up left and right canter?