10 January - Eclypse

It's the first lesson I've had in about a month due to my illness and then the holidays, but it was FANTASTIC!

It was just a basic dressage lesson, and I was riding Eclypse, who is a complete sweetheart, but has an exceptionally bouncy trot!

We were working an the paces, and our entire lesson (after warm up) was working on slowing the pace and then quickening the pace between the quarter markers on the longs sides of the school.

What fun!

Starting off in walk, then progressing through to trot and then canter over the course of the lesson.

How marvelous!

Just feeling the difference, especially in trot! taking it from s-l-o-w where there was a definite pause between each stride... right on the verge of walk which I found i could sit very lightly and *really* feel the advancement of each hip separately, to putting my leg on and *really* feeling his shoulders lift and he extended his stride.

Holy cow!

And the canter! Eclypse is just so comfortable in canter and I had an ENORMOUS amount of fun, unfortunately didn't have much luck in slowing the canter, but speeding up WOW! I really felt as if I had overcome something last night, only once or twice I felt a bit tense but I soon overcome this and was even able to relax my elbows. For some reason I was able to sit still in the saddle, and even when we were haring round the corners ( ) I just relaxed into it and sat deep and stuck with it (my usual response is to curl forward which is incredibly unbalancing).

Today I'm aching in about 6 different muscle groups, but I think it's the best lesson I've ever had!