Days 24-28

Day 24 Sunday January 27th 2013
On Sunday I got to work with Lendon, we worked on consistantsy and confirming that Tee adn I had a good foundation to move onward with. After going threw the basic Walk-Trot-Canter and transition work we tried some leg yields and extensions.
The leg yields were good, a tich unsteady and fussy at times but got a lot better by the end.
The extensions were unbalanced, rushed and messy at first but they got better after we schooled them a few times, especially on the long side. 
In the afternoon we had a fitness test :-)
We ran a timed approx 1/4 of a mile and did push-ups. The fitness testing is sort of a baseline for us to follow, we are expected to improve 10% each week. We also had a current events discussion with Theresa Davidson.

Day 25 Monday January 28th 2013
Day off! Jenny and I spent the morning/afternoon at the beach with a couple of the other WIT girls, can anyone say SUNBURN? :-P
At 6 we had the weekly group potluck, it was Italian night! Who knew we had so many good cooks in our program?!
Then at 8 I went to a zumba class! Talk about learning something new that is out of your comfort zone!

Day 26 Tuesday January 29th 2013 
We worked on riding each and every thing I did like it was in a test, just to practice accuracy and geometry.
We attempted to catch the canter work up to the trot work by doing at least twice more canter work than trot. Leg yields were nearly perfect and extensions were a bit better.
In the afternoon we were able to audit the Global Dressage Forum, I felt so lucky to be able to go since it is normally so expensive. The lectures and demonstrations were soo informative and interesting, I definitely enjoyed being able to see some of the best horsemen/women in the world share their experiences and techniques. 

Day 27 Wednesday January 30th 2013
Worked on putting a few test movements together to see if they would work (does anyone see a trend with the test theme? :-P I wonder why??)
Schooled the canter transitions quite a bit. We discovered a few exercises to help make them more reliable: tracking left it helps to ask him to lower his neck and then ask so that he is already very soft and willing. Tracking right we tried bending left and then bending right just as I'm asking for the canter so that he again stays soft and so I don't over bend him to the inside too much.
In the evening we had a lecture with Schleese Saddlery on saddle fitting. I think it helped a lot of people understand more about their saddle, their horse's back and how they can help make the horse more comfortable.

Day 28 Thursday January 31st 2013 

Today was a pretty exciting day! WIT had our very first schooling show held at HGF. We were able to ride new tests and test what we have learned in the "show situation". Everyone took it very seriously: bathed, braided and full show clothes.
I decided to ride Training 3 twice since Lendon advised that we go for a solid training level test our first time out.
On our first test we were pretty inconsistant because I apparently forgot how to ride. Although it could have been a lot worse I was kinda bummed after our final salute. We scored a 61% on that ride
Our second ride went SO much better! Still not as good as our normal schooling days but again that was my fault. The test went a lot smoother with less bobbles and less bucks which was helpful! :-P We ended up scoring 68% which was a surprising jump from the first test!
In the afternoon we were able to sit down with a FEI TD/Ring steward and have a Q/A discussion with her. Questions ranged from anything from drug testing to awards ceremonies to FEI rules.


I cannot believe that tomorrow is February 1st! Time flies when your learning a lot!!!

Thanks for reading!
 
 

Day 23

Guess I will start off with a bit of good news! Out of 34 questions on the written test I got the highest score with only 2 wrong :-)

Day 23 Saturday January 26th 2013

Today I had another lesson with Annie Morris!



Tee was a bit grumpy and was tending to suck back and buck a bit when I asked him to go forward thus making our canter transitions pretty crappy at first. Annie had us try a little leg yield off the outside leg (shoulder-out) to loosen up his outside leg so it would work for us and not against us. After some fantastic canter transitions we worked a bit on a consistently round and pliable shoulder-in.

Not much else went on today, been chillin at the condo for the most part!

In till next time blog readers!

Day 16-22

 "Your horse doesn't have weaknesses, he has opportunities" -Steffen Peters



What a week!
So so very sorry for not posting for almost a week!


Day 16 Saturday January 19th 2013
From 9:30 in till 1 I scribed for a judge that was practice judging the CDI at Jim Brandon, she was an R judge taking the course to become an S judge. It was a lot of fun to scribe for her but I must say that I pity scribes who actually for real scribe the Grand Prix classes!!
In the afternoon I went with my room mate to the Global Dressage showgrounds to watch one of her friends that was jumping in a invitational collegiate show. She won her class on the 4 year old she drew! :-)
After returning to the farm I rode Tee on my own and he was good but after making so much progress the past couple rides I expected a bit much from him so he got frustrated but after I backed off he was really good!!

Day 17 Sunday January 20th 2013
The beginning of the craziness!! 
Around 7:30 a few of the other kids in the program and myself headed to White Fences to work at the FEI Trainers Conference (the program didn't officially start in till Monday the 21st but they had an extra day to narrow down the participants). After doing a bit of work we were able to watch the amazing Steffen Peters teach/ride as well as Scott Hassler. I think I took about 3 pages of notes in just a few hours of auditing! Steffen is truly amazing to watch, everything he does looks effortless and his compassion and generosity towards the horses he worked with was phenomenal. 
I worked Tee on my own again in the afternoon, he was full of energy and really tense. After he settled down a bit he was great! We worked on consistently stretching and little lengthenings.
We had a lecture in the evening with Jane Karole who is a phsicologist. She talked about turning negative into positives and helped us discover our "key words" so that when we are tense we can go to our "happy place"

Day 18 Monday January 21st 2013
Monday was the first day of the FEI trainers conference. We were all there from 8-4, needless to say our brains were JAM packed with a lot of information by the end of the conference! 
Rode Tee in the evening and kept building on things previously mentioned: stretching, going forward, effective use of the outside rein and for myself; my position!!!
Our lecture in the evening was apart of the trainers conference. The first part was given by John Hall on digestive system/function. The second part was a question/answer open discussion with Steffen and Scott.

Day 19 Tuesday January 22nd 2013
Tuesday ended up much like Monday: audited trainers conference then after tearing down we headed back to HGF to ride. I unfortunately was in a rush so I didn't take care of my shoulder and freeze it like normal. I was in a lot of pain halfway through my ride so I got off because I knew I wasn't going to be productive and that wasn't fair to Tee, one of the other girls hoped on him for me and rode him for a few.
No lecture!

Day 20 Wednesday January 23rd 2013
Wednesday was an FEI education day at HGF. Some of the WITee's were "guinea pigs" for the instructors. It was interesting to see some of the different teaching styles!
After the workshop was over I rode Tee, he was very inattentive at first because it was turnout time at the main barn. After we got focused and organized everything went reaallyyyy well. We worked on keeping him round but then lowering his neck thus making him a slight bit deeper, once he was there in the trot I asked for a canter transition and VIOLA! A ROUND CANTER TRANSITION! :-D Did the same thing the other way and it wasn't just luck! Pretty sure I was the happiest person alive at that point!

Day 21 Thursday January 24th 2013
Got to ride with Annie Morris!
We worked on fixing my position a bit more. Really focused on not collapsing in my torso, really using my core muscles which helped me from going behind the vertical, making my hip angle more upright and fixing my fidgety hands so that Tee and myself don't get into a game of tit for tat. Also did a little leg yield on the open side of the circle to help him step under and come through his back more which in turn helped his relaxation and stride. 
In the evening we had a WONDERFUL dinner at the Davis' beautiful house in Loxahatchee. A few of us even enjoyed a game of volley ball in Megan's outdoor arena :-)

Day 22 Friday January 25th 2013
 Today was a hack day so nothing much went on except for the written test we all had to take!
34 questions on the training scale :-) I studied for an 1 1/2 before the test so I'm hoping I did pretty well!
After the test we had a little fitness test also: see how long we could plank and how many sit ups we could do. I ended up with a 1:55 plank and 52 sit ups.
Took Tee for a short hack with some of the other girls then we galloped a few laps in the field out front of HGF.


I think that is it for tonight! again I apologize for not updating sooner, as you can see its been a pretty crazy week!