Lesson with Laura

Just returned from Bridlewood after a great lesson with Laura.  Tilly was right where i left her yesterday - soft half halts, obedient yielding from my leg and knees, swinging back...

Laura helped me work on developing a more authentic bend.  Tilly wants to compensate for her weakness by jutting her body into angles or by swinging her haunches away from my leg.  I have to be really careful to keep my leg right at the girth because she will swing away if my leg is just 2 inches too far back.

One of the visualizations that Laura provided was to wrap the horse's body around a ball.  Like one of those large exercise balls.  Here is a diagram :) 

I use my knees more with Tilly than any other horse and Laura said today "pulse the knee as you wrap the horse around the ball" or something like that... It was the pulse that clicked with me.  I was able to feel the half halt in my upper body position (sitting tall and away from the withers) while softening the reins and pulsing my inside knee.  My hips steered Tilly and I started to really feel a release along the outside of her body.  She wants to look like the crooked horse, but that's just because she's compensating for the injuries she sustained some 6 years ago.  We came very close to the horse's position in the top diagram - at the trot.

I'm not quite getting the feel in the canter.  Tilly is such a light horse, i'm not always aware where her hips are underneath me.  I'm completely reliant on Laura to help with the placement of Tilly's body on a small circle.  We worked on haunches in on a 12 m circle to very soft walk transitions.  Tilly has a tendency to crash down into that transition.  Similar to a person doing situps and flopping back on the mat instead of slowing lowering.  More work to be done!