She gets leg yield, easy peasy. She's sort of starting to get leg yielding with her head or tail to the wall and shoulder in. I introduced haunches in the other night and she gave a good effort.
Well, ummm, sort of.
As long as all these exercises are performed off the left leg we're golden. The right leg? Well I might as well not even have one. So if we can find a dressage test where all the fancy crap is just off the left leg we're good.
Thursday night Aunty Rachel came out for a jumping lesson. She set up a one stride to a one stride with a entry placing pole down the centerline. I always find things down the centerline difficult. The arena isn't that big and you really really have to use your corners and not overshoot the centerline or let the shoulders bulge out. On the landing side there isn't any room to make up my mind about which direction we're headed. The last time we did this gymnastic I had a ton of problems making it into the gymnastic.
This week I had an easier time reaching the centerline although you can still see we get a little crooked in the video.
Annie was petty happy to be jumping, even though jumping is hard work it isn't NEARLY as hard as sideways crap. Rachel set the gymnastic a little bit short, 17 feet for the first trot in one stride instead of the standard 18. Since the indoor is small and Annie is short we usually set things a little short.
Little did we know that beneath the mild mannered Clark Kent exterior is a Super Pony. Capable of getting a little too big for her britches and bouncing the first one stride. Yes, we bounced 17 feet. Then easily made the next one stride. Annie was smug. Rachel was rendered almost speechless. I sat it well, although afterward I felt like getting off and kissing the ground. After that I started using my voice and shoulders to request that she slow the heck down.
All in all a great lesson. Here's a short video of one of our passes, sadly we did not get the bounce on film.
Looks like she had energy to spare! Looking good :)
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