Trot video

Here's a video I took last week as a reference for Tiffany's current state of training and mind.  This video is taken as soon as I started trotting and shows everything good and bad.  My philosophy with a nervous horse is that I "free lunge" with rider aboard.  I minimally control direction and stay out of the way unless I feel like I'm in danger. I maintain light contact with her mouth just enough to take the slack out of the reins but I'm not trying to hold her head down, keep her straight, etc.

Everything you see with her head moving is of her own doing, you can see that she wants to go down to the contact (although it's really more posing at this point) but she's nervous and wants her head up.

I am not really using much if any leg at this point so she comes back to the walk a few times, but I'm ok with this for now as when I add leg she starts to run away.  You can see how eventually she calms down a bit and settles into a more relaxed way of going.  That's when I feel confident about starting to influence her a bit more.

Next week I'll start to add more influence, to see if I can ASK her to relax a bit and stay steadier in the contact.