Gia - session 116 and 117 - more lunging, and stretching on a circle at the trot

I had forgotten to write about Gia's work from yesterday.  It was pretty brief since I was so busy, but I did lunge her in the Pessoa.  She was quite distracted and tense, so I mainly kept her working whenever she was not focused on me, but allowed her to relax whenever she was quiet.  She ended her session much more relaxed than she started.

Today, I started with the lunging again in the Pessoa.  I have typically allowed her lunging "circle" to go where ever it needed to in order to keep the pressure on the line the same, and to keep Gia as relaxed as possible.  I decided to increase the difficulty in her lunging today, by insisting that she maintain her circle the same size and in the same place. 

I should really give her more credit than I do.  It really wasn't that hard for her at all, and I probably could have done this a long time ago.

We stuck with our normal lunging routine otherwise, and she did fairly well.  I think she was on her best behavior for the canter transitions today!

Under saddle, I worked on stretching down at the walk and trot, on circles, bending and counter bending.

Last time, I took a couple of videos at the walk.  The first was of Gia being allowed to go where ever she wanted as long as she responded to the bending and counter bending aids.  The second video was of me asking her to keep the same size and shape of a circle as I asked her to bend and counter bend and stretch.

Today, I took a couple of videos of the same thing, but at the trot.

Once again, she really did a lot better than I expected!

I think she gave me her best stretch ever at the walk - it was deeper and lasted for more steps.  And while I don't think her trot stretch was her best, it was still pretty good!

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