Gia - session 218 - Really good dressage lesson with Suzin!

 Gia started out very stretchy and round today! When I asked for a trot transition, she stayed nicely in my hands and did not come up against.  Suzin seemed very pleased!  We worked a lot on stretching down, flexing and moving all around the arena.  She was making very nice changes of bend. 

Then we started to work on the canter.  It was hard for her to make the transition from trot to canter without throwing her haunches around and coming against my hand.  I had to work to keep her haunches in and let her shoulder go out.  We did a lot of spiral-in, leg-yield out.  I also had to concentrate on keeping equal weight in my seat bones.  That seemed to make the biggest difference.  As usual, the right was slightly harder than the left, but she was able to give good moments in each direction.  What I love most about Gia is that through it all, she was really trying to understand and trying to please!  There were many times that she anticipated what I wanted, although sometimes incorrectly.  When she did, I did not punish her, I just brought her back and tried again.  To help with the anticipation, and to change things up a bit, Suzin had us leg yield from quarter line to the rail, and then ask for the canter when I felt her haunches trailing in.  It did not take Gia long to give me the correct answer there!  

We finished our ride with a little work in the Working Trot shape.  Most of our work is in a more stretching shape, but Gia quickly figured out what I was asking and gave me a lot of nice moments.  Anytime she tried to get out of shape, I closed my legs and "held" her until she found the correct shape again.  Whenever she did, I tried to relax as much as possible as her reward.  She had a little trouble with her trot rhythm after all the canter work, so I tried to really emphasize the 1-2 beats with my seat bones.  That helped her a lot!  Suzin said she looked fantastic today!

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