Gia - session 271 - lesson with Suzin - sneak peak of piaffe!

 I had a lesson with Suzin this morning, and we started out with getting Gia to stretch at the walk.  It felt pretty good, and Suzin said it looked pretty good.  It wasn't very consistent, but at the end of the ride, it was a lot more consistent!

At the trot, we worked on getting better transitions, and we were fairly successful with that.  Gia also offered a lot of stretching at the trot.  We used circles and figures to encourage more bend and push into the reins.  Gia was giving me a very nice working trot today!

Suzin had us work a lot on shoulder-fore and work towards shoulder-in.  Gia would get one or two steps at a time, and then we would circle.  At one point, I was asking Gia for shoulder-fore, and I don't know if it's because she was trying to figure out what I wanted or because she was tense, but she gave me a few piaffe steps!  They felt amazing, but sadly, I couldn't enjoy them.  As Suzin correctly stated, I don't want piaffe that I haven't asked for.  And when it's given in moments like this, it can turn into a move that Gia will use when she wants to get out of something, rather than a movement that she should be performing.  It was still pretty cool to feel it and see what we have in store for us in the future!

We finished our ride with a little more working trot, shoulder-fore, and a couple of trot lengthenings.  Both Gia and I were pretty tired after today's ride!

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