Gia - session 413 - a little bit of dressage and jumping

 Gia started out stretching really nicely at the walk today.  Before trotting, I worked a little on her shoulder-in at the walk, circling whenever she would get stuck.  Then we moved into the trot work and focused on walk trot transitions.  I used the shoulder-in to keep her together when she wanted to be naughty.  She still wanted to be a little naughty (although not as bad), but the reaction was stifled by the shoulder-in work.  Eventually, she relaxed and quit fighting me about the transitions.  She didn't really get fussy the rest of the ride.  

We did a little bit of shoulder-in work at the trot, and included changes of bend and direction as well.  Once she felt pretty good with all that, I let her go over a few jumps.  She definitely got excited (in a good way) when I pointed her at the jumps.  Most of them felt a bit awkward today, but she did have a couple of good moments.  She loses her balance and coordination on the way to the jumps right now, but that will get better eventually.  I used shoulder-in before and after the jumps to try to help her stay together a bit better.  It definitely helped!