Gia - sessions 1334-

 Monday October 12th - I worked with Gia today on all the same things as last week, except when it came to the straightness of her path and her body, I used the outline of the outside of her body rather than the inside of her body, as I discovered last Friday.  There was only one instance where she only thought about bucking, and it was at our first transition into trot.  Possibly because my hips stopped moving or my thighs gripped tightly, momentarily.  After that, it was smooth sailing for the rest of the ride!  I did find that she was in need of some flexion on the right side of her jaw, so we finished with a bit of that work as we were cooling out.  I will most likely start with that on the ground tomorrow.

Tuesday October 13th - Before I rode Gia today, I started with her in-hand on flexing a little left and right in the bridle.  It was very easy for her to the left, but much more difficult for her to the right.  I was eventually able to get three good moments of flexion in each direction on the ground before I got on.  Then I asked for the same thing at the halt from the saddle.  Again, much easier to the left and harder to the right.  I made sure to keep a light feel in both reins, no matter which direction I was flexing.  I also made sure to keep her poll up.  Once I was able to get three flexions in each direction at the halt, we moved on to the walk.  I started by focusing on relaxation, rhythm and symmetry in my position.  Then I put her on a circle and focused on staying on having the correct geometry on the path,  Finally, I added flexion work as needed for straightness in her body.  Once we had it at the walk in both directions, we worked on all that at the trot.  The first transition into trot was a bit unbalanced, and I think I either stopped moving my hips or tightened in my thighs.  I brought her back and reorganized and tried again.  It was MUCH better the second time!  We worked all over the ring - in corners, on circles, straight down the rail, across diagonals, at the walk and trot.  She was very responsive and felt really good!  She was giving me some moments that felt good enough that I thought we might try the canter ... so we did.  Things got a bit unbalance in the transition, so I brought her right back, rebalanced and tried again.  It took a few tries, but we were finally able to get one or two decent canters for a few steps.  It's a start!

Wednesday October 14th - We warmed up with all the same things, and the straightness work was still going very well!  I had put my jump saddle on Gia today, to try a couple of things - could I ride in shorter stirrups again? And to see how she did will all the work we have been doing over poles.  I felt NO PAIN with the shorter stirrups!!  WOOHOO!!  Once Gia was warmed up, I took her over one pole, and it was like nothing.  So then we did a course of poles, but always making sure we could get all the things we had been working on back (position, relaxation, rhythm, path and straightness) before we went to the next one.  She did really well with all that as well!  So for the last round, I decided to put them all up to some medium sized crossrails and one medium vertical.  Everything went very well!  She was very relaxed (she really loves to jump, and I think she enjoyed the change of scenery).  She was also very obedient with good rhythm and straightness throughout.  And it felt sooooo good to be able to jump again!!!