Lesson and frustrated

So a lady on my yard who has lessons with the same person as me had a long chat yesterday.

We concluded Warren isn't for the novice rider or the sensitive minded person. I know what she means - as lessons sometimes leave you feeling a bit crap to be honest, but felt happy I hadn't experienced that for a while.

Until today.

I proudly showed Warren my SJ video from Firle, and although he could see improvements, it wasn't all quite as wonderful as I thought. I seem to of missed the point a bit, that its the warm up I need to focus on getting a nice snappy hind leg so that when we get in the ring, I can sit there, get a rhythm and balance. He said we were still jumping on a lengthening stride - I'm ending up basically doing this "Rhythm rhythm shorten shorten lengthen lengthen jump" instead of just keeping a balance. If I hadn't shortened, I wouldn't need to lengthen. Squirrel also doesn't respect the hand and just goes through it, so its hard to balance him and sit him on his hocks to jump the fence as the minute he feels the hand, you lose his back end, but as soon as you ride the back end, he comes out through the front.

I only warmed up then Warren rode the rest and he spent quite a bit on the flat then popped some little fences. He spent a while asking him to soften his jaw so he is less inclined to come up through the front which then relates to the jumping later.

Tomorrow I need to practise with a pole on the front - if I see a stride, I need to fit in 1 more. I need to collect him into it but if I feel him drop away with the back end I need to flick him with a schooling whip to keep it.

Its all feeling very complicated and I am seriously looking forward to my light bulb moment in a few months weeks time.

Ugh.

On the plus side, I didn't have time to ride Lacey so gave her a quick lunge. She is so fat its disgusting. I digress. I put some very loose side reins on her, as I want her to stretch down to seek the contact. She accepts a contact but only behind the vertical with her strung up like a drum and she has NEVER learnt to work long and low. She did it in walk from the off, and it took a good while of trot but she did it. However she spent very little time with her head right up running around like an idiot so I'm pleased, and she did stretch down and took the contact for a few strides in trot.

I expect I will spend a long time asking for this in walk and trot out hacking and on the lunge before I try and do anything in the school. I need this idea to be firmly in her head first as she is NOT a happy bunny in the school.