I have a plan!

I've been plotting this out for a week, and it's been approved by all parties and set into motion. See, K just got a 2 horse bumper pull which she's leaving at the field, and she said I am welcome to use it... so I'm going to start hauling Dixie over to the main barn for my lessons. I think we're at a point where the two of us could really benefit from instruction. She's steadying down a bit and actually listening to my aids and responding to them, instead of fighting or bolting. And I keep noticing things I'm doing wrong, but I know I don't notice them as quickly as I should.

K said I can just use the trailer, but I insisted on bargaining for it with her - I'm going to ride one of her horses (Promise or Poppy) once a week in exchange for hauling once a week. I keep meaning to ride them, but never actually getting around to it. If I feel obligated, I'll actually do it. And Hardy is excited too, and the barn owner's happy, so yay :)

Catchup - Sunday's lesson on Val went better. I get so frustrated with her and instead of calmly giving an aid I tense up all over, which makes Val completely ignore me. I'd been thinking about that last week, so Sunday I tried to ride in a zen-like state of calm, and it worked pretty well. After the lesson was over, when I was cooling her down, I flopped the stirrups over the pommel and dropped the reins and steered her around with just legs and seat. Hopefully I can hang onto that calmness in the future!

Sunday afternoon I rode Promise again. She still weirds me out, with the lop ears, and I don't feel like I know what she's thinking, but we're getting there. Apparently she is mainly thinking "Oh boy oh boy can we run yet?" We walked in a few prancy circles, then I asked for a trot and got a canter, and then I made the classic beginner error of clamping my legs down in surprise, so we galloped away. It only took a couple seconds for me to realize what I was doing, sit back and relax my legs, and coax her back down to a trot. I'm getting better! She's really not in shape to gallop me around, although she is filling out nicely. I'll keep working with her, and her human is doing some lounge line work with her daily.

Yesterday I rode Dixie on the trails and she did quite well. She listened almost all the time! Then I trimmed Champ and made him exercise me on the dead-end part of the street. We walked a lap, to get us warmed up, then we trotted two or three laps. Part of the time I worked on posting correctly with stirrups, and part of the time I posted without stirrups. I know that I need to work those core muscles to build them up, but at the same time I don't want to flop painfully on my poor horse's back. Google Earth says a lap is a half-mile, so we did about a mile or a mile and a half.

I was planning on riding Poppy today, but I actually got to go to work instead. Yay money! I won't have to work tomorrow until late morning or early afternoon, so I'm going to get up early, ride Poppy, and haul Dixie out to the main barn. She needs to visit a few times before I try to actually have a productive lesson on her.

Anyway, I'm never going to be as disciplined as Andrea, but I actually have a plan. Wooo!