Here are Renny and me in mid-June 2011, in our evening private riding lesson -- so wonderful! We look strung out and loosey goosey, but we are happy! Anyway, I am writing this entry on Sunday, February 5th, after Renny's second lesson with Janet Harms! It was so crazy fun. She really works us hard, but both Renny and I rise to the occasion. We were working on having an uphill gaits and to have him be springy and forward and with his poll raised and light. He was in sort of a negative mood, so he was holding me pretty hard on his left, but we were able to work on that and get our job done!
I had asked her to help me with flying lead changes because he'd given me accidental ones throughout our time together and at Quicksilver, they had been working with him on them and he had them in him as a nice quiet transition. I told Janet that I knew that I needed to be very centered, balanced, and even, and that I needed to be ready and prepared to ask right when he was in suspension. And she was pleased that I knew that and affirmed that the centered was KEY. So, she was no-nonsense and gave us a super direct very active busy warm up and then launched us into the work on the flying lead changes. I was supposed to canter a serpentine with relaxed circles and then ask at the center -- but that didn't work because I never really got him straight and so he was happy to counter canter until the cows came home. So, she put up a ground pole straight to the wall and that was the trick. I knew I had to travel STRAIGHT to that ground pole and wait until he sprung over it and was suspended and then fully FULLY ask with my legs, seat and indirect rein to move his little barrel over to the new lead! We got a few in both direction, a little starchily, until I finally got it -- I needed him fully in my control, in my hands, and springing from his hindquarters -- once I knew that, we did a sweet quiet figure 8 and got a flying lead change in both directions!!!!!!! I felt like a super star and we got lots of praise from our teacher. I was super duper happy!