I decided to start a blog to document my efforts to become a "real" dressage rider. I am starting out with my 18 year old QH gelding, Jester Jigger, whom I have had the pleasure of owning for the last 13 years. We had a rough start, as he was originally my All Around 4-H horse. We have done everything from showmanship to western pleasure to hunter under saddle to dressage to jumping to trail to reining. We did pretty much everything but weren't stellar at any of it, at least not on a real statewide level. Granted, we placed third at state in Training Level Test 1 and Test 2 in 1996 or so, but we didn't have a clue.
I muddled through on my own with no trainer or instruction other than what I picked up in books, magazines, and clinics. I put riding on hold for five years, while I went to college and got my B.S. in Environmental Engineering and then started my life as an Air Force Lieutenant. Almost two years after joining the real working world I was able to move my horses to NJ, where eventually I went to a Walter Zettl clinic, where I met Vicky Gorman. She was gracious and kind enough to agree to come to where I boarded my horses and give me dressage lessons.
I felt like I was really riding for the first time. I had A LOT of mistakes to fix, from my ideas of what dressage was, to the way I used my hands, sat in the saddle, and even the saddle that I owned. We set to work though, and made great improvements. However, as is life in the Air Force, I wasn't meant to stay in that location for too long, and moved to Korea. Jessie went home to live with my parents for the year.
Upon returning to the States I moved to the Dayton area with my fiance, Craig, and Jessie soon followed. We found a stable for Jessie just 10 minutes from our house. We got married (on September 8th, 2007) and I started taking weekly lessons. That quickly got bumped up to two lessons a week, since Craig has karate four days a week anyway. I have already learned a lot in just a month of lessons, and can't wait to continue learning.
Jessie came to Dayton almost completely dead to my leg, but Kim gave us homework of working on sidepassing arcs around the corners of the arena, so that we would be utilizing turn on the forehand and turn on the haunches. We worked on that and soon I was able to move him side to side while moving forward with just my leg, this was especially helpful in leg yielding and doing spiral circles.
We still need lots of practice with our transitions, both in staying soft and round, and getting the transition instantaneously.
Last lesson we began working on the shoulder in. It was the first time we had ever tried it, and did surprisingly well (I think it helped that my warm up included the side passing exercise I'd mentioned earlier). The biggest problem we had was Jessie's neck being bent too much and I would break my body too much toward the inside. He lost impulsion toward the end of the exercise as well (shoulder in along the long side), so for our practice sessions we will probably try shorter distances.
I don't want to make the first post much longer than this, but next time I hope to discuss some of the correlations between what I did in my last lesson and what was mentioned in Zettl's book.
I muddled through on my own with no trainer or instruction other than what I picked up in books, magazines, and clinics. I put riding on hold for five years, while I went to college and got my B.S. in Environmental Engineering and then started my life as an Air Force Lieutenant. Almost two years after joining the real working world I was able to move my horses to NJ, where eventually I went to a Walter Zettl clinic, where I met Vicky Gorman. She was gracious and kind enough to agree to come to where I boarded my horses and give me dressage lessons.
I felt like I was really riding for the first time. I had A LOT of mistakes to fix, from my ideas of what dressage was, to the way I used my hands, sat in the saddle, and even the saddle that I owned. We set to work though, and made great improvements. However, as is life in the Air Force, I wasn't meant to stay in that location for too long, and moved to Korea. Jessie went home to live with my parents for the year.
Upon returning to the States I moved to the Dayton area with my fiance, Craig, and Jessie soon followed. We found a stable for Jessie just 10 minutes from our house. We got married (on September 8th, 2007) and I started taking weekly lessons. That quickly got bumped up to two lessons a week, since Craig has karate four days a week anyway. I have already learned a lot in just a month of lessons, and can't wait to continue learning.
Jessie came to Dayton almost completely dead to my leg, but Kim gave us homework of working on sidepassing arcs around the corners of the arena, so that we would be utilizing turn on the forehand and turn on the haunches. We worked on that and soon I was able to move him side to side while moving forward with just my leg, this was especially helpful in leg yielding and doing spiral circles.
We still need lots of practice with our transitions, both in staying soft and round, and getting the transition instantaneously.
Last lesson we began working on the shoulder in. It was the first time we had ever tried it, and did surprisingly well (I think it helped that my warm up included the side passing exercise I'd mentioned earlier). The biggest problem we had was Jessie's neck being bent too much and I would break my body too much toward the inside. He lost impulsion toward the end of the exercise as well (shoulder in along the long side), so for our practice sessions we will probably try shorter distances.
I don't want to make the first post much longer than this, but next time I hope to discuss some of the correlations between what I did in my last lesson and what was mentioned in Zettl's book.
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