Yes Ma'am

The weather behaved long enough for me to haul for my lesson this past weekend.  I was so impressed with Stinker.  He has had a long history of not accepting legs and not agreeing with suggestions to move his body parts around.

I have steadily been working on this and while there is still much room for improvement he is getting so much more maneuverable.  We have been really focusing on getting him to stretch down and me to ride properly.  Aka get my right hip out of his back.  He really really really appreciates that.

Plz get hip out of back.  K Thanks

We were able to do shoulder in and haunches in both directions at the trot.  I don't think the angle was steep enough for a test, but all the mechanics were correct and I could really feel him lifting and accessing his back.

The part that surprised me the most was in the canter.  To the left he was great, but to the right we have been struggling.  And by we I mean I am screwing up and making things hard for him.  I got my butt in the right place which allowed him to pick up the correct lead (funny how that works), but my right hip was still sinking back too much.  Trainer told me to think haunches in (mostly to get me to fix myself), which I did and he immediately shifted his haunches inward.

I could tell it was hard for him, but he tried and he did it.  Plus the canter felt better than it has been feeling.  Post EPM he was super weak and everything was four beat, as he has gotten stronger that has been going away, but when he gets nervous or frazzled it comes back.  So just about every time we canter there are portions that feel four beat.  This was the first time it felt like a solid canter the entire time.

So of course he got shoveled full of cookies while trainer and I told him how wonderful he was.  And he thought it was the best thing ever because he is a total ham.  But he totally deserved it.