Whoops!

So I seem to have forgotten about my lonely blog over here... terribly sorry! Life has been busy!

While life has been hectic, its been the good kind, with lots of ponies and teaching.

I just wanted to generally comment and squee about my last ride with Mo. She is making improvements in leaps and bounds!

I played with her on Monday, and it started off really great as she power walked to me from the other side of the muddy spot when I opened the door in the barn. I tidied her up, trying to get the most of her shedding coat out.. but its still there. She looks almost summery though! The fact that it snowed yesterday probably isnt helping my cause very much...

After getting Mo as sparkly as a shedding pony gets, we went out to play in the ring. It has been graced with some ... poop... via our borrowed [I think?] manure spreader so all my obstacles were put away.  Mo and I set about resetting at least some of them - a clover leaf and one line of three barrels in a jump.  It was fun to drag the three barrels, because I threaded my savvy string through all three handles to drag them all at once and Mo was quite surprised with that! By the time we reached their destination though, she was quite pleased with herself and helping me push/pull them along.

We played some small things online. Our circling game is really coming along in terms of maintain gait, which I am proud of. Mo has lately been offering me two or three canter laps without breaking! Impressive for dear sometime-introvert! We have also been playing with Zone 5 driving, with stopping and backing by the tail for brakes. That has been fantastic so far. It just feels like everything is adding up right these days!

It really wasnt long before Mo felt good to get on, so I did, bareback and just left the halter on but unclipped the 22' and put my savvy string around her neck. Armed with a carrot stick, we set off on our cloverleaf. Im not sure if it was me that was off or just the two of us werent meshing right, but after a few minutes of trying different things, it just wasnt feeling right. So what do we do when it doesnt work at liberty? We go back online! I grabbed my finesse reins and clipped them on the halter to see if a little extra support would help.

I didnt really end up using the reins, they were just there, but it helps Mo and me to I suppose. Still something wasnt quite right, although this time I KNEW it was me! Why, you ask? Well! Mo was giving me this LOVELY round collected through canter that was so powerful through her back, that I couldnt be fluid enough to ride it bareback without getting in her way!

So I jumped off and made another change. We saddled up! I re-mounted and played with some transtitions and had a lot of saddle-slipping-forward syndrome... so I jumped off AGAIN! This time I altered my shim pattern down to just one thick shim [it was two thick and a thin] to test that and it was PERFECT!

So perfect in fact, that Mo decided today was the day she would grant me my wildest dream - FLYING LEAD CHANGES! She just did them like nothing, on a figure eight around the ring... *poof* change *poof* change... like it was that easy the whole time...! WOW! I was so so so happy and excited and proud of Mo that I littlerally jumped off of her to hug her and tell her how amazing she was.

I have always had some trouble determining what lead I was on, or asking for a specific lead since I never really studied that in my youthful trail-bombing experiences, and then my first horse was a one lead wonder for any rider, so that didnt help. For a long time Mo was too, until I figured it out in my body and now look where we are! I really didnt know if I would ever get to this point. Flying changes have always been on my dream list, but felt slightly unobtainable. I cant even express my joy about getting them!!!!

So thats my story.... 

I will try to post more often!

:-)
S