Lesson 6/12 - Gali

Had a lesson yesterday, and we spent the whole time working on getting Gali's right shoulder.  The reason we can't get our 15m circles is because he blows that shoulder out and drifts, completely ignoring my outside aids.  When I try to move him over with the whip, he pretends he doesn't know what a crack on the shoulder means, and uses it as an excuse to jump FORWARD, not SIDEWAYS, and gets very strong and tries to run off.  I don't exactly have the confidence to crack him at the trot or canter yet, not like I need to, so we spent a lot of the time working on getting him to move. over! at the walk and at the halt.

Before we did that, though, Nicole had me work on riding squares and getting Gali truly straight on my right rein.  We did very well going to the right, as to be expected, but struggled with both balance and listening while trying to do the exercise going left.  By the end of my ride, I had him going well in both directions at the trot, and at the canter (sort of) towards the right, but still really struggled with getting him to move straight in the canter heading to the left.  After a couple of frustrating attempts, we began to work on the "get! over! now!" at the walk that I mentioned above.

Frustrating, really, but I should try to remember that our training level work is outstanding this year.  He feels as fluid and soft as he has in years, and is really, really willing to work at nearly EVERYTHING except this whole 15 meter circle thing.  The hard thing is that I've never been stuck on "one" thing with him, this stubbornly.  It's always been a combination of things, or he's been generally argumentative, but to have everything going so well and to get hung up on one thing is just beyond aggravating.

We were supposed to do Training 2 and First 1 tomorrow, but the show cancelled.  I wasn't going to do 1-1 anyway, but I am disappointed that we can't go out and at least school around and do our training level test.

In other news, Acorn is fantastic as always.  Just working on building up his brain and keeping him happy why we plug away, gaining muscle and getting him working steadily at our training level tests.