07.09.09 - Megan Jones Lesson

Fabulous lesson!

Megan was so 'normal' and down to earth, that I didnt feel at all intimidated by her.

She was super quick to cotton on to what was going wrong with Willie & I in the show jumping, just from the little I told her. And from word go, we worked on how to fix it, rather than her watching how I rode and waiting for it to turn to custard.

We worked on me keeping my hands up, and carrying them, and encouraging him to keep his head up more, which in turn lightened his front end. I also worked on sitting up and using my ribcage for half halts, in conjunction with hands up.

Megan explained that if his head was up, rather than dragging me forward and down, he couldnt stop (as long as legs were on of course).

Initially we practiced walk to halts, then trot to halts, (by raising my hands, and using my seat and rib case) and then even a forward canter to halt....WOW.... I didnt think it would happen, but it did, and I wasnt 'pulling' at him.

Then onto jumps, again keeping the hands up, the canter forward and under.

He felt totally different (Willie was probably thinking that I felt totally different).

After a warm up jump practicing what we had learnt, we were to jump that jump turn the corner to the related line, face the jump....and HALT two strides from the jump. Then when he was focussed on the jump, into canter, jump and then halt between the two jumps. He then cantered on and really jumped the oxer well, no spooking at the filler, just jumped.

Through the grid (full of spookies) ... he initially tried his spooky stop antics, but it was like I "had" him, and through he went. After that no more even thinking about it. He was jumping superbly.

And to finish we cantered around to a spooky oxer of the corner.

No spooks, no nothing, just a nice clean forward jump.

Yay.

Lots to work on, but then at the same time very little to work on if that makes sense.
Wendy has been helping me to sit up more (and counter the tipping) and along with the hands, it is simply ensuring I continue to remind myself 'hands up, hands up, sit up, sit up" until it is habit.