Pesky pony

Schooled him yesterday and he was resistant and horrible.  Started off ok with doing loads of lateral work in walk, getting him off my leg which worked ok - travers with head bend to the outside so much easier than true shoulder-in as the wall controls the shoulders.  As soon as we tried to work in an outline in trot/canter he was resisting and nose poking.  Ended up getting the draw reins out which doesn't happen v often but got fed up with fighting him. They worked well as stopped him fighting against me.  Kept them so they weren't acting if he went in a correct outline but if he started fighting then they put him back in his box.

Today we went to a lesson with Tracey.  We did a lot in walk as my back playing up and also we needed to get him back in his box - all strung out, muscles doing nothing useful, not carrying himself at all.  Started with leg yield across the whole school - he needs to move when I take my leg away and not wait for the aid.  Tap tap tap with the stick just repeating the aid until he moves then he should move from the stick coming near, not wait for it to actually touch him.  Keep legs draped long.  At the other end do a turn on the forehand but with outside bend, not inside bend so a renvers turn, bum going round to the wall and then leg yield back across the diagonal.  then we did a figure of 8 about X with travers on the circle one way (must weight the inside and move the outside thigh back plus make sure have inside bend) and then renvers the other way so same positioning just circling in different directions.  On the travers on the right rein he tries to swing his quarters too far in but not bend right.  Travers left he's happy to bend left but doesn't want to bring the quarters in.

Moved into trot with shoulder-in down the long side turning into renvers at which point he mostly ground to a halt.  On the right rein really struggled to keep the outside rein contact in the renvers, much better on the left rein.  He found the renvers really hard but did some quite nice shoulder-in and the trot felt much more connected.  Played a little with the canter to finish.  Bit tight on the right rein but left rein quite nice.

I need to learn how to half halt with my upper body, bearing down and pushing his back end under and into my contact.  Need to be able to give away the inside rein in the travers.

Somehow need to get him into this consistent outside rein contact without him tightening over his back.  Renvers turn on the forehand definitely something to help control his evasion of bulging out through the shoulder when asked to step under with his hindleg.

All seemed a lot of hard work.  Really I just want to sit there and look pretty - getting him to work properly is a right mission!  Just dont feel like I'm a good enough rider to actually make him work properly.