SJL dressage lesson

Regular Sara-Jane Lanning lesson at Merrist Wood last Friday 21-03-14

The key thing we worked on was straightness.  He has a tendency to overbend his neck to the left so we spent the whole session reminding him of what straight was on the left rein and what bend was on the right rein.  We picked apart the movements in N38 and worked on where we could pick up every single last little mark.  

• Must not let him escape through his shoulders round corners, must keep him straight and soft.  
• His canter has improved 100-fold over the past few months but must remember to ride it uphill and keep the energy.  
• The trot just needs to steady a bit and not run on, especially after the canter, half halt and control the energy.  
• In the medium trot must remember to sit up and keep heels down and legs forward, lift hands up and let the energy flow and make a clear transition back to working trot.  
• In the warmup move him around with the lateral work and start with canter rather than trot as it loosens him up better.   Lots of canter-trot-canter transitions using sitting trot and making sure he is soft and round in the transitions and doesn't use his neck to brace against me but must start the transition from behind - I can really feel the difference when he starts it behind when I think about it so insist on all transitions feeling like this.  
• Don't leave the counter canter to trot transition too late - want to be back in trot before the corner so can soften him to the new bend. 

Apparently all his work is worth 7's but we were trying to get those extra half marks to pick him up even higher than that. 

We've got another lesson next Friday and then it's Winter Champs time the following week - exciting stuff!