Friday, October 3

Yes, I had an actual session with a teacher. The upshot of the Teacher situation is that she feels she was "holding me back." I agree.

Right after all this, I got a newsletter from a local lady whom I've known for years, who does bodywork and balance work. She'll come and work on your horse if he has issues that need massage or bodywork, but she also will teach ridden work – she does clinics on things like sitting trot and lateral movements. I've always been interested but never got around to checking it out. I've always liked her, too; she's a very nice person and very good with the horses.

So, more or less on impulse, I emailed her and asked about what she does, and told her where I am, and would she be interested in working with us? I was thinking, what she does is different, it includes a lot of things that I've been thinking Pook and Camilla need, and it should be fun. The key for me was balance. I just felt that if we could get the balance issue dealt with, we could solve a lot of our problems.

S responded that she would love to work with us. On Friday she came over to work with Pook and me.

Interesting. Very much so.

We started with me on the ground. Feel my feet. Where is my weight? On heels, and on outside of right foot. Remember that, she said. Then she had me do very simple exercises with breastbone and sacrum, balancing myself so I was perfectly vertical. I had to remember to breathe. Breathing is a big one for me.

Then she looked Pook all over, took note of asymmetrical atlas, disconnection over the back, and somewhat tilted sacrum. She straightened him up a little, showed him how to bend through the throatlatch.

I mounted. We did more breastbone-and-sacrum work. This is where it got interesting, because she showed me why I've been having such trouble getting Pook to go forward. The seat TT teaches puts the rider's shoulders too far back, creates stiffness in the back and pelvis, and results in a weird, braced leg that I never actually fell for – I did a little of it but Teacher encouraged me to go toward the proper draped leg. What I was doing was getting his hind end going, but when his back came up, I was conditioned to slam it back down, then push the hindquarters into the shoulders. That caused him to brace his neck and grind to a halt. All the tweaking and fiddling and messing with his neck didn't work because I was blocking him right behind it. He couldn't move forward; there was nowhere for him to go.

The solution? Sit vertical, which would feel like too far forward, and truly open the seat rather than try to open it by leaning back and tilting the pelvis. STOP blocking when his back rose. Let it all flow through.

Result: No paciness in the walk at all. No fussing or jigging at the start, even after standing motionless for half an hour while S worked on me. And the biggest, swingiest walk he's ever had under saddle.

Then we addressed straightness. He tends to drag his left hind and throw his weight on his right shoulder. TT had us pushing him over onto the left hind in tight, tiny circles to "make him balance himself." S said, "Feel the seatbones. What are they drawing if they were pencils and he were paper?" Initial answer was, left pencil going up and down like a sewing-machine needle. Right pencil being pushed against and making a sort of truncated pendulum swing. "Don't try to push the right buldge over," she said. "Slide your left seatbone around the edge of the hole. Make the hole bigger." (Translation for dressage types: activate the left hind, make it come more up under him.)

Who's Who "TT" = Toxic Trainer Proximate cause of my being a complete and post-traumatized mess. "Teacher" = Longtime instructor who came under influence of TT "SRS" = Spanish Riding School "SRS Guy" = clinician Florian Zimmermann, SRS assistant rider

Result: Straightness, no throwing right shoulder, and no fussing.

Next, focus on the neck and atlas. Ask him to curve the whole body, and keeping right rein steady going left, open left rein and allow him to flex in the the throat/neck (we had done a version of this with Teacher). Going right was much easier – no bulge in the atlas on that side.

Result: Horse completely on aids, through, forward, balanced, straight, and collected a la SRS. Totally off forehand, not pacing, not resisting, not getting tired. Big, free walk. And above all, happy, relaxed, puddly horse who was loving on S the way I've never seen him do with a trainer before.

Total from mounting to balance and throughness with collection and straightness, all that chewy dressagey goodness: 20 minutes. Time to get to that point: Seven years.

We stopped there, with lots to think about – and we'd been out there for an hour and half by that point. Homework is to continue this, and to add in trot, but it has to be sitting. Same balance. (Shades of SRS Guy!) Next session will be in a couple of weeks.

It's very interesting to have a clear light cast on what we were doing and why it wasn't working, and a bodywork person, with formal training in the way a horse is built and balances, showing us how it's correctly done. S does not call herself a dressage trainer. She teaches horses and riders to move together in balance. Her sequence includes lateral work and transitions, and she likes to focus on sitting trot. She wants the horse in true collection, because it's his comfort zone – and for a collectamatic like Pook, it's heaven. But while collected, he was also extremely forward. His walk was huge, smooth and flowing, and he was reaching down beautifully toward the bridle.

And? My collapsing left hip? Gone. My tendency to look down going right? Corrected once. Fine thereafter. When I dismounted (knees bending both ways), I was asked to stand again. Weight was on toes as well as heels, and the pressure on the outside of the right foot was much less. He was perfectly straight and square and under himself.

I've been making him crooked, and very probably twisted the tree of his old saddle. We're OK with the new one, and he's not damaged, but I am ever so glad we're finally straight and he's happily forward.

Also, and? Had some attacks of the horrors, but I felt competent. I can ride. I just need to make some changes, undo some incorrect teaching, and he's right there. He's ready and this is what he wants in order to move on. Four hooves up, says Pookabert.