Wednesday's Ride!

Today I got to ride. I am trying to ride about an hour every day and slowly working it up to two hours hopefully by the end of the summer. We shall see.

Anyway I was too lazy and too tired to get the saddle out so I rode bareback. I have decided I am going to wait to get into riding with the saddle every day till we are done with going away every weekend :D That will be by the end of April so then I can get into riding every day as I would like. Anyway Navajo was inside so I put the bridle on, got him to stop at the gate, and I opened the gate. Then out we walked and headed up toward the hayshed. We walked back behind the cattle shed and did all walking. We were back behind the barn for a while. Also while back here I got him to stop by pushing my seat front, pulling in my stomache and tightening my hands (both) on the reins. AND HE STOPPED COMPLETELY. First time he did that without any promting. We did that twice in the whole ride. Another goal met!! I did some trotting and we did some hill work..but it was all trotting. He did well and I was working on being consistant with trotting. That went really well. After being up there for a while I headed out front to the big yard to head down the strip. He tried to avoid the strip but I walked him around there and he eventually went which had me quite pleased.

So down the strip we headed. I am learning that if he acts as though he wants to stop to urge him forward so he doesn't come to a complete stop then I won't have to much problems with balking. That is what I did and it worked. We also worked on walking down there in a straight line. He did well. Then we trotted back. Before we got back the whole way I asked him to head down the strip again. He was a bit hesitant but I asked him to forward and he did..AND HE DIDN'T BALK ONE SINGLE TIME THE WHOLE WAY DOWN THE STRIP. I was so very very happy about that!! :) I had a smile the whole way back. The reason I did was because I achieved a small goal I had and that was to get Navajo to WILLINGLY walk down the strip the second time no matter what and he did. Eventually I want to get him to the point we can trot and canter down the strip in a straight line:) We trotted back. Then we walked around the big yard a bit then I headed back to the barn. I felt it was a VERY successful ride.

On another note. I have been thinking that I am not sure how well I am doing with my riding position and such and it is something I want to work on. I have been reading a lot in HI about hand position and such and I realized I have busy hands and also don't hold my hands the way I should so I have been working on that. Also I have no elbows (meaning my elbows aren't elastic and bent like they should be) so I am working on that too. I am also needing to remember to keep my heels down as well. All of these things I worked on today and it went very well surprisingly. I think this summer I will be working on a lot of refining but I feel I am acomplishing a lot in this short month of April. I say short because this is the first month I have ridden a ton since Spring is here. Anyway I am learning a lot of things about myself as a rider and it is good for me. I feel I am a pretty good rider..not perfect by a far stretch but a lot better than at one point. A lot of this is making me realize how I use different parts of my body to tell Navajo to do things such as my hands, heels and seat. Amazing isn't it the more we ride the more we learn (hopefully that is your goal). I know that comes from a rider that hasn't been riding long but I have learned a lot in the short 1 1/2 yrs I am riding:)