Spirit and I went for a ride with a friend and her boy, Hank, yesterday. She showed me this great schooling hill to practice cantering on and it's also a great place to work through the freak-out factor that happens when horses leave Spirit behind on the trail. Went for a ride on the pretty forest trail at the top of the hill. It was the perfect riding day. Sunny and crisp. Shades of brown and orange. Misty in the trees. Misty greens and blues. At the top of the hill I could see the mountains in the distance. I felt like I could take off and fly!
Anways, it was definetely a schooling ride. I can tell that Spirit is more responsive and I am being more present, instead of being a lazy-bag-of-potatoes rider. Let me be clear 'bout this though -- I know there's nothing wrong with a relaxing ride, they're lovely and I adore them but I now realize that I was only have those types of rides and was missing out on a different type of ride. I am now enjoying building 'contact-rapport'. I'm sure there are definitions to explain what I am talking about; I just don't know them off-hand. Soooooo, basically I am trying to support Spirit with the reins and my legs during the whole trail ride. Now, after working with him this last while, I barely have to move my reins for his response. I had to laugh at myself though because on the ride I was showing my friend what Spirit was doing when I was unsnarling his mane from the reins and she said, 'you could use that movement of your reins as your *go*, you know'. I had not been thinking of that, but it makes all kinds of sense :) Also, on the trail, I am working hard on actively choosing where I am going, instead of meandering along. This process is reminding me of what it was like when I first got Spirit. I did tons of groundwork. Lots of connection with him on the ground. Now I am building on this connection while in the saddle. I am going to be learning ground-driving from a friend this weekend to help with this connection.
