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Sitting the Trot
Last week’s lesson in the sitting trot: more weight in the stirrups + more relaxed knee = better sitting trot.
This week’s lesson: brace the ankle.
With a loose ankle, all the bounce dissipated at the ankle, which meant I could follow the horse’s motion (when I was lucky) but not really influence it. Brace the ankle, and the bounce goes back to the knee. So long as the knee was elastic, I had more control over what my seat was doing. Which meant I could actually influence the horse with my seat.
This all came together in the shoulder in. Usually I get the horse into the shoulder in ok, but we stall out. I can sometimes recover and keep the horse moving forward, but obviously tempo and rhythm become an issue. What I get is an uneven, messy sort of shoulder in.
This time, the horse started to stall, I was able to use my seat to ask him to keep going forward, and we had what was unquestionably the best shoulder in I’ve ever ridden. Pretty cool. The horse was moving better after the shoulder in than before, which is what lateral work is supposed to achieve.
Also: I’m done being complacent and I’m losing weight. I’m motivated but not really enthusiastic about this, and the whole thing would probably be easier if I had a work-out buddy, but, whatever. My initial plan is to cook for the week and freeze in meal-size portions so I can microwave dinner when I come home from work and not have any excuses to reach for, oh, french fries. Not that french fries are my personal nemesis, or anything.
My cats are entirely enthralled by this idea. They have never, ever seen anything as fascinating as me exercising, and will come running from wherever it is they are holed up to “help.“ I tried giving them catnip last night to distract them, but this just caused them to tap my ankles repeatedly and give me the “Whatcha dooooooing, dude?“ look. Later, I learned stoned cats have no sense of self preservation, and it’s generally not a good idea to attempt jumping jacks in their vicinity.
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