Oh, you guys. That was a glorious experience! I HIGHLY recommend it - if you are considering a riding trip anywhere, go to Iceland! These horses are just amazing. They look like fluffy little ponies you'd put the kids on at a birthday party pony ride, but then you get on them and BAM - SO much power...

Flight, tell us how the working equitation goes! I'd love to do something like that, looks like so much fun!

Made some progress today on my understanding of the change aids. I had understood that I needed, in changing from right to left, for example, to first get the horse straight and to shift the balance a bit off the current "outside", before asking for the change. However, in order to get Cal...

Certainly! That one is hands down my favorite of the trip.

It's March!! Finally!! Hope people don't mind that I started the new two month thread... So ready for spring, going to Iceland (to ride horses!) next week so just two more days of "real" riding, and hopefully spring will be officially here when I get back. Callie will be ridden by my train...

Oh, lots of jingles! Surgery is no fun, but not being able to ride sounds worse. Good luck!

I'm going to Iceland next week with a friend to ride! We're going to be riding on a northern beach, up into the hills, and on a frozen lake. At the moment I'm a bit stuck in a depressive state, so my excitement is largely intellectual, but I'm hoping sharing will spark an emotional excitement too. :...

Tulsa! I love it too, it looks so much more modern, and easier to read - the old ones with a gazillion items on each page was never fun to look at.

Hm, I don't know if they are a high enough rise, and a little above budget (usually $175 or so), but I really love the Romfh Sarafina's. I have schooling colors and white, they are a nice thick sturdy fabric but with the right amount of stretch. I love them, and they seem to be wearing very well, I'...

What is a thread ump? I suspect that what each person is doing to lighten the contact would feel a lot more similar in reality than the language used to describe it? I agree Khall. Having only (finally) learned in the last year or two not to throw away the contact :lol: I remember what it feels like...

Khall, I'm so glad to hear your crew seems to have recovered well! I know what you mean about the feeling of getting lighter for more self carriage in the canter, I've felt that as well with my horse. The lighter I can get in the contact, the better she carries herself. Imperini, I have struggled wi...

I agree piedmontfields, I suspect the movement the trainer is talking about is not so dramatic, and it can be helpful to think about and feel each hind leg coming under. I think at the time I felt this "swing", which is maybe a bad descriptor, I was trying to figure out how to sit without ...

Interesting! I've felt that swing in my seat with the hind end before, but not recently, I am also generally trying to just sit quietly without wiggling my middle too much. I'll try to feel that in my ride tomorrow, see how the pony likes it. Working on mediums, and anything that helps me follow and...

On the plus side, I was so happy yesterday with how easy the canter lateral work felt, in the past it's been tricky but she really seems to have developed the strength and balance well. We did canter SI, 10 meter circle to HI, and it was so easy it may as well have been in trot. so I'm super pleased...

I'm enjoying reading all the updates! Sounds like it's been a good week or two of rides. I've been super sick so didn't even see my horses for a solid week, but I rode yesterday - still very weak. Had a lesson today and i seem to have regained some vigor because I made it through, including attempti...

Good for you! You're going to have so much fun!

"You hit third level and suddenly you can't cruise it any longer, you've got to become a thinking rider! (I think I may have said that about second level too, though...) Ha - yes, for sure! We showed Training/First last season, managed to make it to Finals (at Training), and while we were scho...

Quickening the hind end is also something we are working on, particularly as we're really starting to spend more time in collected canter and all the work that comes out of that. I'm still learning what the goal is in terms of feel - that collected =\= slower, for example, but also that quickening t...

Khall, thank you for the clinic report, I was thinking of it and gave the both hands up to stroke the neck after our first change yesterday, which I think helped release tension from the effort and made the change going the other way (the hard way!) more willing and smooth. I had been letting her wa...

Hello all! Finally registered, but have been stopping in occasionally since the other board went - so many familiar "faces"! I just wanted to say that I love this thread series and the discussions that result, particularly reading about the trials and tribulations of every ride and the gen...