I feel like the little red engine - uh, make that the cantering machine

Entering the clinic with Jan was a bit of a gamble, spending all that money without knowing how well I would be able to hold up. Jan really pushes the riders, very positively, but he expects you to work. I certainly didn't want to be the one wilting away half-way through.

Judy warmed up Remy briefly, and then we went to work. Jan switched to German, which made me quip that I felt like a 20 year old again, riding in Germany. Shoulder fore - shoulder in, first in walk then in trot. More angle - less neck bend. (You'd think with how often I hear this from Judy I should have gotten it by now!).

Jan really drilled us on the canter departs to the right, as this is Remy's 'skippy' side. He kind of skips into the canter, which is a mistake ("Taktfehler"). As Jan pointed out if we don't take care of it now we will have problems with the flying changes later. Remy braces a bit, and I have a tendency to give the aid more with my inside leg. So we practiced -and practiced- and practiced- moving promptly off my outside leg, while being on the outside rein, which netted us better and even good departs.

Another issue we worked on is having Remy react better to my leg aids. I'm so paranoid about hitting him with my spurs that I never really put the spur on him. My boots tell the tale. As Remy gets tense with a dressage whip (even though I never touched him, let alone hit him), I ride with a short jumping bat, aka the 'magic stick'. Jan jokingly pointed out "you only smack the saddle pad, and it didn't do anything wrong!" We settled on a compromise of finding a longer bat. The idea behind all this is "less is more!". Remy needs to learn to move off light aids, no nagging.

This session was a great morale booster for me, we went to work, never wondered about what was going on around us, did our job and did it well! No, we didn't have any major light-bulb moments as people seem to expect from clinics. But really, if you work correctly in your day to day training, and your instructor's philosophy matches the one of the clinician then the light is on all the time all the time - so it's more of an increase in brightness.

And no - I didn't wilt away during my ride (I waited until I was safely home and had a beer in front of me).