Today was one of those absolutely stunning Michigan early autumn days, temps in the low 70s, brilliant sunshine. A perfect day for an outing to Metamora Horse Country to ride with Maryal Barnett (a lovely lady who is a FEI "CE" Dressage judge, USEF "S" Dressage Judge, and a Canadian Equestrian Federation Senior Dressage Judge).
Andrea and I packed Simon and Remy into the trailer and off we went to Linda's stunning barn. I jokingly said before leaving that I had no worries about coming off, Linda's arena footing is as fluffy as a feather bed.
Remy settled right in, and handled everything like a pro. Maryal has an excellent way of explaining position corrections. For example, to get our leg yields more flowing she reminded me to move my core towards the direction we were targeting, and to lighten the seat bone (in that case the left one because we were going left), so Remy could have room to move there. It took almost no effort to make him "flow over" - and when Maryal said with a smile "it's like dancing, isn't it", I enthusiastically agreed.
We also tackled our nemesis - the right canter departs (aka our "skippies"). As Judy and Jan had pointed out before, Remy has a tendency to lean on the inside shoulder, thus getting crooked, which makes for the funky depart. Maryal's suggested that in addition to getting him off the inside shoulder I also needed to lighten up on the outside rein (I have taken the rule "inside leg to outside rein" too far by taking too much outside rein) . That really helped, and we definitely improved. Nothing but smiles all around, especially on my side, after Maryal commented on my much improved position and quiet legs. Yay!
Yes, the pieces of our puzzle are falling into place, thanks to Judy. No resting on any (non-existing) laurels, though: The next level of complexity needs to be tackled. Let's Tango, Remy!
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