"He has to know that you will finish the sentence" - and why do I have to get annoyed first?

After the pouring rain yesterday the arena was still pretty squishy, with water puddles in some areas. Still, it was good enough to ride on as the base had held up.

Remy was one distracted critter. Oh my, horses going by on the road (which happens daily), feed delivery vans, shavings delivery, etc. etc. Nothing out of the ordinary, but obviously all way more interesting than what I was trying to do. He slipped into a half-pass, so after the warm up canter we focused on the trot work. Roz' go to exercise to get him back on the aids is shoulder-in, then short diagonal to about mid of the arena, change bend and straight back to rail.

It got better when I finally hunkered down and got so annoyed with him that I was really driving him forward and making him bend. And wouldn't you know it, it was like he said "Oh, OK, well then, let's do it"... but not after some humping up of the back and various other minor threats.

Roz reminded me that "he has to know that you will finish the sentence", meaning I can't let him get away with disobedience. But still, I could do without the testing shenanigans, that's for sure. Flashback to my previous job (or JP LOL): On the (few) occasions when I blew a fuse all of a sudden everyone was buckling down, but the nose to the grindstone, and things went swimmingly for a while... until I needed to crack the whip again.

Not so sure that going to a show isn't a great idea this early in our season fraught with disruptions. But I've paid, Roz will keep me out of harms way, and Randy will be happy to fetch us earlier if we need to pull out. So, other than my nerves, not much to loose?

OK, I've been in the Learning Zone for a long time now...