And School Begins...well, school-ing

SO, I had my first dressage lesson EVER on Friday!!! It wasn't quite as difficult as I thought it would be. My imagination was going wild with the possiblities of what I thought was going to happen...
Jenn: Keep your heels down!!! chin up! look forward...make that horse march! you have SO many bad habbits I don't even know where to start! FOCUS!!!!!!
Me: (sheepishly) ok

hahahhahaha.....that is far from what actually happened, thankfully.

As it turned out Jennifer, my Dressage trainer, is so sweet, kind, and understanding! For all the knowledge she holds, she sure is humble about things. She and I had a bunch of good laughs that day...especially when I made mistakes.

A brief overview of what I learned:

Since it was my first time riding in a dressage arena the lettering was a bit confusing haha. I'll put up a picture to illustrate some of the things I'll be listing.

• Gait: any of the manners in which a horse moves, as a walk, trot, canter, gallop
• Tempo: The rate of speed at which a given gait is riden. Collected=faster tempo, Extended=slower tempo
• Walk - Medium, Collected, Free (extended)
• Trot - Working, Collected, Extended
• Transitions: Changing from one gait to the next.
• Posting on the diagonal: Rising from the saddle along with the brief extension of the outside leg of the horse. (not to be confused with the diagonals across the arena!)

Here's a diagram of a typical 20X40 meter dressage arena:

Ok, so do you see the giant X created by the two lines crossing at the little x? Those are the diagonals. The arena is split into three 20m circles.

• Change of rein: Crossing the arena on a diagonal to change the direction of motion.

tips:

• Looking ahead: this helps in bending through corners and making transitions. ex. bending through a corner opens your shoulders and hips which alows the horse more freedom of movement.
  

Needless to say, I learned a lot. I was so glad to hear that I hadn't picked up too many bad habbits in my riding over the last 6 years!! Looking forward to this sunny week and a chance to keep on practicing :)