alobear | This week - position, position, position

I had a very disturbing dream last night. It was Sunday morning and I was attending my usual riding lesson. There were about 50 people in the lesson, some of whom were beginners and were being led. I was riding a very small bay mare called Sally, who was very energetic and springy. I was also wearing flipflops and the stirrups were too small for me to fit my feet into. I spent most of the lesson trying to keep out of everyone's way, while the instructor yelled incomprehensible instructions at us, and Sally kept trying to overtake everyone. Then, a wild boar broke into the school, rushed up to Sally and ate her out from under me. I got scratches all down my right arm and crawled out of the riding school, dripping blood in the dirt, while all the stable staff laughed at me. I looked up to the paddock to find

siroswold,

vampadvocate,

markwelham and

weaselbitch, but the enclosure was empty and they were nowhere to be seen.

So, as you can imagine, I was a bit apprehensive about the actual riding lesson today. I told Dominic about the flipflops on the way to the riding stable, but I left out the bit about the boar and the eating of the horse, as I didn't want him to think I was really weird!

Anyway, I was riding Flossie today, for the second time, and she is lovely. She does everything she's supposed to, but she makes me work for it just enough that I feel like I've had some excercise, without feeling as if I'm about to die.

There were only two of us again, so we both got lots of attention and individual working time. The lesson was split into three sections. Warm up - halt transitions to get the horses paying attention, 20 metre circles, figures of eight, sharp changes of rein, and a long canter in each direction. Middle section - trotting without stirrups. Final section - taking turns to ride down the quarter line, do an acute transition from trot to halt and then back up to trot again, riding past the other horse and then cantering all the way round the school. It was all very interesting, and a lot of fun, and Flossie was great.

So, since I didn't have to pay as much attention to what my horse was doing as last week, Dominic really got me thinking about my position. By the middle of the lesson, I was trying to simultaneously remember and work on all of the following points - look up, shoulders back, don't drop the inside shoulder on a circle, reins shorter, half halts with the leg on to create a dialogue with the horse, breathe deeply, wrists light, elbows heavy, knees out, seat down, toes forward, don't swing the lower leg or rock forwards in the canter, don't lift the body when moving into trot, create energy with the legs and catch it in the hands.

It was very complicated and a lot of work, but I think I was getting there towards the end. The best thing I learned was that opening the knees pushes the seat down and makes sitting trot a lot easier. The thing I most have to work on is keeping my heels down in the canter. However, I know I've improved on that over the last few months, as I always used to lose my stirrups in the canter - now, they just feel loose but my feet don't actually come out of them.

At the end of the lesson, Dominic apologised that it hadn't been as good as he'd planned. I told him quite seriously that his lessons were the most interesting I'd ever had, but he doesn't seem able to take a compliment, as he just looked embarrassed and wandered off.

Anyway, now I have to go to town and buy new jeans because I discovered several large holes in unfortunate places last night in my old ones!