'Charlotte Arms' and no, it's not a pub.

I am exhausted. Again! Manu Mclean came for a clinic yesterday and the day before and we were lucky to get a private and a shared lesson. And she made me work!! And poor little Jedi, who was a bit out there for both days. Very, very tense on the first day, then just tense yesterday!

Lesson 1....

Jedi was very short and choppy and a bit reactive. It was quite humid but not windy so I wondered whether his feet were a little sensitive after the trim he got on Sunday. Unfortunately, it stormed and poured during the trimming so no pics, sorry!

Manu had a chat with me about Lucinda's clinic and what she calls 'Lucinda arms'. Lucinda has a great technique for when you're riding a coffin or a trakehener or something equally demanding and the horse wants to really get his head down and look in that ditch (or agapanthus in Jedi's case), so you let the reins run through your fingers to allow him. But then you need steering as his head snaps back up to jump! So rather than lose your cool, you just open your hands wide and take up some of the slack with that big angle. Genius.

Then Manu started talking about 'Charlotte arms'. Manu is a great fan of Charlotte Dujardin (Olympic golden godess and generally considered one of the ones responsible for the resurgence in classical dressage training, along with her coach and sidekick Carl Hester) and really likes the way she holds her arms and hands. See this video for a good idea of what she does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaAgtwbZV_E

So, reins shorter, hands very forward, arms quite straight and don't pull back. The rule for Jedi, being not great on the contact at this point, and "quite tricky" was if I felt like I wanted to pull, widen my hands. The second part to 'Charlotte arms' is rather than leaning back to slow or stop, try sucking in my core just below my sternum. The result was quite impressive. Manu came up and held my rein to demonstrate as she pulled like Jedi would. Using 'Charlotte arms' I was pulled into the saddle. Without, I was just pulled forward. Amazeballs. But it's really hard work to start with!!

It was quite a technical lesson and I came out of it both a little overwhelmed and happy with the results. I really, really need to lose weight, though! I am getting there slowly, but I feel quite unwieldy and Jedi isn't a big horse. My fitness isn't actually too bad but yes, poor little dude could do without carrying ten extra kilos!

The big standouts were:

1. Push his head down with my legs, don't pull. Whenever I felt him ignoring my leg give him a pony club kick or trot him (if we're walking). There is nothing to be gained by continually nagging him with my leg. Self-carriage is the goal.
2. Push him til he's 'towing me forward'. Jedi has a tendency to duck behind the bit and avoid the contact, which leaves me with nothing to work with, then he chucks his head around when I'm trying to slow him. I had to keep kicking until it was all too messy and quick but only to start. Within about ten minutes he was doing a really nice long active trot and I had a consistent, solid contact. This will help with our crappy canter transitions too.
3. Use Lucinda's idea of 'plugging in'. Lucinda talks about using your two seat bones and your pelvic bone like the plugs of an electrical socket and imagining plugging in to the saddle. It's quite a nice image and does help with that seat stability.

The next day was quite a different lesson and focused more on Jedi. He was quite spooky as it was windy and this lesson was a private so he was on his own. Manu had me go through the '5 repetitions' training in the corners where he was really freaking out:

1. First walk through is LINE. His front legs must remain on the line I choose (ie as close as possible to the edge of the arena including deep in the corner). If he moves off that line I halt and move his shoulders over onto the line, then walk forward. This is done at a very controlled, slow walk.
2. OBEDIENCE. He must maintain the line, though it can be a little stop/start. There must be a willingness to maintain the line.
3. RHYTHM. He must walk on the line in the same rhythm, no slowing or speeding up at all.
4. STRAIGHTNESS. His poll through to his quarters must be straight. No bending the neck or three track work.
5. CONTACT. He must maintain a steady contact with no ducking above or behind the bit.

If there is a failure to attain the goal during that repetition, do it again until that goal is met. Ie, if he was obedient but then kept changing his rhythm, we need to do it again until he has rhythm. It was amazing how effective it was. Time-consuming, yes. But once we'd done the five reps he was absolutely solid in each corner. I asked Manu if I would need to do this every time I rode in that arena and she said to test him each time. He may come in at level 4 or 5 some days and 1 other days. Just have to be aware of it.

We worked on a great exercise involving using indirect turns across the diagonal (this was great because it is effectively the loop in the Prelim 1 eventing test). Get into a nice trot (that took a few minutes!), then come around the corner, start towards X (from H, say) and aim for a point 5m before X where you start to push your inside thigh across to move him away and change the bend. In this case it would be starting on the right rein with the idea of doing a loop through X and back to K - two changes of bend required. Left thigh pushes over and he starts to bend to the left. Ride through the turn and aim for a couple of metres before K. 5m before K start pushing with the right thigh to turn him right and he will change the bend, as you change your diagonal. By the time you hit K you've got a lovely bend to the right ready for that corner, and right in front of the judge's car! Tears of joy sprout from the judge's eyes!

It was a lovely exercise and after a few repetitions Jedi felt quite gooey and supple. Really nice. Manu has commented both this time and the last time she saw us that his hamstrings are quite tight so I'm looking into some massage techniques that might help. We did some leg yields (really nice ones apparently!) and she said that would help too.

The last exercise was canter. Manu kept reiterating that, whenever I wanted to, or felt I had to, change something, whether it be his way of going, the gait, the speed or the tempo, I needed to change my body first. This was a real lightbulb moment but really hard to do. Once I started being more aware of that Jedi became a lot more relaxed and switched on. It's exhausting though. At least, for now!

The canter was no different. "Canter your body", she says, so I do and he canters. He still runs a little but a lot less than usual. And he was always on the right leg. Gold. Then, "slow your canter bum" and I did, and he slowed. He found it hard and broke a few times but was quite unfazed and just picked up the canter again when asked. He used to run and chuck his head and get fizzy, but with the 'use your body' technique he started to understand. I guess it gives him a lot more clues and warning. All good things!

Both Jedi and I were pooped but I was really pleased with him. For a green ex-racehorse with only a couple of months' work under his belt I think he's doing super. He tries very hard and a lot of things have changed for him lately! I'm hoping the choppy striding (it was noticeable in the canter too) will fade away with a bit of time for his hooves to recover from the trim. I know Kirsten is leaving more wall than she normally would but I wonder if we need to leave even more. Only time and experience will tell! Luckily, we've got just under a month til Canberra for the wall to grow in. Pics next time, I promise!