New Directions

Pictures and videos! Today turned out to be one of my best days with JJ, despite something of a rough start. More and more often I've been noticing that JJ seems to be running around without a ticking brain in his noggin. This means I have the lovely job of winding that brain back up so it ticks again. Lately, that's meant a fair amount of groundwork as well as some low level dressage-type movements in the ring. I'm not the greatest dressage rider so I can't really say any of it is pretty, but it gives JJ something to consider while we do circles in the ring. And actually, there have been a couple of really nice moments where he has stretched down into the contact instead of coming behind the vertical or above the bit, which he usually does to evade the contact. His avoiding the contact has been one of our major ongoing hurdles, so having even just a couple moments of him stretching into it in the past two days has been AWESOME. Pics and video:

But mom this is HARD!
Also - can we please just talk about that left leg in the bottom right photo?
I mean, where is it going?!

And some nice moments...

And check out that lateral movement! JJ's got serious potential I think!

After ring work I took JJ out to the field to walk out. Since I've been taking JJ out to the field I've been dying to trot him out there, so today I finally decided to try it. He was amazing. SO amazing. So amazing, in fact, that I sat and closed my leg. JJ stepped into a soft, easy, quiet left-lead canter. It felt like a cloud. I was so thrilled and scared at the same time. Scared that I might ruin the canter if I tensed up too much. Scared that JJ would get strong and run. Scared that he would get excited and buck, rear, anything. I kept my seat and hands quiet and we cantered two large circles in the field before I closed my fingers and softly asked for a trot. He came right back. I was seriously so happy I almost cried. The past couple weeks I'd been having a really hard time with JJ and I'd been getting really frustrated. That brief but wonderful canter in the field today restored my faith that we might actually have potential as a horse and rider pair. YAY TODAY!