Switching Sides.

You might think that this is a bit of a weird title post but by the end of this post it will become clear what it means. But before we move on to the riding part of my post, I'll do the everyday part. 

To start with my mum had to take my dad to the doctors as he has been having a stiff neck and back and finding it really uncomfortable to move, they've referred him on to a physiotherapist. This afternoon I accompanied my mum on a business appointment. Early in the week she made three special hand made wedding cards for a family and the wedding invitations needed to be sent abroad so she only had two hours from the start til the end of the project.  They said that they would ring her back and sort out doing the rest of the cards. Today we went back to the same family and sorted out what we were doing for the bulk majority of wedding cards and then what we were doing for the other 10 Special cards for the same wedding.

Now on to the riding, today I think that my riding went really well, we were originally going to do some pole work as well as canter work but decided that instead we would focus 100% on working on the canter and by the end I was so happy with how much it had changed. To start with as Fiona was the only one on the yard she left me to work in Gatsby, warming him up, while she put away the horse had that just been used and put his rug on. We then moved on fairly quickly to doing some trot work to start with we did rising trot and then moved on to getting a firmer seat in the sitting trot and keeping Gatsby in a really good strong outline. We moved on to the canter and to start with just did half a circle then a full circle and moving on to doing a long side of the school which was something that I thought I wouldn't be able to do so quickly. This is where the switching sides came in, my good side was always my left side, but today it was my right side. On the right rein I was able to keep my inside leg in place which made us able to have a really nice smooth canter transition however this did not happen on the left. On the left rein my inside leg was moving backwards and forwards causing it to act like an outside leg, so this is something that I am going to work on really hard, I want to be able to keep my left leg in place like I can keep my right leg in place. It was so frustrating because I knew what I was doing wrong but couldn't change it instantly and know that it is going to be something that takes time to do but eventually I will be able to. If it wasn't for Gatsby I wouldn't be the rider that I am today and I couldn't ask for more from him. We finished on a good note by going back on to the right rein and I did half a circle and then did a full straight side that was calm and collected. However not only have I switched my good side so has Gatsby because we both used to be better on the left. Now when we try and canter on the left Gatsby becomes disjointed, his front legs pick up the wrong lead and his back legs pick up the right lead. This means that when Riding him I have to over exaggerate the way my hips are so that he goes off on the right lead. I am so happy with how well Gatsby and I did. Jaimie-leigh wasn't riding this week either so I had full use of the school to myself and he was just such a good boy. Ohh I almost forgot another thing that I am going to have to work on with him in the canter is that when doing a circle he tries to escape to the outside, so I need to remember to keep my outside leg on and strong and have a good contact with the inside rein. We had some really good work with Gatsby in an outline in both the walk and the trot, and I would really like to be able to maintain the canter in the too, and I know that eventually that we will get there, but for now I am just so happy with the progress that we are making.

Another new thing with me is that the past week I have gone back to really watching what I eat as I would love to lose weight. Last year I used 'MyFitnessPal' but then got fed up of doing it however now I have put the app back on my phone, and am making sure that I don't eat more than 1100 calories a day. For the past week I haven't found this hard and was actually eating less than 1000 calories. Let's hope that I can keep this up and now onto some photographs.

Until Next Time
A Girl With A Dream