Improving a Lot

 I wore my tall boots for Monday's lesson to break them in and because my paddock boots are wearing out. It was more slippery than using my half chaps, but it got better as I got used to it. To start my lesson, I went over a few poles. Chester seemed hesitant to go over at first so a theme for my lesson began telling Chester to do things if he refused rather than continuing to ask. That way I become a more assertive rider.

 Once I started to actually tell him to go over the poles he was better. I tightly turning him around to cross over the poles again, riding over several times before entering the dressage arena and starting to trot. When I began trotting around the dressage arena, I focused on getting better walk-trot transitions by first asking Chester to trot with a light squeeze, and if he didn't respond right away I would squeeze harder. This way, he learned to respond more quickly to my cues.

 I worked on this several times, doing walk-trot transitions until Chester began to respond right away to a soft squeeze. I rode several diagonals and went around the arena a couple times, then made a circle left at A, riding the big trot-slow trot transition, then riding several canter strides. I did this to the left, then right, then left again before starting my dressage test.

 This time, I added in the canter parts right away. It went really well; I'm getting a lot better at riding the canter. Before long I might be cantering straight. After putting hosing Chester off and putting him away, I gave him a horse cookie. Meghan said I have improved since the last lesson. Maybe the games helped me be more confident and better at controlling Chester, which is important, especially in a crowded arena.