Well it wasn't that rude but definitely a surprise. I worked Boomer on lightness alternating between follow your nose, get off the inside rein, counterbend, get off the outside rein, give the hip out, get off my inside leg, give the hip in, get off my outside leg, don't drop the shoulder in when the hip's in, do stay up in the bridle, do stay off my hand, now canter, don't push through my hand, now canter, don't push in to my leg, do keep your shoulder out of the way, do canter off straight. It took a lot of fixing in the beginning but got better as I made the corrections firmly and then asked again softly.
Next I asked him to keep his shoulders up when he cantered while staying soft in the neck and giving his face while still cantering. In the beginning he'd only hold it for a stride but as we practiced he gave sooner and lasted longer.
I finished up with work on his turn arounds. Do give your head, do turn off a light rein, do not flip your butt out, do move haunches in, do turn off outside leg while I lower my hand, do not go forward out of the turn, if you need to move do haunches in then try the turn again. All the corrections were technically more difficult than just doing the turn around. He figured out he needed to hold himself in position and then it was easy.
Al Dunning says make 1% improvement and after 100 days you have 100% improvement. We definitely made more than 1%.
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