Hello again Ashlee! Is Koti a morgan as well? Well, I always turn out or long line before getting on, take out some of the spunk. Then I work a lot of very basic dressage in the arena. Start off on a long rein and do a small serpentine at a walk trying to use my seat bones to turn instead of my hands. As I move down the serpentine, I bring my mare into more collection. Then we head straight into a trot to warm up (a lot of trot work). We started by moving in a straight line by focusing on the point at the other end of the arena (easier said than done!) So, making a big square out of straight lines around the arena. After we started tracking straight (a week or more), we worked on circles, these are actually really complex, and take some multitasking, like playing a drum set. Most horses will jacknife at the withers on their weak side and fall out or in on the circle, so you have to keep those withers straight and visualize your line, or path. My mare put up a fight at first, and now she has figured circles out. Some horses get it faster than others, some horses have physical (mental) blockages somewhere in their bodies thatkeep them from moving straight. We've just moved up from that, and are now moving around the circle with a bend, flexion, and collection. It all has the same effect as a parellis class, a great knowledge of your horse's abilities, more respect from your horse, and a more supple athletic horse. I think we will be moving on to halfhalts and halfpasses and those fancy things next.
Overall, if you can get a coach, no matter if it's dressage or natural horsemanship or whatever, it's really helpful. My coach showed me that if I shift my right hip over about three inches, my left side of my body wouldn't collapse in, and my horse sure tracked better after that! And the whole time I'd been trying to consciously "hold up" my collapsing side. Ugg!
Then, to give her a break, and work on the real task at hand, we do some thundering up the foothills of the cascades for reward. It seems downhill work (while reducing the heartrate : ) also helps with collection.
Hope this helps!
Laura "Not all who wander are lost." (jrr tolkien)
