Brilliant, I am

Today, I am brilliant. Not because I had a particularly brilliant ride (it was good but not spectacular), but because I have finally figured out how to use iMovie to edit and piece together video clips. So instead of posting loooong clips of relatively useless stuff, or a bunch of super-short clips of occasionally decent stuff, I can actually make a short movie that shows the good stuff (and the bad stuff), but not the boring stuff.

Wow. Technology!

Anywho, we had a nice ride in the outdoor arena today. I set up a single X in the middle of the arena to warm up over, and then set it to a vertical. It's the first time we've jumped since we went cross-country schooling oh-so-long ago, and we need to start to get back into jumping if we have any hope of competing in a horse trial in early October.

I worked on a steady rhythm and uphill gaits. Our spots were not so great. My position was not so great - my lower leg kept swinging back and I am really arching my back, especially over the top of the fence, which you can see in the videos. I just look stiff. Although our approaches were generally fairly uphill, Saga really went bridle-diving on the landings and was SUPER heavy on his forehand when I tried to rebalance him (witness the head shaking bits).

I think our last fence was pretty nice, but we have SO MUCH work to do. I've scheduled a lesson with Paige at Coraggio Hunter/Jumper for tomorrow evening - it's a bit of a haul to her place, but she gave me a lesson on Saga when I was looking at him and I really liked her teaching style and the things she had to tell me. All of her suggestions were spot-on and really helped me improve my position. So, I'm hoping we can continue that, and perhaps even make it a regular thing.

After riding, FuzzyPony and I went over to one of the local tack stores and I picked up a copy of 101 Jumping Exercises. Since I'm mostly working by myself at this point, it looked like a super-useful book to have. It includes all the distances for trot and canter poles, plus gymnastics exercises, which is SO helpful since I have a hard time remembering how far to set a one-stride for a trot versus a one-stride at a canter. I'll be reading it in the next week or so and making use of it as I prepare for the show season this fall.