Trying not to overthink it

I had a great lesson on AJ last night. L has had me working on keeping him more balanced at all gaits, trying to get him to stop dropping his right shoulder so much, and stop depending on the rail to stay straight. He knows how to do it, it's just easier not to!

I guess her exercise of the week was a little one-stride combination. These and bounce strides have always kind of been my nemeses. I overthink them and as a result, make them way too complicated...whether it's holding on too tight to control the pace because I'm worried about the distance or getting left behind or too far ahead, these types of exercises have just never been my strong suit!

So, she set the first fence as a crossrail and the second fence as a little vertical and told me to canter it on the right (away from home) to start. I took a deep breath, asked for my canter, started counting my strides right away and reminded myself to breathe and look past jump 2 to the end of the arena.

Our approach was good, first jump good, he did one stride and I came up for a second and then went right back to half seat and stayed with him for the second fence. It felt great! 

She had me do it 2 more times to the right and both times were equally as good, maybe even better, because then AJ knew for sure what we were asking of him. We got our distances, I remembered to let go of his face and trust him to do his job, and even better, I stayed with him and released over both fences, too. Yay!

Then she switched the jumps around and had me do it a few times on the left lead, then added in a single vertical on the other long side of the arena. I rode the one-stride the same way and then pushed for the vertical because AJ is notorious for adding strides no matter what. He took it long, but it was in stride and he must have agreed with my logic because he didn't get sassy!

We walked for a moment, and then did it a couple more times. I think we were both on our game, because we didn't miss a distance and I didn't screw up the one-stride in either direction!