Circling is hard

2 lessons ago, I could feel that a big break was coming. I didn't know if it would be a breakthrough or just breaking something else. Spoiler alert: it was breaking something else. I completely lost ability to ride a circle (while steering with my body, not my hands)!

T put me on a big grey gelding named Garrette. She told me I probably wanted to lunge him first, so I hustled to get him ready and put him on the lunge. It was very uneventful. I couldn't even get him to canter!

I mounted and did my 2 laps of 2 point while she finished up the lesson before me and then she asked me what I wanted to work on. I told her J and I had done a lot of 90 degree turns last week, both as a way to get my body functioning and to get Eli listening, because he was being a bit of a turd with the cold snap. I said I felt it had gone pretty well, and by the end I was feeling better about how my body was functioning. 

She said, well, I've thrown you for a loop this time, putting you on a new horse. Should we see how your body is working today? I said sure, and she had me start at a working walk, turning 90 degrees at each letter in a squared serpentine down the arena. The object was to get the horse to pivot around my inside leg, but also stay straight through the middle of the arena. G is much more wiggly than Eli. He was also a lot more of a tattletale when my body wasn't quite doing the right thing! 

Definitely not me during this ride

After that, she asked me to do a large circle with my reins on the buckle. I could NOT do it. I tried to turn my body from the hips, but all I did was poke my outside hip out, weighting that seat bone and causing G to go in the opposite direction. Damnit. Eventually, he would stop or slow down because he wasn't getting clear communication from me. He probably thought I was absolutely out of my mind!

Some progress was made toward the end of the lesson, with me not touching my reins, my inside hand either out like an airplane or on my hip, and really, REALLY, turning my body. Like, exaggerating the turn a lot. I also have to break my habit of looking out of my circle to the next letter on the rail until I can actually circle again, and focus instead on the center of my circle.

It was a frustrating lesson. Mostly because my brain knew what to do, my body remembers how this feels, but just wasn't capable of actually doing it, apparently. As T says, my GPS is broken.