I’m still alive, I promise.
Finally have some time in between classes and am caught up enough on homework I can sit down and update this.
Open House last month was awesome. Everyone had a great time with their horses and the relationships really shone through!
Most of the past few play sessions with the boy have consisted on 45 foot line play online, trying to “polish up” our liberty play a bit and really get the figure eight going, and playing with partial disengagements, bits and pieces of the “lead change ladder” and refining our corners pattern, question box and clover leaf freestyle. Partial disengagements and the lead change ladder have really been helping me get some “braces” out of my body. Thank goodness I have yoga class twice a week and I have warm up/joint loosening/ore building exercises I can practice just about ever day and before I ride/play! I’ve gotten a few more flying changes since my last post, but I’m not really stressing it or pushing it with him. We’ll get them when we get them and we can film for our Level 3 without them. Speaking of which, weather permitting Lauren & I have a filming session planned for my freestyle audition on Thursday.
Mocachee loves the 45 foot line and my 45 foot line “savvy” is getting better. We’ve gotten some great circling game (really nice canter laps . . .yes, laps plural 
) and some nice traveling circles at the walk and trot, working up to them at the canter on the 45. Also have had success with fast sideways. Planning to start playing with figure eight and weave on the 45 asap.
Libertyhas been a test of my energy and how it affects him for sure. Also in lightness, I have to be careful I don’t get too “big” and send him off. That’s our biggest problem on the figure eight I think. Circling game is improving, starting to get him connecting with me more when he’s out on the circle and I’m getting better at not giving him too huge of a send. We started playing with canter/halt/back up (<-fast back up, not his normal little plod, lol) and he had great fun with that. Got it nice and light super fast.
Partial disengagements and swing the shoulders finally clicked with me last week. I guess I finally watched the last Savvy Club DVD enough times. He picked up on the partial disengagements incredibly fast and he loves them. The difference in his self carriage is incredible. I never knew my Left Brain Introvert could be engaged. I’m also getting rid of a lot of brace in my “zone 3″ as well. My fluidity is getting to improve, I’m not used to him carrying himself with so much “up” verses kind of plodding along flatly, so I’m having to make some adjustments and get rid of some tenseness in my body. The ruffles are decreasing instead of increasing, so I guess I’m on the right track. His patterns have also improved since we’ve been playing with the partial disengagements. Swing the shoulders is better than it used to be, it’s getting there. I feel like I have a lot of tension in that department, but I think with more time and focus on what my body is doing we’ll get it. It’s much better than it used to be, though. Our finesse has also improved since the partial disengagements. It’s like now that I’ve got him super relaxed and actually engaged it’s coming along much easier. It’s still not great, but I keep telling myself to just give it time . . .
He’s not a big corners fan, never has been, so I’ve been going back to the corners pattern to try and improve that area. Cloverleaf and question box I’ve just been trying to do less.
Oh . . .Mocachee has an UPHILL shim pattern as of last Friday! My downhill pony is starting to get uphill!
We are also playing on the big rings of our cradle and he seems quite fine with that. 
Anything new this boy seems to just love lately. And it doesn’t even have to be brand new, just a slight tweak of a pattern and he’s interested. He’s really not letting me stay in my comfortable little bubble. My time has been limited lately, mostly thanks to school, but I feel like it’s made me really make every session count, even if it’s just 15-20 minutes to groom or just hang out with him. It’s also kept me from doing the same thing over, and over and over again because I have to adjust my plan for how much time I may have that day/evening. I do have some fairly newish pictures from our past couple sessions. Including some professional ones from Sunday, taken by Katie Weeks.
More of a Lucy oriented update in a couple days, I have some ideas concerning our online play session tomorrow, so we’ll see how my “theories” turn out. I do have one small victory, I got blow outs about 5-10 minutes into our little online session Sunday, fastest I think I’ve gotten them yet.
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After partial disengagements at the walk :D
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Partial disengagements at the trot were a bit more difficult for us, but we got it eventually :)
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Playing with “swinging the shoulders”
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More “swing the shoulders”
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Little bit of corners game at the end at the canter
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Gorgeous girl loved posing for the camera (c) Katie Weeks
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Hindquarter disengagement with the belly of the line of the ground :) (c) Katie Weeks
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Two “touch its” in one (c) Katie Weeks
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One of my absolute favorites (c) Katie Weeks
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Bridle time! (c) Katie Weeks
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I <3 this horse (c) Katie Weeks
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Ears forward canter, look out now (c) Katie Weeks
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(c) Katie Weeks
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Reins got too long for the 999,999th time, but at least I’m smiling :) (c) Katie Weeks
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Pretty boy (Note, we are actually playing on the big rings now) (c) Katie Weeks
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45 foot line play!
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Driving from patch of grass to patch of grass on the 45
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Playing with fas sideways
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It was so hot that day, he got to go swimming
