Getting good

What is winter, but the perfect time for visualization and making plans.  Here is a link to a wonderful article by one of my favorites, Denny Emerson.
Developing the rider's eye.

Seriously read it, and watch the videos, especially the first one.  That is a video that I found on YouTube last spring and really enjoyed watching.  The quality of the video itself isn't great, but the info in it is so very valuable.  Not only in regard to developing your eye, but just generally riding.  He is loose and a part of the horse.  One of my favorite bits is when he puts his hand over his stomach as he sits the trot, for some reason that made not bouncing a simple task in my mind.

Face of concentration

I also love the exercise of counting strides to a pole, Steph is huge on that and I have tried to incorporate it into regular rides.  The arena is finally snow free so while we work on getting fit again and get ready for jumping I think that the pole on the ground will be a daily occurrence, as well as some work with out stirrups.

Rocking my old Overlook Farm shirt

A big thing for me and my riding is working to not just get the job done, after years and years of babies and problem horses I can get nearly every horse to do what they need to.  What I need to do now is make myself look good doing it, shoulders back, heels down, body aligned, strong core etc.  I started really working on this last year and feel like I made some great progress, but there is always room for more, plus I always get a little 'giterdone after the winter.  I finally have a horse that I think can really go places and win so the last thing I want is to be the missing link that keeps us out of the ribbons.

Good...but I want better

I will leave you with a fun little video of Prisoner and I at jump night last fall that I forgot to upload until now.