“Transitions,” I thought. We are having a hard time with transitions…even when I ask her to speed up just with a faint higher level of energy.
First I thought that asking Sue to canter in the round pen would be the answer! The round pen has deeper sand than the arena. It’s easier to get the canter.
So, here we are in the round pen. We started out and I asked her to canter. We went into our 4 legged anti-synch /rhythm stride. “I can’t do this,” my body said.
So, we did passenger riding. The level 1 Parelli test includes a 21 minute passenger ride task. Sue and I couldn’t make 21 minutes the last time we tried. She is way out of shape.
This time my strategy was different. We would have a lot of walk, stop and speed up transitions during our passenger ride. She would get tired, but we would have transition breaks. That’s what we need…transitions without fear.
That’s what we did. We also spent the entire time going to the left. We veered to the right exactly three times and went right back to the wall going to the left. that’s interesting.
I believe we made the 21 minutes. Sue was drenched. At the end, she had enough life left in her for a try at the canter. We struggled and got two faint canter steps. We stopped and I got off. Maybe she will remember the nice outcome from cantering.
I don’t think so.
Next will be at least one pole in the round pen..We need a canter pole!