Aha! Tempo...

I had a lightbulb moment today. I'm always hesitant to report them, because I know if/when Susan reads them, she'll call one of her YR friends, and the two of them will point and laugh, and try not to fall over. Susan can never believe how slow I am on the uptake, but usually it is all a matter of misunderstanding. I hear the words, but I don't assign the proper context.

Forever, now, Jürgen has said to make Facet "quick to my leg" and to "keep the jump" in the canter. He tells me "more canter" and I'm "losing the canter." I know I'm losing the canter (fortunately for matters of propriety, I can curse silently... Jürgen would not care to hear the names I call him when he states the obvious, and I am not able to do anything to correct it :sheepish grin:).

Today, however, there was no music playing in the dressage court, and that magnified the problem. You see, I'm very much aware of the music. I tend to breathe by it, and if the wrong music is playing, it can really screw me up if I'm not careful. The right music can really help my riding. (Is the fact that my trot work is absolutely at its finest when Quila and I ride to Ricky Martin my issue or hers???)

Anyway, at canter today with Facet, it became obvious we were getting slower and slower in canter until we fell back into trot. I don't know why... because Jürgen didn't particularly say anything different, but somehow, I noticed it in conjunction with his usual phrases. I tried adding leg a split second or two EARLIER than I wanted to, tried to think about speeding up the tempo. Magically, Facet stopped requiring any particular energy at all on my part to stay in the canter. I didn't need much squeeze. I just had to keep adding the cue whenever he started to lose energy. WOW!

So, I discovered I'd been waiting for Facet to set the tempo, and he was waiting for me... and we were slowing down to nothing as a result. I vaguely remember having had this really really problematically at trot when I first started riding him, but it felt different back then, and I no longer have an issue with trot. (And by first started riding him, I'm thinking about 2003, when I first imported him!). I had lots of problems with lots of things back then.

This will make a big difference, I think. I'm looking forward to my next ride with the gentleman.