I've been struggling with direction this past week on Mort. I want him to have a month or so of easier work where I focus less on installing a lot of new stuff and really training hard. Summer in the Midwest is ideal for a lower intensity time--because hot. But we've honestly had a fairly mild summer so far. The lack of heat amps Mort up to an energy level of nine. I simply cannot let that go to waste, but I also still don't want to drill dressage. On Monday while cooling Mort out, I came up with a plan--Basics Boot Camp.
If I'm honest, Mort will probably always have holes that I'm throwing stuff into to get up to the next level of training. I am not leaving holes on purpose, but that is the nature of me trying to figure out how to take a horse from the track up the levels of dressage. I'll go along thinking everything is just dandy until I start asking him for something more complicated and realize that there is a giant hole that I've missed up until that point. I have a vague plan in place to do Basics Boot Camp for a month or so every summer. It's low intensity and it will ensure that I'm at least trying to always better our basics rather than ignoring the holes.
For now, basics consists of relaxation and accuracy. I can get a super Mort if I go along just riding on feel and asking for something when it feels like he can give it to me perfectly. While this is great, it leaves me open to holes and it isn't how showing dressage works. As a rider, I struggle with making myself ride accurately. So, I've taken the time to set-up some stuff for us in the 'arena'.
Right now the outdoor is a large, flat-ish grass area. Two sides have perimeter fencing. One side has thicker grass on the edge (mowed vs. unmowed). The other side is entirely open, and it's the side nearest the barn. Mort and I struggle hard staying straight on that side, so I put up a couple of low poles in the corners to help set us up and give me a visual.
I also set-up four ground poles on a circle. I'm sure you've all seen the exercise before where if you stay on a circle you hit a ground pole in each quarter. I set this up more for visuals than ground pole work because it forces me to ride accurately. I can ride hitting the outside of the ground pole to ride an accurate circle. I can make a square turn at each pole and ride a square. I can yield in and out with poles to measure. I can incorporate ground poles to w/t/c over. I can use the poles as transition markers. The possibilities are endless. I cannot take credit entirely for this, as my instructor in college often set up cones with the same idea in mind. I absolutely love it for checking my training.
Yesterday was our first ride with all of this in mind. I really enjoyed the structure and it definitely helped make sure I wasn't able to ignore our training issues. With them fully exposed, I got to break them down and work on them. We did bend and counter-bend. We did transitions. We did ground poles. I think it'll help get a better handle on his left bend. I think it'll help install more of a half-halt at the canter. I'm really excited.
I'm going to have to make sure that I don't get so focused on the circle that we don't spend time taking breaks. I spent time yesterday working on something on the circle then taking him off the circle to see how it affected life in wide open spaces. For example, I was working on bend and counter-bend to get him more in the middle of my aides. After some of that I took him out and checked out it translated to our straightness issues (when we don't have a fence or wall to help us). Going to have to make sure I keep that mentality up.
Luckily, Mort really thrives on repetition and patterns, so I think it'll help with his relaxation in general. Keeping things predictable builds a foundation of trust and success that will hopefully stick when I go back for asking for more complicated things. I try to make my training about rewarding success and the effort of him trying to figure out what I am asking. I know that I fall short sometimes, but the circles make it easier for me to stay riding in the moment rather than looking for specific 'dressage' things. Good basics is what everything else is built upon, so the better we get with the easy stuff, the easier the hard stuff will come. Right?
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