I am trying to develop my independent seat and Claire is very kindly helping by giving me passenger lessons on Hebee, her LBI in her paddock. He has been a challenging horse and used to be very spooky, then sadly he lost an eye early this year and so Claire has had to develop her savvy in a whole new way. When we used to trail ride Cam would have all the go and Hebee would have all the whoa - we were a well balanced pair. Then it became the opposite, and now we are kind of starting to balance out and move towards a 5.
I had our first passenger lesson two weeks ago - first time I'd ridden since he had lost his eye - think Claire has ridden a couple of times. Wow he felt different from Cam. He has an amazing fluidity now whereas she has been so difficult to ride as it is like riding an eel - wriggle wriggle and not smooth forward momentum. We walked for a long while that first time then had a trot - Hebee was so funny as he kept diving down for tasty clumps of grass. If I hadn't walked a long while and got myself settled I'd have been over the front when he did it at trot - weird I could feel the back feet still going even when his head was virtually behind his front legs. Claire was very savvy and asked him forward gently enough so he didn't buck in this posture! I had no rein so couldn't have bent his neck, but I trusted them both.
Then on Tuesday we had another play - I was much more solid this time and it was such fun. I practised 'standing' at the trot and also 'squishing' into the saddle. Claire had a ride (not passenger) too. Then it was getting quite dark but I really wanted to try a freestyle canter. Claire had already tried and he hadn't gone far/fast. Well, I thought 'what would be easy' for him and asked him on a straight line up the slight slope towards the others. He went so easily into the most delicious canter and I could sit straight into it - it was the best canter I have ever experienced. I was thinking as I was cantering - wow this is it - this is how it should be...! We slowed and stopped softly and I got straight off.
BFO - it isn't just me that 'rides badly and has no balance' - Cameo really is harder to ride and is not smooth ...yet!!! Claire has helped Hebee wonderfully by equalising his go and whoa buttons, and therefore me. The two people that have ridden Cameo before in a 'parelli' way told me she was hard to ride (Claire was one of them) but I thought they were just being generous to me, but now I understand them more.
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I know exactly what you mean - I felt this for the first time with Garbo when we were doing barrel to barrel for carrots (point to point) in the arena - he offered canter (first time EVER) and it was fantastic and easy to ride. Whereas the effort it would take to GET him to canter previously usually had me unbalanced and unseated before we got it and then he was unconfident too by then
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