I had a really long riding lesson Wednesday night.  We rode hard for about an hour and twenty minutes.  We worked on bending without overbending, and it was really challenging.  Paige noticed that I had worked on my two-point position and my transitions which felt good, but I still need to work on my shoulder position more. 

We cantered a lot in the lesson working on turning with an indirect rein, but for some reason Dandy kept picking up the wrong lead in both directions.  I feel like I don't know him well enough to predict his leads accurately yet.  Usually, I can just feel which lead a horse is going to take, but I'm not good at that yet with Dandy.  We had already been riding hard for an hour when Paige had me work on jumping over a 12" jump.  She had me circle at a canter at one end of the arena and then incorporate the jump into my circle each time around.  It was challenging to get Dandy positioned right while continuing to circle.  After we jumped on the circle she let me jump him on a straightaway to see how much easier it would be.  The circle jumping seems to take away my anxiety leading up to the jump, because I only have time to get Dandy in position and then the jump is there.   He seems to be getting better at timing the jump.

Dandy was exhausted after the lesson, so I figured I'd give him a few days off.  Unfortunately, another winter storm was coming Thursday night, so I got the car running and went down for a quick ride Thursday evening.  I was lucky, because there was only one other person riding in the indoor, a rarity for a weeknight.  I didn't ride him too long, but we cantered for most of the ride.  Of course, he didn't miss a single lead.  Isn't that just typical? When the pressure was off and no one was watching, we did it just right. 

I'm heading out to go riding in a few minutes.  I'm going to work on cantering and using an indirect rein, so I'll be ready for Wednesday's lesson.  I probably will have to ride indoors since it's been snowing a few days.  Even if it has melted, it gets pretty slick and squishy in the outdoor arenas.