Destine for blues

That basically describes my pony in 3 words! We had a fantastic lesson last night. Its nice that right when I start feeling discouraged about our progress (or lack there of in my opinion) we have a lesson and get great feedback on how she can see big improvements from the previous lesson. I had talked to her a little about our show plans for this year and she agreed that we should just jump in and start out showing 1st level. Knowing that, we worked on some elements from the first level tests that we havent done much of such as lengthenings (both trot and canter). We really havent done any of them at all so it was super encouraging to find out that he has rather nice canter lengthenings and she believes that we will get good scores for them. His trot lenthenings were much harder for him and we never got a really nice one but it was our first time really working on them. He really kept wanting to canter. These were actually really hard for me because I kept wanting to hold him, back because I could feel him wanting to canter, when I really just needed to let him go and correct him if he cantered and try again.
One thing that we are going to work on is half halting him. Not my whimpy half halts either! Overall I just need to become more of a rider and not as much as a passenger. Even though I dont just sit up there I am more passive in how I ask him for things. A lot of our "problems" in other areas all go back to getting him to really sit and push from his hind end. We had some really good moments especially in our transitions, which have been hard for him, throughout the lesson when I really prepared him well and gave him a strong half halt to rock him back onto his bottom so he could, in Marys words, wind up the spring so that he was able to do that work being asked of him. Once we can establish this then our leg yields should improve also, which is one thing I have been worried about!
A couple things I need to work on are keeping my toes forward (must be a jumper thing!!) and keeping my knees closed. Also, while tracking left I rely on my left hand WAY to much. Although he looks round and nice it is purely because I am using my inside hand instead of connecting him from my inside leg to my outside aids. I can tell a huge difference when I getting him connected using basically just my left hand or if he is truly connected from my outside aids. It is so hard to break old habits but I really try to take the advise and work on it between each lesson in hopes of improvements by the following lessons and not just working on them in my lessons. I am definitely going to be more demanding on both him and myself in our rides now that I know some weak points and some ways he has "talked" me out of harder work. After all.... we only have 2 months until the unveiling at our first show at first level!

Looking pretty while she was drying

Her face says it all!

Finally CLEAN!

 Sky got a bath today. It was actually sunny and decently warm for January and she has gotten herself caked in mud the other day when she had her blanket off. She had been needing a bath for a long time but I felt too bad. Now that I have my bucket heater I heated up some water and went to work! She was still cold by the end because I did have to use some cold water, but I just put her cooler on with another blanket on top and walked her around in the sun to dry her off. She was so soft and pretty when I finished!