Schooling - does it have to be boring?

I have never been a huge fan of schooling, although, I think I am beginning to enjoy it more now.  I didn't really enjoy going around in circles, lessons were better as I wasn't the one trying to think of things to do.  Schooling my own pony though I found dull.  Over the last few months, as I have started schooling Basil again, I have encountered the same problems.  I struggle to think of interesting things to do to keep my attention.  However, I am fully aware that practise makes perfect and that actually if I record our progress I will be inspired!

Obviously I have my aims, which for February are as follows:

• Calmness, 
• Rhythm, 
• Suppleness, 
• Consistency of bend on left rein, 
• Halt transitions, 
• Trotting poles, 
• Continue to canter single poles, 
• Turn on the forehand.

However, not all of these aims actually give me exercises to do whilst working on the aims.  I wondered if everyone else has the same difficulties I do.  So I thought sharing some of the exercises I do, some that are from my lessons, some from books and some from magazines I might inspire you too!

Starting with the simple ones, which most of you will do if you have lessons or school regularly ..... these are exercises I have been doing with Basil recently.  Please excuse the drawings! 

We do the 20 metre circles in walk, trot and canter.  The canter does sometimes get too fast and I find Basil gets quite strong.  We are working on picking up our canter whilst on the circle but not on the track, we are not as consistent at getting the correct canter lead when not on the track though! 

 

The serpentines we only do in walk and trot at the moment, in the last 2 or 3 weeks we have been working on halting when on the centre line when in walk.  I hope to move on to trot to halt transitions at some point!

The changes of rein on the diagonal we do in walk or trot, these are generally pretty good and I do manage to keep Basil relatively straight.

I have been doing these exercises for a long time and desperately need some new ones - so I have found some and I will share them next time!

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Until next time!

Jo