Dressage lesson with Sanna Siekkinen: Hands

Mum and T (Basse's lease rider) have been having lessons with Sanna, our neighbour who owns the riding school across the road for a couple of weeks, and since mine and Ville's timetables didn't match this week, I decided to go and crash their lesson. It's been fascinating watching their lessons for the last couple of weeks, it's all about body mechanics and how to get your body in sync with the horse's, and to lessen your body from affecting the horse's natural movements. Sanna is now a qualified Method Putkisto Peak Performance teacher, as well as a riding teacher, so her lessons aren't just about learning to ride.

Autumn is here! Rain coats on, and fleece rugs on...

For me, the lesson was all about my hands. How the hands can help the horse, or how your hands can also be incredibly detrimental. It was very interesting to have a lesson based solely on how your hands move, and I hope that I can carry on working on my hands and hopefully see more positive changes.

Had an exciting Kingsland delivery yesterday

I've always thought of hands moving with the horse going clockwise in a circular motion, but here I sometimes end up doing half halts backwards which slow down Vallu. This time, I had to think about moving my hands in a circular motion forwards and up so anti clockwise. This turns my half halts in to upwards half halts, and my hands are going forwards so that there's no accidental backward pressure which could end up causing Vallu to slow down. After the lesson I realised how much less leg I'd had to use, and Vallu was flying forwards! Thinking about my hands moving this way also seemed to improve Vallu's contact (he was so much softer in the mouth) and also made him able to move his shoulders much more, so we ended up getting much more front leg action and freedom in his movements. Like I said, it was all very interesting.

Awkward post training no make up photo