shy does sweat!

We had really been wondering if Shyloh produced sweat or not. After all her lessons, she had yet to break a sweat. Sometimes, she seemed to be on the brink of sweating, just not there yet. But today, sweat! And it was not even hot out. How did we (Beth) get her to sweat? Canter transitions!

I present. . .three minutes of canter transitions, with improvement!

Aside from the really good work Shy did and the sweat that it produced,  this was the first lesson where Shy visibly had several arguments with Beth. The lesson started on a bad foot. Shy was not wanting to work, she wanted to be outside with her herd. I don't think it helped that I had already tacked her up and did some in hand work for about 20 minutes and then untacked her, before the lesson. Shy probably thought she was free for the night. Wrong!

Shy kept stepping away when Beth tried to mount her, something she has not done since the first lesson. Beth finally made it in the saddle and Shy was ready to go! She had some nice bends and a nice trot going for a while. Beth also said she felt really good and felt rounded and relaxed quicker. And she let Beth post the trot on her, without having an issue with it!

But then, Shy got into her head that she did not want to listen to legs and tried to push back into Beth's legs. Beth stopped her and worked on disengaging her back end. This happened in each direction, but as soon as Beth let Shy know that her behavior was not going to fly, Shy straightened right out. I think Shy was testing her. And lost.

Silly Shyloh has been fooling us all along, having us think that she is super sensitive to pressure! When she is thinking about it, she does her scoot when given too much leg pressure. But, when she is concentrating on something else (like arguing), she has this amazing ability to totally ignore leg pressure!   

Other than that little argument hiccup, Shy was amazing once again! Beth remarked that Shy is incredibly smart and is retaining all the new stuff that she is being taught. Shy is is understanding what Beth is asking and doing her best to give it, but sometimes her muscles are not strong enough, yet, to hold herself. She is improving at a remarkable rate! (insert super proud mama smile here) Next step is to take it back outside, to help meet my trail riding goal. Once Shy is relaxed and more confident of herself, it will be my turn to get into the saddle!