ST Session September 7th

I analyzed our first session carefully. I decided to slow down and work on Karina's responses to forward-down only, because on the previous day she stretched her neck in the correct direction, but she wouldn't stay in that position - she lifted her head as soon as I removed the pressure. And so I did. I focused on that element only, and got stunning results. Though the session was even shorter, I achieved all that I had planned. Karina was eager to train and after some directions from me she stretched her neck forward-down and remained in that position for a while. Now it remained only to work on her staying in that position until I ask her to change it.

But before I started with that ST exercise, I took Karina on the longe line to walk over some cavalettis and poles. I wanted to do some warm-up before we were going to work on stretching. Though Karina spends all 24 hours in the pasture, I am still reluctant to make her stretch without some warm-up. It was probably a little silly of me, because in ST longeing only comes after you've done proper LFS while working in hand. And for now I cannot ask Karina to bend properly on the longe and to carry herself with ease, so I should stop longeing for now, and follow the steps of ST just exactly as I should. I know that I'm over-protective with Karina and that I should work on myself and my reactions as much as I work on hers. I keep on analysing recent training sessions as well as the older ones - I have notes, photos and videos, so there is a plenty of material to make a thorough analysis.

And when I watch Karina's longeing videos from June this year, I see much more freedom in shoulders, engagement in the hindquarters and bigger muscles of the haunches than a year before, so my work with Karina has not been entirely barren. But I should expect a quicker development and improvement, because she is not a young horse anymore and she was trained under saddle and in carriage, so her body should be well developed by now. And yet it is not... It is not. That's why I decided to try ST. And it seems to be working...