Anyway, we made it.  I had to pat myself on the back for my
perseverance and good fortune to get in the clinic.  I was
honest to start with, I told Steffen that I was an amateur
riding only 3 hours a week, and had no stamina.  He was very
considerate, kind and encouraging.  We did nothing fancy,
but we still worked on a lot.

Steffen picked out all the faults in no time.  I was good at
showing them. :-b.  Though most of the problems I knew
already, I didn't know some of them were severe and
basic, and must be fixed right away.  That was a
significant wakeup call.  Of course, I didn't know how to
fix them either until this lesson.

The outdoor warmup area was sloppy, so we couldn't warm up,
and my stud muffin thought he was going breeding and was
constantly looking for mares.  Both of us were quite tense,
so the walk was the most horrible I had ever experienced
with him. Steffen taught me how to improve it, and I was
surprised that he wanted me to make sure his tempo was slow; he
said it was more important to keep the rhythm.  He asked me
to slow the horse with half halts, a bit of rein aid, and
immediately move my hands forward to keep the neck long.  He
also said the anticipation for upward transition that I
asked the list a while back was a result of a walk that was
too fast.  He basically said that we misinterpreted "busy"
walk.  He said we should make the horse busy when he was
behind the leg aids, it was not to keep him going fast.

Also, he really wanted me to fix the hop into trot
transition from walk.  I was totally mislead by another
clinician's (somewhat casual) comments on the hop - "Wow,
passage preview." "Uphill jump into the trot..."  Steffen
said it was considered a small canter step, and that was not
acceptable.  We practiced how to apply aids more gradual and
subtle from a slow walk, so the transition would be smooth.

Of course, he got me to fix my leg positions as he did with
some other riders too.   This I've known for a long time,
but never really wanted to endure the pain to stretch my
legs back, especially when my horse seemed to respond to my
aids just fine.   However, he explained that it was not only
for looking good, but it would be 5 times more effective for
applying precise leg aids, especially for more difficult
movements.  I'm now determined to do it.  Steffen's leg
position is certainly incredible.  It's like always fixed in
a perfect position.  You can't even see him applying aids.
We also practiced a lot to keep the horse straight, and when
I mentioned the horse usually got stiff on the right side
and the back stopped swinging when he was tense, he had me
practice leg yielding to the left to loosen him up and get
him to step more under himself.  He said we should be more
confident and creative with the rein aids, not just fixed in
one place.  I thought I probably did too much with the reins
at home, and was trying hard to be quiet, so it was nice to
hear that we should keep the reins lively.  He said counter
flexing a few steps  was good for my horse to get him think
about going straight.

Several auditors came to thank me for the lesson after my
first ride for showing something they could understand and
really apply to their riding.  OK, I guess I'm a good
example of the "don'ts" for lower level riders.  I was
actually feeling numb in that lesson, probably a side-effect
of being tense myself. I didn't feel nervous in particular,
my heart was not beating any faster, but I felt quite
peaceful and remote from the actual surrounding somehow.
Very strange feeling :-)

The second lesson was a shorter one for me because Steffen
was to ride my horse.  I felt more confident and felt I rode
a bit better with my leg position; he didn't bug me with
it.  He praised me for using the counter bend to straighten,
and applying additional forward aids at the exact right time
to correct the horse.  When I got off my horse, he said that
I accomplished all the things he wanted me to do in the
lesson, which I knew wasn't much, but I was very pleased to
hear that.

Steffen rode my horse to try what my horse could do.  It
was incredible to see how animated my horse could be with
some piaff and passage steps (or at least their likes).
There was a sequence that the horse was trotting with hooves
over a foot off the ground with hind legs almost kicking the
tummy when he applied the whip on top of the croup and
probably some invisible leg aids too.  Then my horse blew up
:-P ...yikes... and he was a really bad boy; he didn't know him;
he didn't want to work, and was whirling, kicking the hind legs 
side ways, throwing his head up, hopping with random 1-tempis 
(to my surprise, very clean too :-). 

Steffen's seat position was totally not affected by the horse flying
around.  He just kept on working until my horse listened to
him again, and he praised and pat him as soon as he quieted
down. He tried some large pirouettes, medium trot, and
canter half passes, which were easy for my horse.  When
Steffen hopped off my horse, probably seeing my very
apologetic look, he just smiled and said something like, "It
was Ok, he had some stallion attitude.  That's normal; just
keep working through it, don't even punish him.  I am happy
he completely gave that up at the end."

I watched some other lessons.  With one horse that was
behind the bit, Steffen stressed the long and stretching
with the nose forward.  BTW, he was able to ride my horse
with fairly nice upper level frame with pretty long reins,
and he didn't ask me keep shortening my reins, and I hope my
trainer took notice of that ;-); she was there as my backup
in case I fainted and fell off the horse, or completely
chickened out.  With an upper level horse, Steffen demanded
the horse to be round and deep  in all the movements, and
his nose should not stick out; he mentioned that for every
horse it would be different as it totally depended on the
horse.  He also stressed that we must get a reaction from
the horse whenever we applied an aid.  "Make a difference!"
He said that a lot.  He also nagged the riders who nagged
their horses with spurs, and said we must be fair to the
horse if we chose to wear spurs.  He said we must keep our
toes forward and spurs away from the horse when we didn't
mean to use them.  (Whew, I didn't wear spurs.  My horse
doesn't really need them.  Steffen seemed to be satisfied
with how quickly and a big difference I could make with just
some calf aids.  My horse usually has too extreme a reaction
- like the hop to trot :-), so I have to be even more subtle.

I'm very glad that I rode in the clinic.  It was a great
experience and more importantly confidence booster.  I
certainly can't compare to the upper level riders there, but
now I know that I can ride in at a strange place with my
horse safely, that I don't mind over 100 pairs of eyes
watching me bumbling around because I really want to learn.
It was certainly wonderful to have a very supportive
instructor, so I didn't have to run home crying and hide for
another 13 years.  I look forward to riding with Steffen
again, and hopefully I will have fixed my basic problems,
such as stamina and leg positions, and we can try the
collection and pirouettes, that we already started playing a
bit at home.

Sorry, my rambling is very long, but I guess you can see
that I'm really excited about this.

Until next time,