Camina 18

It was another good session with her today. She is standing to be saddled like an old mare that has had it done a thousand. I briefly lunged her at a walk then flexed a few times. I did the falling leaf with her and had her doing the squeeze game against the wall. Then I had her doing leg yields down the wall, well actually I started driving her with the lead line walking beside her hip and asking for a leg yield and she gave me some then just walked straight. Then we switched sides and did the same thing. She does better on the left side than the right but that will be worked on. then I started moving her down the wall in a 1/2 pass. She actually did pretty good, giving me a few steps in each direction.
Then I put the bridle on her and the lunge line and worked her about 10 minutes. I shortened the rein so that she would start seeking contact on the bit. But I didn't have it short enough. She didn't really seek it. Though she is carrying the bit a lot better and not fighting me to put it in her mouth. Afterwards, I took the line off of her and worked her at liberty, circling her, disengaging her hindquarters, moving her shoulders, etc. She was sticking right with me. The last 20 minutes I rode her around just working on getting her to follow her nose, changing directions, going in large circles asking her to flex a little. We did some stops, disengagements, even moving the shoulders some. She kept wanting to go to the area where we come into the arena. That is where people have given her treats and there are some interesting things there. So I would let her go there and then make her turn, disengage, back up and so on and then go back to the middle of the arena, stop and rest. Then go back at it. I got her into some real good trotting on a circle and even down the wall. She is stopping well. She does have a tendency to want to go out her shoulder, especially if we are near the entrance, instead of following her nose, but we get it worked out and soon she will be moving out easy and following her nose. We stopped after a did some good disengagements and one rein stops.