Chessington 16

22nd July 2010

Chessington Equestrian Centre, Chessington

So today was my first group lesson at Chessington, and I had been really nervous about it since I first started riding lessons again two months ago. I hadn't ridden in a group lesson since I was 14 (a long time ago!) and wasn't sure of the etiquette and also didn't really know the movements. I can handle a 20m circle, but a reverse half-circle? WTF? But in the event, it was absolutely fine, and I should probably moved up to it ages ago to speed up my improvement. Having watched the lessons so many times after my private lesson, I was more familiar with the movements than I'd realised, and as Steve knew I was unsure, he took time to explain it and make sure I'd understood. Plus I was at the back so I'd seen everyone else do their bits before it was my turn. Except for the main bit where the back (me!) peeled off to do individual bits first. But even then, we'd done it a couple of times as a group and it was fine. I really really enjoyed the lesson, and think I'll really benefit from riding hard for an hour rather than the 30 minutes of the private lessons. I was on Champ, a horse I'd not heard of before, and was initially quite worried about as I'd been expecting to ride Patchwork, who is as good as gold and comfortable to sit to without stirrups! Champ was a bit smaller than the usual ones I ride, maybe only 15.3hh, but I actually felt really comfortable on him. He was lovely to ride. Slow in walk, in fact lazy in general, but did move forward when asked, but need to be ridden constantly. We started off trotting circles from E and B as a group, then individually with a canter coming out of the circle to the back of the ride. This is where I first hit a hurdle with Champ, as when the horse in front of me moved off the track to circle, Champ just stopped dead and didn't want to move. I'd not been anticipating it, so it took a few seconds to get him going again, but for the rest of the lesson I was prepared, and I'm pleased to say that was the only time he did it, despite been ridden away from the rest many times. After we'd had a breather, we took away stirrups and then rehearsed the individual ride a couple of time. A reverse half circle from M then across from H to F and a circle at A, all trotting for now. I was to go first, as I was at the back and peeled off from the ride at M. Champ was a bit wobbly heading in a slightly different direction to the rest of the group, but I was expecting problems on the half circle when he would be going away completely from them, but he was really good. I made sure to ride him into the corners and inclines properly and he was so lovely to sit to at the trot that I felt I could have carried on forever. Which was good as we were trotting as a group without stirrups for a long time while we each went through the exercise - I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow. Then another breather when we got our stirrups back, and repeated the exercise mostly in canter, trotting on the rein change. Again, it went quite well. Finally, to round off the lesson, we all went over a couple of jumps, starting with crosspoles, then on to an upright. Champ was really sweet, and although I'm still out of practice with jumping, having only done it again on Tuesday, I'm looking forward to doing more, rather than getting nervous as I usually do. In fact, I'm not getting nervous about much now with riding. My confidence has gone from zero to competent in the last two months. Now I just need to get my technical ability to match.