Fly (ing Change) like a G6

Renvers

Well. Dare I say it.
The flying change has been installed.

I started this whole ugly annoying horrible enlightening process ... ummm ... back in March? I knew it would be ugly. And it has been. But the last few weeks we have really made progress and within the past 2 weeks we have gotten a flying change (clean) 100% of the time. Granted, they weren't all pretty - aka they were accompanied by a buck or kicking out - but he CHANGED.

Today I do believe people in Ohio may have heard of shrieks of "GOOD BOY!! YOU ARE SO SMART!" after we nailed one particular change. Canter lengthening across the diagonal ... collect before the corner .. and change. It was straight. Prompt. Clean. NO buck. My jaw must have hit the dirt. "Did that just happen?" I asked myself before making a big stink out of it and immediately putting Hampton away for the day.

Leg yield. LOVE the swishy tail!

Here is how our changes used to go:
Me: Half halt. Please make your canter more jumpy.
Hamps: Ok, can do, captain.
Me: Canter across diaganol ... half halt ... switch legs in a dramatic fashion to new canter ...
Hamps: Uh, wait, what?
Me: Smack with whip "Do something!"
Hamps: OMG you are beating me! Jesus! ....kicks out and/or bucks.

.... scattering of legs and dust ...

Sometimes he would switch in front. Sometimes nothing would happen at all.

Then it turned into this:
Me: Half half. More jumpy canter please.
Hamps: Ok ... errr are we going to do that thing when you smack me? ...
Me: Jump jump, switch legs, SCHMACK!
Hamps: f*ck lady!! I knew it!... bucks ... scampers ... but changes!

Today:
Me: Lets lengthen the canter.
Hamps: Got this.
Me: Before corner, half halt, collect, jump!!
Hamps: I can do that
Me: Half halt, switch legs
Hamps: I bet you want me to switch my lead, don't you. (clean change).
Me: You are the smartest horseh ever!
Hamps: I know this.

A big part of me wants to keep doing changes because it is SO FUN! But I know that I need to back off until October when we will be done with our shows. I still need miles at Second Level and don't want to get burned if he thinks he needs to change during counter canter. So I will back off the changes for a bit. He won't forget about them, now that he understands what I want.

I'll write another post about the various exercises I have used to help install the flying change.

So for those of you learning changes - keep at it. Ride through the ugly. It will get better!