Hey Annaliese:
I don't think you sounded defensive at all!
But I understand, completely, the need to clarify where you two are, what you've done before, what you understand about her...I think that's very helpful to read, and think that as we get to know each other better, our answers get more finely tuned in terms of where people and their horses are. The first couple of months I was posting, I got thoughtful answers (of course!
) but people didn't always know enough about us to understand the complexity of the question. Does that make sense? I could always find something useful/helpful in the answers, but I find that when I ask now, a little under a year in here, the folks who've been following my journey have a truly brilliant way of zoning in on exactly what I need, because they've read so carefully about how we're working together, and know our history better.
(And just for the record, I didn't think that you two were anything but lovely, even-tempered, competent partners!)
For me, one of the really interesting aspects of making this committed shift into a different dynamic of finding consensus with my horses is that it does open up opportunities for them to actually question (or challenge), things that they haven't necessarily challenged in the past -- and while splendid in the big picture, I think it can also be legitimately cause of some head scratching and heartburn..."but we used to be able to do this?!?"..."Are we now totally reductionists?" "Will I soon be at the point where all I can do effectively is throw hay to them???"
And I'm with you on the wondering about connection and the bit and the insistence by many in the traditional dressage community about its innate, unchangeable interplay. There's actually a great conversation about that very question here:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2073if you've not seen it.
(Actually, it's there even if you have seen it...silly way of putting that!)
I was working with a trainer for several years who was really committed to the idea of connection, and was willing to try and help us find it bitless (even while being quite certain we'd never get past a certain point without a bit). She believed firmly that I needed to exert a lot of rein to get Stardust to balance -- that he couldn't find it on his own, and it was my job to hold his head so I could try to pull his entire body into balance. This was honestly felt, and was about trying to do the best for us. Except that it didn't work! We battled with this for several years, and his sense of balance didn't get any better.
Now, after working almost unilaterally on the ground, mostly at the walk, doing the lightest versions of some of the ground exercises here, I'm starting to see a horse who moves out at liberty almost always in balance -- which was something he rarely did before. (Should have been a clue, huh, that he couldn't balance himself without a rider -- why should he be able to balance himself with a rider? This actually was one of the things that sent me in search of AND -- the longer I thought about it, as a dancer who'd done a lot of partnering work, the less it made sense to me -- if I'm partnering with another human dancer, I can certainly knock them off balance if I do stupid things with my weight and energy -- but I can't physically pull them into balance if they've not already got it!)
So -- anyway, I think that this way of looking at bringing a horse into balance is deeply ingrained in a lot of the dressage community. And for some horses, it may well work. But for me and Stardust, it meant a whole lot of really frustrating circles until we both wanted to bite something, with no real change in his abilities!
And I laughed out loud at "expectation land." Oh, boy, it's a land I know well and visit often!
And I don't think you need to be doubtful of your own skills and knowledge at all -- as Karen said, your heart knows best. I actually am just coming out of a phase where I decided that I didn't want to hear what any trainer might have to say about what we were doing because I felt like my guys and I needed to find our own center first, before we started looking at other opinions -- as I'm feeling more grounded with that, I'm beginning to look outwards again, feeling like I'm better equipped to decide if what others are doing/saying makes sense to me, rather than just feeling like I need to accept what they're teaching because they obviously know so much more than me...this has been one of the most important aspects of our development to date, I think.
Best,
Leigh
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!), but I wanted to clarify where we were. Not superstars, but both solid, good, well trained ladies. 
