Lessons: Day 2

Today I have two more "P" words to add to the list: practice and progress. In today's lessons, Kris had me review and practice all of the things we worked on yesterday. By then end of today, I had made some progress:  my riding position was better, I did a little better at communicating with my horse, and I was doing better at posting while the horse was trotting. Today we worked a lot on turns by going in different patterns like half-circles, circles, and rectangles. We did a LOT of them. Kris said something I think is really important. She said, "It might seem boring doing this over and over, but it is important to do these things well before moving on to more difficult things." Your parents and I ask you to practice things like your math facts and spelling words over and over, which you might find boring, but you have to be able to do those things so we can move on to learning harder things. I can already tell that I am doing better than before. Even though I still make mistakes, things are improving. Am I a good rider yet? Definitely not. That will take lots of time and practice, along with the three Ps from yesterday: paying attention, patience, and perseverance.

Here are a few pictures from today:

The long part of the building on the left side of the photo is where the indoor arena is.
There is also a space by the arena with benches and stools where people can sit and watch lessons. 

This is Sabre. I rode him for one of my lessons today. 

No, I am not responsible for Sabre's beautiful braided mane.
One of the high school girls who volunteer here braided it right before my lesson.