Lesson With Juan Matute

Yesterday we took Nico down to IDA to have a session with Juan Matute, Juan is a former member of the Spanish Olympic team and has been credited with working with multiple world class horses including Fuego (whom I assume everyone remembers from WEG) I had come down to watch him work horses before but definitely much neater to watch him work with your own horse, Crystal Kroetch also brought her gelding Lymrix and Megan Lane brought Lieran her very talented young horse.  He starts the session with the rider off and the horse in hand and then puts the rider back on at the end and works with both.  Was very very interesting to watch him work in hand, he was firm but patient and very clear about what he wanted and getting the right response, I noticed that he really followed a very disciplined procedure to get the desired results and it definitely showed.  So much to learn from watching him, he has amazing timing and also body positioning (when to change positions for transitions etc) as well as the connection and half halt he is able to achieve from the ground and a very good balance of keeping the right kind of tension (positive tension without ever letting it boil over), in a very short amount of time he had Nico's piaffe looking incredibly regular and in an amazing balance, after that I got back on and rode for about 15 mins and he felt incredible, we worked transitions from halt to piaffe to halt then piaffe to passage and back to piaffe with Juan still on the ground assisting, really was a fantastic learning experience!