Two Steps!

Today was a fantastic day!  I had a really great ride on Nico, one of those days where things really clicked, he felt in front of me and supple right from the beginning, it's such a great feeling when you first get on and pick up the reins and can just tell it's going to be a good ride.  His canter work is really starting to improve and the passage/piaffe work today was some of the best I've felt from him, he had two steps in the piaffe where he gave me more than he's ever given me before and actually totally surprised me how much he had in there all of a sudden, those moments where you feel your horse go out of their comfort zone to try and give you everything even for only two steps of brilliance, are what make all the hard work so worth it.  It's these subtle moments of dressage training that made me fall in love with this sport, as much as I am a competitive person and do enjoy showing it's the little victories in the day to day training that I truly live for, the moments where you really feel complete harmony with the horse under you.  Roz also had a very good day, she is learning how to use herself differently now, learning how to carry much more, especially in the canter, she's such a quick mare that she actually has to slow down a bit and take more time in her strides in order to use her joints to carry, this is such a different ride than Nico whose steps I'm always trying to make quicker so that he gets more push off the ground and articulation through the hindlegs and back, they're really polar opposites in their way of going and yet both very athletic horses and I love riding each of them and think it's a great challenge to ride two completely opposite type horses everyday.  So that was my great day, tomorrow the horses have a well earned day off, so I'll be doing the usual day off things, picking up grain from the feed store, watching a few of the other riders have their lessons and cleaning up the trailer.  On a non-horsey side, read a great article someone shared on Facebook the other day, link is as follows: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/the-power-of-introverts-a_n_1229320.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false
As a person who is most definitely an introvert I really enjoyed this article and how it explains the misconceptions about introverts, particularly the part that talks about how introverts are not anti-social but differently social as well as the explanation of the distinct difference between someone who is an introvert and someone who is shy, I've always been annoyed when people use the term shy as I think it has such a negative tone to it, people can be quiet and reserved without being shy, anyhow for those who are introverts or know introverts it's a good and informative read, that's all for today:)