Now that Pinochio has overcome his forward, head down fixation and fully agrees to move head high and nose forward, we face a new problem. He feels woobly and seeks to alleviate this problem in a support from my hand. And since at this time he gives more readily in the poll than in the jaw it happens that, at my demand of the jaw's release, he instead gives in the poll laterally and throws himself off the line of movement.
Stopping comes more readily. Standing poses problems. He is wiggling back and forth and sideways in search for his new center of weight.
And, he feels altogether different. While before he was like a train puffing along given rails, he now has all the turns and moves of the Haute Ecole in him. Only at this point he is too weak and woobly to execute them. We alternate day to day Beudant's crowd in the walk plus backing up with turns in a small trot plus stopping, standing still and doing regular and reverse pirouettes.
All is easy as long as the head stays up so I can shift his weight to the haunches. He remains remarkably calm, well-mannered and willing.
Today, a day later he has figured out how to halt. And back ups from a beautifully relaxed stand-still begin to be more and more fluid. Instead of throwing himself off from the poll he now wants to figure out how to support himself from the hindquarters. Going slower and slower he was coming close to doing the piaffe. He was not at all even or at easy in his sides. But he kept the rhythm and enjoyed himself.
