Keeping the weight off the shoulders

A session in the school today with Remy,  working in walk, concentrating on keeping the softness and mobility in the jaw and relaxation through the neck. I've been concentrating too much on the mobility of the inside rein and not enough on obtaining and then keeping  the acceptance and mobility on the outside, so also wanted to work on this. He's really starting to lift into the reinback, so I decided to try this to take the weight back and then try to keep the balance into the walk on.
After warming up on a long rein, I took up the rein and concentrated on asking for the release at halt, into reinback and then walk on, trying to keep him light and round, accept and stay soft on the outside rein, not overbending the neck but with slight inside flexion.I wanted him to keep his back end underneath him, and most of all, not lose the balance to the shoulders. I worked in a very slow walk, really asking him to maintain his own balance and use his back end. This seemed to help keep him soft, and after a few repetitions of halt/reinback/walk-on, I worked him like this on the long side, let him stretch out a little on the short side before bringing him back slowly again up the long side. I then allowed him to extend his neck a little more, giving him more rein and he settled into a lovely soft contact, stretching down and out without falling onto his shoulders. I'm going to use this again as I think he really understood what I wanted of him and was soft and relaxed and very mobile by the time we finished the session.

I took Bonbon in the school to continue our lunge training. Working at walk to get her attention with relaxed inside bend, moving the walk along to get a good length of stride, keeping her attention if she wanted to look outside and eventually she offered the trot quite calmly. I kept the trot for a few revolutions until she started to relax and then asked for a walk transition. We repeated this several times and then changed the rein and did the same.  I'm pleased with her, I think she's realised that it's ok to trot and as long as she's relaxed and I've got her attention, she stays focussed and doesn't worry about it. It was a good place to finish the session so resisted the temptation to ride her, but I really did want to!