refinement

I called my friend Jamie, who lives in Washington and asked for ideas and help on what to do next with Azania. I want to get more refinement and to be perfectly honest, I am unsure what to do next. I go outside to ride him. Walk, trot, lope, .......check....... whoa, .....check..... backup, right, left,......check. Then for some reason it all stops there in my head with him. I had started to ask for a little collection but I needed some exercises. I was getting tired of disengage and yielding the shoulder. I went on line and downloaded some exercises from Josh Lyons. They sounded easy enough....... NOT! So the idea is that each foot has a clock under it and that you want to be able to guide each foot seperate to each number on that clock. Each rein (plus leg pressure) is supposed to be able to guide each foot. So picking up the right rein I should be able to pick one of four feet and put that foot on a specific number. Hmmmmm. We tried it exactly how it said to try it first, with the opposite rein from foot. Azania did not get it. I did not get it much better. We worked. He wanted to speed up, then shut down, then buck me off. Since none of those worked he finally gave one little shift in weight of that shoulder and I released. Then rubbed his neck a lot and tried again. By the end of the session I could pick up the right rein to move the left front and the left rein to move the right front, but only to get a step on 3 oclock. The next day we do more of it but in the round pen. Bad idea. Azania is even more ticky and pretends to be spooky, shying at the neighbors and spinning so fast I feel like I have been to disneyland. We go back to work. Refinement is not Azania's strong point. He drops his shoulder so I almost smash into the roundpen rail. We have a two oclock and a three oclock on both front feet from opposite reins, a three oclock from both fronts from the rein on the same side and some sort of hind foot control. Confused yet??? So am I and so is Azania :) but we keep on trying.......