Showing at The Kentucky Horse Park is a dream for a committed competitor like Cissi Emillson. She planned, adjusted, readjusted, and finally worked out a way to afford to take me (her trainer) and a groom with her to help with all aspects of horse care, prep, travel, and coaching at the competition.
Avoiding Chicago and aiming for a horse overnight location took us off the turnpike and on some roads that truckers must have really loved. There were millions of them on Tuesday, the 31st of September, 2021. My knuckles were white!
But we arrived Successfully on Wednesday and schooled just a bit after we settled in. Blazing Angel (Ava) was amazing. Unphased by her long, solo trip, she was light as a feather as Cissi was reminded by her coach, Julie Penshorn, to pretend she was trotting over high cavaletti and get that horse off the ground.
Kellie Cottrill, our official groom, Stephanie Neumann, and Mae Nies were there to join in the fun. We had good food, good shopping, and a lot of walking as we watched the advanced riders compete, and walked the course many times.
Cissi Emilsson grazes Blazing Angel
Thursday was dressage. While we were happy with Ava’s extremely consistent and very accurate test, we wanted a bit more power from behind and uphill carriage for the ride to be Cissi’s best. That said, she came up with a 21.1 which was the best score of the day and ended up being the second-best score of the entire competition. So, we were quite thrilled. A special comment from one judge was, “The most harmonious test I’ve judged all year.” The other judge gave her two 9s on the collectives, one being on position and seat — quite a feat riding dressage in a jumping saddle!
The next day was cross country. We were moderately confident since the course looked easier than Otter Creek where the pair had already been very successful.
Ava had been pawing in her stall, very unusual for her, and her gut was a bit quiet, so I was grateful for an opportunity to get lost strolling around. Finally, her gut sounds returned. She had never looked stressed, but I was relieved the systems looked good for this big day.
Dressage test
Sure enough, Ava was awesome! Just a couple of weeks before, we had found some magical nuances in Cissi’s ride that really helped her with the braking department, and her ride was easy.
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Moving on to show jumping was the most stressful. I had to take Ava for a long walk since my nerves were getting the best of me and I was determined not to contaminate Cissi’s brain, which was very clear.
It wasn’t until 7:30 that night when Cissi’s turn came. Being in first place of the 53 competitors in her division was a pretty big deal since to even qualify for this show you had to be among the top horse/rider combos in the country at this level.
In the warm-up Ava wasn’t on top of her game. She even took down a couple of fences pretty hard. I had set them as high as the rules allowed and pressed the standards tight together so hopefully, if she hit it again she would get a big rap and then go clean in the ring. That’s exactly what happened!
The second-place gal took down a rail, so Cissi had a little over 5 points to lose to move down from first place. That could be a rail and a couple time penalties, or two rails down. I will say, watching that stadium round my heart was in my throat! Ava was jumping well, but Cissi was too slow! Very careful was good, but too slow could cost her the win if she took a pole down.
Ultimately she crossed the finish line with 3-time faults which translated to 1.2 additional penalties to add to her score of 21.1. So she ended on 22.3 and second place was 26.5.
Next year the American Eventing Championships will be in Montana. Hopefully, we will be able to go again! Happy riding!
Do you really need to “close your hand” in that half-halt or downward transition? Emphatically NO!
Lovely expression of a horse who would come back with a squeeze of the leg and use of the tummy muscles.
Downside of closing your hand
By closing your hand you take away the horse’s attention from your other body parts that hopefully are doing some things that are much more important! I’ve noticed when a student resorts to the hand, the horse forgets she has ever used a leg or her stomach muscles. It’s like that hand gives the horse a license for Alzheimer’s on any other topic than what is felt on the bars of his mouth. Probably because the hand is what I call a gross aid. It’s useful and important often, no doubt. It’s just not any part of a truly beautiful half-halt. See previous articles for more help on how to not use your hand.
A Half-halt needs legs!
For example, your legs are gently or firmly applied in a half-halt so the horse knows to step under with his/her hind legs. You need an increased leg aid to skip a gait — for example, the transition from trot to halt needs more calf than the transition from trot to walk.
Use your gut!
A half-halt needs core stability and a change from what is your normal following motion. You use your core all the time in riding, but to be felt as a half-halt the horse needs to feel you change.
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Use your head
A half-halt is about your thinking…”Do I want to continue in this way? Do I want to slow down? What would that feel like? Can I envision that? Do I want to transition? What does the new gait feel like? Do I want the horse to step under? How does my body tell him to do that? What will I feel when he does it?” And so on. Without your thought, the half-halt is messy and unclear.
Welcome to mastery of mystery!
Riding well is a wonderful mysterious journey. Give it time. Ride on the lunge line until you feel the nuances of the changes in your body with out having your hands to help out. Push your hands into the neck when not on the lunge so you don’t cheat! Hold on to the front of your saddle so you can’t pull. I like to hold my strap and tuck my fingers under the saddle pad like in this picture.
Holding the strap different view
Experiment with looser fingers (not open, just soft– holding baby birds or baby hamsters as an image might help you). Have fun discovering how much your horse feels other body signals.
A note of caution
Nothing works if the horse is behind the bit. As much as you can, ride TO the bit. If you can’t see the bridle behind the ears, he’s behind the bit and your aids won’t work. Good luck!
This horse shows his power is coming from behind. Look at her hands!
Notice the feeling of energy and forward desire you see in this picture. Though the nose could be a tiny bit more out, I think this is a very good example of a correct stretch
The stretching trot challenges your correct basics. It is a hard movement to do well at training and first levels where it is required. It will evolve as you and your horse develop your skills, and you’ll discover your third or fourth level horse really has the hang of it!
Understanding how a rider’s body works is important in this movement. Simply, each body part has a job.
Good training means finding your core muscles. There is a lot to that, since you have a high core and a low core and all the stuff in between. Simply, a Pilates-type flexion of the deep muscles of the front and back of the spine (often you can find this by laying on your back and pushing your lowest ribs into the ground–then do a crunch). You’ll need to experiment with your horse, but most often, they’ll respond very readily when you get it right if they are going slowly enough to listen.
A student stretching. Here’s a great start. You can see she has widened her hands. This is a reflection of the lack of power from the hindquarters in this stretch. It takes a lot of practice to put these pieces together! Wide hands are a phase. Don’t worry so much that judges hate them. You’ll get through it with more throughness and power.
Then you have your lower legs! The calves, which normally are gently resting on the side of the horse, with loose thighs, are important accessory tools to the tummy. The core comes first and the legs offer support, plus, they help the whip make sense to the horse.
Yes the whip. If the horse is dull, he won’t have proper brakes.
These are the key ingredients. The horse has to believe that you can slow him with your body (legs and stomach) and you don’t need your reins. Then good things happen! But how can you do that?
The biggest challenge to fixing your riding, so you truly have brakes with your legs and seat, is NOT using the reins! Ah yes, I know. It’s so much easier to just tug, or squeeze those reins a little bit, but that really wrecks it all. Then, your horse will not learn to make a proper half halt which includes stepping under his body. Using the reins often blocks the hind legs. The horse will be reluctant to learn or will never stop from just your core muscles with a hint of leg if you cheat by pulling — even a little squeeze! He says, “Eventually she’ll just pull on me, so I’ll wait til then to respond.” I swear I hear them say that! They also say, “I’ll just wait to stretch til she saws my head down.” Yuck.
The high quality stretch insists that the horse reach for the bit. That means he has to trust the hand and have confidence that he can reach without being punished or blocked. He also has to be independent in his balance, not falling forward (due to the longer rein) and losing balance downhill. This is a big challenge for a young, unbalanced or imperfect horse and rider, and that probably includes most of us! The stamina of the person determines how viagra no doctor long the stiffness lasts. Another thing, spam controlling also is so easy. cialis 40 mg viagra online amerikabulteni.com A man cannot get rid of this nightmare easily as this condition requires a healthy and effective treatment. An infertile male could also be creating very little levitra 60 mg usually in stock sperm cells or very weak/immobile sperm cells.
Stretching trot. Another good example, but the connection is not as good as in the top picture.
As a horse gets more advanced, you can and should be able to see a higher quality stretching trot that continues to improve. So including a stretching trot at training level is possibly just an effort to make us feel like failures! Just teasing. But, recognize it’s hard, so don’t get discouraged!
Anyway, here’s an exercise for gaining control of the horse in the stretch. Start in the walk. The walk is the key to everything. I am not a trainer who avoids the use of the walk, though it is a very difficult gait to master. I think it’s a great speed from which to learn to stop!
First, use minimal rein to request a turn on the forehand. Go read my article on this blog for more about that. Use the leg in the back position and a touch with the whip to get a quick response to your sideways, very light aid. When the turn feels like it’s not at all going/falling forward, you have executed a proper turn and have the feel of a half-halt!
The leg is important in the half-halt, and the turn on the forehand will help you understand and feel how it works. When the horse turns properly, s/he will step under the body in such a way that the balance changes. You’ll feel the horse finally stop leaning on the reins and finally kind of back off the falling-down feeling s/he always gives you. This is success!
Now, carry that forward; the turn on the forehand becomes a slow walk with many turns on the forehand in it, meaning crawl forward and sideways at the same time. Soon, your horse will say, I want to stretch. When that happens,you will give the reins, and he will fall on the head once again (bummer). But never fear. Another turn on the forehand and another, and finally he backs off again. Then, you try to walk forward with this sideways crawl. Finally, low and behold that horse is stretching and not running.
I really love this picture of Sunshine and his owner Kelly Montgomery.
When you feel this, you will know more about what you want in the trot. You’ll essentially do the same thing, trot slow and a little sideways whenever you want to slow more, keep testing if you can give the reins without the horse crashing on the forehand and running off. Remember that if you don’t use the leg, you won’t educate your horse to its subtleties.
Another picture of the stretching trot. You aspire to an uphill balance. I think King is forging here, indicate that I don’t have enough uphill balance! I can see by my leg position that I’m moving him a bit sideways to improve that.
The FEI Instructor-Trainer Conference featured Olympians Ashley Holzer and Lars Petersen and FEI 5* Judges Gary Rockwell and Anne Gribbons, with Lilo Fore.
A Great Location for a Winter Conference
The warm winter sun of Loxahatchee, Florida was much appreciated by us Minnesotans as we settled in to watch the clinic. Frustrated by the poor map directions, I had a bad attitude to begin with and was prepared to be impatiently waiting for this conference to end!
Often I see things as a teacher and trainer that go unmentioned. This conference was refreshing! There was some excellent instruction, and I didn’t want to leave. I learned enough to make it worth the price of airfare, ridiculously expensive motel, and clinic cost. It definitely surpassed many of the others.
All that said, as I watched, I often wanted to say something that I believed was key, so I did spend some time looking for the duct tape for my mouth! With 47 years as a trainer, and teaching some of the same riders for 20 of those years, I do have some original thoughts and training techniques/skills. So, below is a bit of a summary of the training we received and some opinion followed by some tips for training your own horse. So, off with the duct tape. Here we go!
Throughness, a Common Theme
Throughness came up in every lesson since it is the aspect of dressage that’s particularly tricky, and yet critical. You see the word running alongside the USDF Training Pyramid since it is a consideration at every level. Here’s the USDF definition from the glossary of judging terms.
Lovely trot extension that is fancy and correct. Slightly too short neck. this is the same horse as in the picture below, and you can see a much higher quality of engagement here.
“THROUGHNESS/THROUGH An equestrian term which means the supple, elastic, unblocked, connected state of the horse’s musculature and a willing mental state that permits an unrestricted flow of energy from back to front and front to back (circle of the aids), which allows the aids/influences to go through all parts of the horse.”
You’ll find a better picture and description here.
So what does that mean? The work done at each level, beginning on day one, lays the foundation for all subsequent work. As throughness is enhanced, the horse is more able to push not only forward but upward, as he develops thrust and carrying power which results in getting pretty fancy!
What’s Fancy?
You can get fanciness without throughness, however, and that is one of the key problems we have with dressage. Without throughness we might as well ride Saddle Seat. We do see a lot of tight backs, instead of swinging backs, and non-parallel front and rear legs that are “fancy” rather than “through”. And, often it’s frustrating because the scores don’t always reward work that is more correct.
This pictures shows me riding one of those diagonals that can look really fancy, but isn’t through enough. Compare this one to the following two pictures. Note the hind leg is not up under my leg.
An interesting article on the topic is here. I agree with much of the writing, but the pictures and video still don’t show the best throughness. Yes, that’s because it’s a continuing challenge and it isn’t something you “arrive” at like a mountaintop, and because it’s hard! The journey is the key.
This student has done an excellent job of setting up Loki in this corner and he shows throughness as he comes on the diagonal. Not as much airtime as the one above, but the commitment to throughness in the training of this horse paid off. He went on to become terrific in his extensions as he continued his development and ended up at Grand Prix.This is more of a first-level lengthening, showing decent throughness. Note that the hind leg is actually angled more forward than the front leg. He is stepping well up under me. If I would have made his frame a tad lower, he might have had more shoulder expression, but he tended to not only bring his hind legs under, but also push them WAY back. I had to compromise a bit for the show ring that day. A lower frame made his hind legs trail behind him even more. He was at a stage of development where his “carrying ability” was lacking. That’s to be expected with First Level work. Working on throughness with this horse must have given him a strong foundation. He’s now competing at FEI, years later in his dressage career.Here is a student with a nice, parallel extension, that just doesn’t come uphill. You can see his nose is behind the vertical and his neck is highest at the third cervical vertebrae. This is a very common frame. In fact, most of the horses at the conference looked something like this in the neck. We know with this guy that when she gets the half-halt more prompt he comes up to the bridle and gets the classic and lovely neck position.
The Horses and Riders at the Conference
I want to take a moment to thank all participating riders and their lovely horses. I was impressed with their trainability, patience, and lovely gaits.
General Comments on Clinics
Teaching a clinic takes some different skills from usual riding lessons. It is a delicate art because you want to give the horse and rider a taste of what they need to feel — hopefully enough that they can find it again when on their own. You also have to consider the needs of the horse and take care not to frustrate him your exercises. (Because all the riders at the clinic were female, I’m going to use that pronoun throughout. The horses, mostly male, get the opposite.) Since you don’t have a long time with each horse and rider team, and often won’t have a follow-up opportunity, you need to be able to create a feel that the rider can reproduce. You also need to consider that the horse she rides when she gets home has already changed, since horse training is a moving target, and you need to provide something lasting. Furthermore, your goal should be to help not only the horse and rider but also the audience — and everyone in that group is coming from a slightly different perspective based on their previous learnings and level of knowledge/training.
The Format
For most lessons, one teacher started the lesson and another teacher finished it. Sometimes comments from the two remaining teachers were inserted as well. Questions were allowed when there was time. Here are a few things I observed.
Dressage political correctness
A couple of times Ashley bravely stepped outside the box and embarked on a training technique that might raise some eyebrows. For example: “Pull his head down!” she apologetically said once. Being afraid to experiment is a huge issue in our “perfect” dressage community. To be a creative instructor you have to invent, experiment, find new analogies and get on the horse occasionally to see what the student is feeling. Sometimes you have to get out of your equitation position for a while, in order to be clear to a horse or overcome training obstacles. Clinicians rarely take this risk. No clinicians did get on horses. I think Ashley’s apology was smart since she’d likely get crucified for this comment, but she could have avoided saying what she said this way, “Use an opening rein assertively until he lowers his head.”
Lateral Aids Are Key Basics
The use of lateral aids is known to be basic to training. However, we get impatient and move to diagonal aids as if lateral aids are an inferior method. I disagree. They need to be revisited often, especially when things are fundamentally broken. In the beginning, the rider training her horse should primarily focus on inside rein and leg. This was definitely taught by the masters. Look for it in Podhajsky’s book, “Horse and Rider”. I also read a lovely article a few years back by Courtney King-Dye (couldn’t find that today).
Taking the inside hand too far away from the neck isn’t necessarily a bad idea.
The opening rein keeps the rider honest with her seat. If you use it on the inside, and your horse falls in, you are most likely sitting too much to the outside. Possibly your outside hip is up. Clearly, your inside leg is ineffective. Often this is when the rider lifts up the inside rein or crosses the neck toward the outside. Bad ideas. Those methods make you the one doing the work and the hind leg of the horse doesn’t have to take responsibility for the horse’s balance. The opening rein requires the horse to stand up! It also displays most of the rider’s faults. Perhaps that’s why we don’t use it much anymore. It’s hard to get straight enough to use such an aid.
Two teachers in each lesson
When the first teacher succeeded in making a breakthrough or a significant change, and then another teacher came along to finish the lesson, it did not always go well. First, it broke up the flow. Furthermore, the second teacher had to be looking for the exact same thing, and often their slightly different perspective or teaching style could actually take away the good “feels” the rider had briefly experienced, and return the rider to the same mediocrity she had started with. Especially in the context of a clinic, with the inherent pitfalls I mentioned above, this was dangerous. A couple of times and I won’t elaborate because I’m going to be politically correct (lol!) I saw excellent progress ruined by the change to another teacher.
Who decides what to work on next?
When a teacher was working with a horse and rider and was then taking a walk break, the teacher often asked the rider what she wanted to work on next. This was a sign of respect for the skills of these advanced riders and is lovely “bottom-up” teaching. But the problem is, even good riders have many underlying issues that need to be addressed, and in many cases, they don’t know they have them. So, asking them what they want to work on next is not always the best way to really enhance their riding future.
What
are you thinking and feeling now?
You want your student to get the full benefit of YOUR training, so I usually ask, “What are you thinking and feeling now?” That question gets to what work is needed. For example, a rider will say, “I think I am too slow to react.” Or “My horse is feeling heavy in the bridle.” Or, “My half-halts aren’t going through.” “He’s not respecting my leg.” And there you go. Now you both know you’re going to work on transitions and impulsion while you convince the horse to let go of the rein with lateral work of some sort. If the rider says, “The feel is terrific! I have a nice connection and he’s more through than I’ve ever felt him.” Then you say, “Great! Let’s work on something that’s difficult for the two of you. Your goal is to keep what you already have that’s good, and we’ll use it in this way…”
Horses behind the vertical
As lovely as they were, nearly every horse was significantly behind the vertical, and not swinging in the back (I didn’t hear any teachers mention that). I did hear Ashley refer to the line of gut muscles that became visible when the horse was more engaged. Personally, I like looking at the swing in the back, but it can be hard to see, especially when the arena is dark. (It takes great lighting to see the back muscles shake/swing.) Let’s explore that for a minute.
What’s a swinging back?
“The springy motion that occurs when the thrust off the hind legs is transmitted through a stretched topline with trunk muscles that contract and release rhythmically rather than remaining either rigid or slack.” (USDF Judging Glossary of Terms.) It is a beautiful thing to watch as the muscles right behind the saddle seem to shake as the back works properly in conjunction with the key muscles involved.
Importance of the Psoas Muscles
I put a lot of attention on the psoas muscles of horse and rider. These stabilize the hindquarters (our hips) and put them into flexion. When the horse engages his hindquarters and “sits”, it’s like when you tuck your butt under. You are both using your psoas muscles.
3d rendered medically accurate illustration of the equine muscle anatomy – Psoas Minor3d rendered medically accurate illustration of the equine muscle anatomy – Psoas Major
What’s the difference between the loose swinging back and the line of flexion of the abdominal muscles?
This is a fascinating question and could help teachers and riders get more to the heart of the challenge of throughness. Using the abdominal muscles is critical, but, as with people, the stomach can hold while the back is relaxed. In fact, in order to relax the back, it’s helpful to use your stomach muscles as anyone who’s seen a physical therapist for back pain knows. This muscle reciprocity is reflected by a swinging back. That’s the stomach muscles and the back muscles taking turns.
Holding the entire back tight, as was happening in several of the horses, most often develops a weird topline where the lumbar muscles are overdeveloped. I call those muscles the “butt high” muscles. I wish I had a great picture of this. Essentially, it looks like the horse has muscles behind the saddle that belong to someone on steroids! Think of The Rock or Arnold Schwarzenegger. A hard muscle often isn’t a healthy muscle! Blood flow is restricted and problems will ensue.
Human Bodyworker Comment
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A friend who is a Rosen bodywork practitioner told me that “When people feel they have to do everything themselves, that the weight of the world is on them, they get really tight in that low back area.” That really fits with horses I think. Certainly, at this clinic, the horses I saw with overdeveloped lumbar area musculature had riders who didn’t seem to do enough to support the horse with their own core or to educate the horse about the importance of stepping under to distribute the strength demands.
Since horses are very similar to people in their musculature. I always tell my students, “Do what you want the horse to do. He will copy your body.” It’s so true! So, what do the best riders do? They are deft with stomach and back muscles, using each when appropriate, and amazingly able to isolate the muscles. Since the stomach side of your core and the backside can do different things it’s important that teachers, talk about the “core” with more in-depth descriptions and assign unmounted exercises to students so they can work on developing their sensitivity and strength. So, I’ll give you one.
The Rider’s “Core”
Unmounted exercises leading to a better half halt and sitting trot.
I have found that most of my control begins in the small muscles deep in the abdomen, the psoas major and minor.
Here’s a way to look for these muscles on yourself. Lay on your back with knees up and feet flat on the floor. Press fingertips deep into your abdomen, a little bit away from your midline. Exhale and gently press your low back into the floor. You’ll feel a contraction under your fingers. This is the psoas. Often doing sit-ups engages the rectus abdominis, a different, more superficial muscle. If your muscles bulge out when doing core work, you’re hitting superficial muscles. You must keep the tummy flat! Be careful even if you have an instructor helping you. I have had Pilates instructors who haven’t noticed that I was using the superficial muscles, so it’s important to do your homework and spend time with your hands deeply pressed into your abdomen to learn. It is important education for a rider.
Now move your hands more toward your thighs. Not too far. Breathe out and then very, very slightly lift one leg using the core muscles not the muscles on the front of the thigh. Lift from the knee (not the foot). You’ll now feel core engagement in a different dimension. These two areas are key. When you get good at this, try it standing up. You’ll see you can flex your stomach side of your core and not your backside. This is how you sit the trot. Books on The Alexander Technique and there are many more to help you gain control of this area of your body.
Improving the Half-halt
Do you really need your hands to half-halt?
A good teacher helps you find all these muscles and learn to use the correct ones. It’s not a sprint, it’s long-term learning and practice. But ignoring the importance of these muscles impairs your half-halt. In fact, without knowing exactly how to use them, you’ll never have a true half-halt and will always have to pull.
Please don’t squeeze that rein!
Most people don’t get a good education on what it takes to half-halt. It takes a huge commitment by both the teacher and the rider to learn this, and it takes persistence. Furthermore, you are misinformed by numerous articles on the half-halt that say you should use seat and leg and then squeeze the rein. My strong opinion, based on 47 years of riding research is, “YOU DO NOT NEED TO SQUEEZE THAT REIN TO HALF HALT!”If you do, the horse will learn that your seat and legs were meaningless and he might just as well wait until you pull to respond, because that’s when you’re serious about it.
Another idea for the half-halt is to begin by teaching a turn-on-the-forehand.
See my article on this site on that topic. Use an opening rein with an inside leg a bit back and an occasional tap with the whip if needed, to help you explain to the horse what you want. Use the wall in front of you so you don’t have to use too much rein. When the horse gets a good turn-on-the-forehand, and you’re not using your outside rein to stop him, you will begin to recognize there is a halt in that turn. You aren’t thinking about a halt, but you are doing one at every step so the turn can be on-the-spot.
Aids for the half-halt
Next, walk forward a few steps and then ask for the turn-on-the-forehand again. You will touch the horse with a tiny leg while exhaling slightly and engaging your tummy as you practiced above, and you’ll find he has stopped in preparation for the turn-on-the-forehand. Yay! Now do several walk to halt transitions with very light aids to sharpen your horse to exactly what you do when you want to halt.
When you half-halt, your horse should think, “step under with the hind leg.”
That’s because of your lateral aids in your training procedure. He knows he needs to step under with one hind leg to turn-on-the-forehand. When he does this, his back comes up a bit. Then he can feel your seat. I always try for one hind leg at a time, and eventually, you get both! You ultimately must keep the hind end under enough that the horse can feel your seat at all times, and that leads the discussion back to throughness. Committing to honest obedience to lateral aids really help with your horse’s ultimate balance since the horse takes responsibility for his own body.
The sweetest half-halt comes from tiny flexions in your gut and a bit of leg–increased only in more difficult circumstances like downward transitions from extended trot when it’s fair to squeeze pretty hard (especially as your horse learns).
I expect my students to get tired!
If you aren’t working on your own self-supporting system, you overburden the horse with your weight as I mentioned above. It’s amazing how much easier they carry the rider if the rider is carrying herself. Someone said, “The horse’s job is to balance and carry the load. The rider’s job is to be a good load to carry.”
Reinforcing the half-halt with forward aids
Ashley Holzer tried to address the half-halt twice. The most effective was when she had a rider insist that a half-halt go through. Interestingly, she apologized for teaching it this way. For me, it was normal, logical, and correct. She had the rider tap with the whip when the aid was ignored — during a down transition. I do that all the time, however, it’s often misinterpreted/misunderstood.
Misinterpreted but correct aides
More than once we’ve had a judge say (as my rider reinforced a half-halt with a tap with the whip) that her aids were, “confusing and inappropriate”. It was blatantly obvious that Ashley was on the right track as that horse finally came through, came up to the bridle, and made prompt down transitions with engagement. That’s a game-changer for that rider. Real education took place. I was delighted with her work on that horse.
Other Highlights
Developing the canter for the pirouette.
One of the riders complained that her horse was bad at the pirouettes. Consequently, that poor horse got to work on them every day. Ashley did a great exercise to break down the skills. She had the rider count the strides in a normal collected canter between two letters, like H and S. Then the rider would reduce the number of strides by going more forward between S and E. Then between E and V again the standard count, and then add a few strides to that count between P and K. So the horse got the idea of adjustability without the conditioned stress response he had on the line from H to X.
Lars also worked with this rider and it was refreshing to see him teach, as I also often do, the rider to almost get in a two-point position during the harder collection. This worked miracles in helping the rider become a better load to carry. She was inadvertently driving with her seat to such an extent that the horse was dropping out from under her.
Lars also taught my preferred method of downward transitions from the canter to the trot by bringing the inside leg a bit back and riding a little sideways off that inside leg (remember the turn-on-the-forehand?). The key is not, of course, to ride sideways. The key is to get that hind leg to step under so the horse can feel your seat and say, “she wants me to trot now.” Another benefit of this technique is it keeps you away from that outside rein which will very often drop his back in a downward transition.
The Rider’s Legs
One rider kept getting pulled out of the saddle because she was so tight in her knees and had no lower leg. No one mentioned the knees, but instead said it’s because she’s not using her back. No, she was flexing her back, but not her gut. She was leaning back much too far to have gut muscles engaged. Also, the lower leg is an anchor to hold you still against the pull of a piglet, not the knees. Many people who have too much arch in their lower back in the interest of getting a straight leg, have problems with knee gripping. Answer: get a saddle that allows for a more forward thigh, so you can actually sit and don’t have to stand on your thighs and knees. (I’ll write more about this later).
Pulling the leg back is not only something you DO, it’s something you FIND.
Don’t buy a saddle that forces your leg back too much. It ruins your ride because you are too tight in the knee. Horses need to breathe! Instead, you will find your leg comes back under you when the horse gets his back up. Then you are brought to the front of the saddle and your leg naturally settles into a loose, comfortable position under you.
Lower the Neck
Often I heard, “Get the neck lower.” Lars also often said, “To make the mouth quiet, it’s not the mouth. It’s tension in the back.” I think he was essentially looking for the neck to lower in order for the horse to get the back up and become more through. He said, “when the horse changes the neck, that means you don’t have the back. . . [in passage] think about getting him more to the bit and you get more lift [of the front legs].” So, using lateral work and softer hands while riding forward will help get more throughness.
One horse was particularly behind the vertical. The rider often had looping, loose reins. The instructors seemed to mainly agree that this was because the horse wasn’t connected/through. The mouth always got quieter as the riding and thoroughness improved. Lateral work such as half-pass what helpful for this horse.
The Rider’s Eyes
A common comment was, “Look where you are going.” Frankly, that is a problem waiting to happen if it doesn’t include more explanation. Yes, it’s important and true you need to look ahead, but most riders already sit to the outside of the saddle. When they turn their head in their butt goes more to the outside. Thus, when I rode with Linda Zang she often said, “look to the outside in order to sit to the inside.” I like to teach that that until the rider can sitin, then explain that the rider’s body has to turn differently in the hips and the shoulders.
Counter Canter With Counter Flexion
Another favorite Linda Zang lesson came up in this clinic. As I recall she said she learned it from Anders Lindgren. It is to bend the horse to the inside of the circle (away from the lead) in the counter canter. This helps the horse learn to balance on his own. A couple of teachers used this as well for improving the canter. I thought a nice lesson was when Lars took the 20-meter counter canter circle explained above, and then added a change of rein into a pirouette. After the counter canter, the pirouette gets much easier because everything is relative! The change of rein changes the working hind leg and takes the pressure on the real inside leg.
I liked a suggestion from Gary
Rockwell that the pirouette be ridden larger toward the end of the pirouette
when training it, so the horse doesn’t anticipate a small size and dive in,
thus turning the pirouette into a spin.
Head tilting
Much discussion was about the head
tilting horses do to avoid taking weight on a hind leg. In my experience, this
is a wonderful time to use an opening rein on the inside to lead the nose,
which is tipping out, while the inner ear tips down, to the inside. This also
forces the rider to sit straighter, another way to help the head tilt. Lars
encouraged using shoulder-in and renvers to change up which leg was working
hardest.
Summary
This Conference was far better than many I have attended over the years. I can see that the more modern teacher methods are finally taking hold in this discipline.
Old school teaching was often painful to me. As a rider in those days, I often felt put down. Yet I understand. It’s hard to be wanting something as a teacher, to see it in your mind, and not to be able to get the student to produce it! Frustration can lead a teacher to insult. Now, with Safe Sport and more knowledge, those days seem to be coming to an end.
Now, if teachers could just stop telling everyone a half-halt is seat, leg, and hand. Because the only thing people hear is “hand” and then it’s all over. I tell my students, “Once the horse knows you will pull to get something, they will always wait for the pull before they react.”
Thanks for reading. If you got this far, you are truly a committed rider and I’d like to meet you. Please follow me at http://www.sunbornstables.com
Holding the strap increases your safety when riding
Holding the strap attached to the D-rings, or better yet, to extenders on the stirrup bars and the D-rings, is not only a legal method of riding in dressage shows, it can be a life-saving method. It’s a lovely, subtle way to stay safe and gain effectiveness.
Holding the strap different view
Holding the strap prevents falls!
I used to fall off a lot! Yes, mostly I didn’t get hurt! However, I did get hurt enough to get my attention. I often wonder if I would have been able to prevent some of those falls if I’d been using my strap. But, in those days I was more of a believer in a snug thigh and knee and thought they would protect me. WRONG!
Closing the upper leg creates a block for the horse’s back (read about throughness). It prevents him from lifting it. Plus, it just pinches you up and off like a clothespin falling off a line. The safest part of the leg to use for staying on is the calf. Used with strong tummy muscles the calf also provides very nice brakes, which are handy to have when you are in danger of falling off!
Often horses can surprise us. Even the most broke show horse can have a “moment.” When that happens, you’ll be so happy you had your strap!
Holding the strap in the show ring makes you look good!
I’ve overheard people at shows wondering if they can hold onto their strap in the show ring. The answer, last I checked, was yes! You can use the strap at any point in your ride, and I find that when students (and myself) use the strap, their rider scores are better because 1) the judge can’t even tell you’re doing it if it’s done well 2) it stabilizes your hands and even your body so you look like you have a better seat than you really do. In the video below, I’m holding the strap with a piece of the saddle pad. This keeps my hand from coming off the neck. This position is very helpful if you tend to pull back and if you are trying to learn to sit the trot, or want to handle that extended trot better.
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Holding the strap creates discipline
When students are not holding the strap it’s easy to use an indirect rein, especially on the inside. This is common, but not correct in dressage. Indirect reins are actually, “indirect reins of opposition,” (go read any of the masters) and thus, “oppose” a hind leg. There is a problem with that: which hind leg don’t you need? I like having both under the horse, so using the inside leg, whip, and spur to convince the horse to stay out on the circle and step under his body is always a better idea than using the indirect rein. Holding the strap creates a boundary for the rider so he or she learns to control the hands.
How can you achieve an “equitation position” with your hands on the neck?
The answer I am going to give may be hard for some of you to swallow, but after 45 years of training horses and riders, I think it’s a good one! Here goes: When we learn to keep the hands an inch or two above the withers, we are learning how to ride a perfect Grand Prix horse with elevation and collection! So when you have a Grand Prix horse and an excellent seat, you probably won’t need your strap as much! But really? Is that your horse? I can site numerous examples of times I needed my strap on the Grand Prix horses I have shown.
A flexible point-of-view on hand position
Hands may need to be a variety of places in a given session with your horse. However, most often, your hands should be in a straight line to the bit, and most often we are riding green or unschooled horses, and our most important goal is stretching and relaxing them. The dressage training pyramid has rhythm and relaxation before collection, of course, so it’s appropriate to learn to keep hands down and not pull any direction. The strap is very helpful for that.
Getting a strap
You can buy straps at tack stores. Don’t get the ones with snaps. They hurt your hand and fall off when most needed! If you don’t have one, take a flash from an extra bridle and loop it through both D-rings and then buckle it. It will fit perfectly. Voila! A strap! Have fun. Experiment. Be safe!
The neck strap for jumping
William Fox Pitt, an eventer, shares his point-of-view about jumping neck straps in this article.
FEI horse, Sunshine, and owner, Kelly Montgomery demonstrate a lovely free walk. Note the active hind leg and soft contact. Throughout a horse’s training he should be able to do the things he learned as a youngster. We start at Training Level every day with every horse. Basics are always reviewed.
Training your horse to move away from the leg is fundamental to all your future work with your horse.
The work at the bottom of the Training Pyramid is critical to all the work at the top, so this article is about rhythm and relaxation, and how to improve them through effective leg aides.
When I train young horses, I introduce moving away from the leg from the ground in simple ways like asking him, or her, to move over in the crossties, stall, or anywhere. Touching his side and insisting on a prompt response is all it takes to develop this habit of moving away from pressure. Generally, I have my horses doing turns on the forehand in-hand first, and then under saddle (see my article on this on this site). By day two or three of their under saddle work they do them willingly. This is essential, because I can’t steer without my legs, and I like to have some influence over where we are going!
Remember, horses’ first tendency is to go against pressure, not to yield to it, so you have to be careful not to try to “out-pressure” your horse. Pushing on him with slow, persistent pressure is much more likely to cause him to resist and push back against you. Instead, give a little pressure with leg, hand or fingers, and if the response isn’t prompt, add an appropriate-sized tap with a whip. Whips seem to be better than spurs because when a rider has a spur that is all he or she seems to use. The leg aide morphs into a non-existent leg, attached to a spur!
I am continually amazed at how many trainers worldwide rely on the wall to turn their horse and don’t teach basic yielding to the leg.
A recent horse shopping trip to Holland, Germany and Belgium reminded me that I wanted to write about this topic. Yes, Europe is a wonderful place to shop because there are so many horses in a small area, but in my opinion, it doesn’t matter if you are in the States or overseas, you still find some horses with no basics — like moving away from the leg, and working over their toplines. Very rarely will you see a free walk that demonstrates a connection from back to front. Usually, the free walk is just a rider throwing the reins away and taking whatever they get.
Gioni is stretching well into the contact, demonstrating a complete connection throughout his body. The rider’s leg has brought him from back to front and into the stretching contact. Note the incredible reach under his body with his inside hind leg.
Many horses have an “auction-style” frame that is more appropriate for Saddlebred training than dressage training. I guess few shoppers (and many judges as well) are skilled at discerning what the hind legs are doing, or remember to check to see if the back is swinging. We are all impressed by the high forearm of the front legs and we don’t care that the withers have dropped and the back is hollow and stiff. This way of going is intentional and relies on a lack of throughness, and is designed to impress those with limited knowledge.
Why is my horse banging my foot on the wall?
When the rider is going along the wall, continually banging her foot on the side of the arena (even if it’s slanted away!) that horse is too close to the wall. A leg aide should fix that, right? When I get on such a horse, the horse often says to me, “WHAT’S THAT? A leg? What do I do with that?” The horse is leaning on everything he can. He’s not independent.
Development of balance
Some say, “That takes time.” Yes, to be in great balance takes time, but decent lateral balance is all that is required, and all I am asking for. This balance is established by clear boundaries set with clear rules about expected responses to legs. Without this, steering and balance are compromised, and a growing dependency on reins is the result. This can lead to a rein-lame condition as well because the horse is not pushed to find symmetry.
But I am winning in the show ring
Yes, and so are a lot of other horse and rider combinations that lack correct basics. Remember, it’s all relative! But we will save a discussion of dressage judging for another day. Suffice it to say, the feeling of truly getting your horse up and over the withers and in front of and between the legs, while bending the hocks as requested by your seatbones, is a joyous experience, and it doesn’t come easily!
So, if moving away from the leg is so important, why is it most riders struggle so much?
Because we love to cheat!! We love our hands, and hands can overcome ineffective leg and seat aids to some extent. To overcome cheating by my students, I insist my students get a clear understanding of the importance of lateral aids, with exercises such as:
Turn on the forehand:
First, we focus on one leg in the back position and just move the hindquarters of the horse around. This makes understanding moving away from the leg remarkably simple. Positioning the horse with his head against the wall makes it even more clear to the horse. (See my blog archives August, 2011.) The teacher, or ground person can assist if there is confusion. Often the confusion is a result of an unnecessary and/or excessive rein aide. Going back to the basics by reinforcing the light leg aide by touching with the whip, helps the horse and rider find true yielding to the leg!
Circle expansion:
Next, we make a small circle. I have the student use an opening rein on the inside and move the horse off that leg, reinforced by laying the whip gently on the horse’s side. When the student can expand the circle all the way to a 20 meter circle with little or no touching of the outside rein, we are getting there. Most often, when the horse correctly yields to the lateral aids he offers to reach and stretch. If you are a man, you should not tadalafil purchase online miss the information mention here- Many men may experience adverse effects like nausea, headache, dizziness, blur vision and flushing. In order to stimulate the function in tissue maintenance and regeneration, stem cells rely on the signals provided by the brain. cialis 20 mg Initially I was scared of the side effects of Kamagra but these order cheap levitra cute-n-tiny.com side effects are seen just for the few times of its usage. The same should you do if cases of diarrhea and also constipation are persistent and ensure that your cat is to understand exactly where and how to locate them. cute-n-tiny.com generic viagra online
This is where diagonal aides come in.
It is only after the horse and rider correctly understand lateral aides that diagonal aides make any sense at all. It is because of lateral aides that diagonal aides can come into play. By unlocking resistance to the inside leg, the rider unleashes the full potential of the hind legs of the horse and allows “throughness.” It is BECAUSE the push from the hind leg is positive that the horse seeks the outside rein. It is because the horse isn’t leaning on the inside rein that the outside rein can catch the impulsion and organize it. (Remember that concept of “catching” the impulsion with the outside rein. I’ll write about that in an upcoming blog.)
FEI horse, Sunshine, and owner, Kelly Montgomery demonstrate a lovely free walk with active hind steps and soft contact that is the result of time spent learning the value of getting the horse obedient to the inside leg.
An excellent free walk depends on the horse yielding to the legs
Excellent free walks are made and born! Kingston, pictured below, got numerous 9s on his free walk though his overstep is tiny. The reason judges give him scores like this for his walk is that they like his training: his shape, consistency, and freedom. Overstep (which is largely “born”) is often key to big scores in the free walk, but it certainly wasn’t why he got them! We got good scores because he we “made” them by teaching him how to do the free walk the best he could.
Using the inside leg effectively to move the horse sideways is key to correct connection.
The sideways yielding is critical to the engagement of the inside hind. As the hind leg steps deeply under the body, (as in the shoulder-fore) it pushes the neck out and down as it lifts the withers. This provides correct and independent balance. When you teach your horse about this, you are training a good free walk and also laying a foundation for all other work, because everything depends on this basic understanding.
Kingston yields off the right/inside leg in order to give this extensive stretching in his neck. Because of his shape, he scores 9s on his walk.
This is a poorly understood concept, though it is written about in many places. You can find articles by Courtney King Dye and look through the books by the masters trainers and teachers. For sure you’ll find similar exercises to those I write about here when you read The Complete Training of Horse and Rider, by Podhajsky.
Getting the horse off the inside leg encourages release of tension. It’s a lot like yoga! Even fuzzy horses, dressed for winter, like Kaytlyn Rowen’s Quarter Horse, Smurf can do it! (Taken in 2012?)
Ways we cheat
Two ways to get a horse to move out on the circle with reins alone, are a leading outside rein and an indirect inside rein. The problem with either is that they are Band-Aid solutions that contribute to what I call a “co-dependent” ride. That means the rider does work that the horse should be doing. For example, using the indirect rein on the inside, to move the horse out, results in a horse that can’t stand up on his own. How’s that going to work for you when you get to shoulder-in, voltes, flying changes or counter-changes of hand. Not well! The horse cannot rely on the inside rein to support him as his training goes up the scale.
Savannah Hervig and Story (2009?) show how taking the inside hand away from the neck isn’t necessarily a bad idea. This opening rein really tests the straightness of your seat and the effectiveness of your leg. Here the rider is in a bit of a chair seat, but the horse obviously respects her leg and has a wonderful topline.
Though this is a lovely look in a free walk, the rider is not finished getting the horse off the inside leg, as evidenced by too much tension in that rein. She is doing a good job of sitting to the inside, but a little additional weight on the outside of her body and lengthening under her left arm where she is collapsing will help complete the job. Because the horse isn’t grounded on the outside she has to use the outside rein to assist her.
I remember when I was a working student for Linda Zang, an “O” judge, in Maryland. In a lesson she said to me, “Don’t turn your horse with your inside rein. . . Don’t do the work the horse should do, and use your legs to steer.” Guess that about summarizes it! Happy Riding!
Riding is always training. Though we count on our well-trained horses to show riders important things and help them experience “a certain feel,” the problem is, the rider has to produce the feeling! Thus, the rider needs to be assertive enough to convince the horse to do her bidding, and she or he also needs the core strength and basic enthusiasm to bring out the best in that horse. The only way to feel a good ride is to produce it yourself. However, an engaged teacher can facilitate that process. It’s a circular process. Every ride is a training ride. Even the tiniest child is giving the horse a lesson, while the reverse is true, of course.
This old gal, Mona, was a reliable teacher.
Even a child can be a trainer
An example: Most quality teachers say something like, “Don’t stop on the approach to a fence. Once you are on your way, you go. Focus on your line. Don’t let the horse avoid the fence.” People of all ages can “chicken out” at the last minute and manage to pull their perfectly cooperative horse out of an approach to a fence. This, of course, will drastically alter that horse. I had a wonderful school horse, who had a fearful rider with bad steering and soon was running out on everything. So you see, even a child can be a trainer.
Choosing a Horse for a Youngster
This fact should not be disregarded when looking for a horse for a youngster. I usually like old horses who aren’t very curious about the job anymore for a first horse. Those mares and geldings are much more able to ignore or disregard a directive from a poor rider and are quick to reset into their good patterns, even after a less-than-stellar ride or two, when they encounter a rider with more skill and higher expectations!
A capable adult rider shares giving and taking instruction from her lovely horse.
The Finer Points
This is a different situation. Here a very capable adult rider is perfecting the finer points of her dressage. In lessons, the horse tells the rider, and me, as the teacher and trainer of this horse, when the rider isn’t sitting straight. She tells us this by not expressing her full effort in extensions, or in a shoulder-in that demands an indirect inside rein, or in a half-pass that stubbornly doesn’t want to hold the bend and straighten at the end. The beauty of this horse and rider combination is in the enthusiasm of the rider for the art. She perfects her technique every day with a personal training regimen that builds her core strength and allows her to control her body’s straightness which allows her to ride in better balance.
Riding Teacher as Facilitator
The riding teacher is more often a facilitator than a teacher — helping students find the way a good jump feels, or the way a shoulder-in can be both uphill and bending with little effort. However, to be this facilitator, the teacher has to get out of her chair! Sometimes he or she needs to
walk alongside the horse, holding the reins until s/he can feel the rider get the contact that is needed and the straightness and throughness come through to his or her hands holding the reins.
run alongside the horse, helping a student trust going forward enough to reduce the grip with her knees that is making her feel safer, but has a propensity to hold the horse back.
ride double to get a birds-eye view and feel of what is going wrong with that horse and rider. I love this technique with the right horse! It’s so revealing! I can really feel when the student is uncentered and when her hands are backwards. I can see the tiny tilt to her head that I was missing. Often I notice that she’s far away from me, leaning much too forward.
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Being a riding teacher requires a lot of creativity. That’s what makes it fun. However, there is no doubt that it’s the hardest task I’ve ever done! Because it’s such a matter of evolving and developing one’s eye, teachers can find themselves limited in their ability to “see” what is “good” because their students are all beginners. When they can see demonstrations of quality work on a regular basis in their own students’ lessons, they can really develop their eye. Seeing it in a lesson is different from watching a Youtube video. It offers immediate feedback to the teacher.
I think teachers and judges should ride! Every week one of my horses gives me the “lesson of the week,” as that horse shows me something the student that usually rides him has been doing that isn’t effective. The horse also will show me what I’m not saying to the student. Often I take notes after riding so I can remember exactly what I felt and can more clearly convey it to the student. Testing one’s students by getting on their horses is critical to their learning, since after the teacher has ridden the horse, more information is revealed to the student in the form of an enhanced/different feel.
In my opinion, the eye of the judge is only as good as the students (and horses) that the judge has been watching. This, of course, has consequences for those who compete. It’s not surprising our judges aren’t perfect. Where are the perfect students and horses for him or her to observe? Without them, who’s to educate us! There you have it, another catch 22!
Most of the people who have lost their power are women and girls who have physically disconnected with themselves – often due to threatening or at least inappropriate behavior toward them. Unintentionally, their riding lessons often bring them to realizations about how they have been trained to give up their power. They may discover they can’t find and use their core muscles because their subconscious mind refuses to allow them to fire up those assertive, self-centering, self-protecting (especially of their lower back) muscles. Or worse, they may find they can’t even feel what’s going on under them.
It is hard for women to claim power, since assertive women are often threatened with separation by friends and family, and told at the work place that they should essentially, “cool it.”
Adjusting for ability, horses have minor lameness, crookedness, or preferences that can make “following” their mechanics detrimental. For example, a horse with a natural inclination to be “butt high,” is going to throw the rider all over the place, cause the rider to arch the back excessively, and lead to comments under gaits or impulsion like “horse trails hind legs” meaning that he’s just out the back door!
Do we want to follow this motion? Heck no! I tell my students trailing hind legs will impact every score, so it’s better to do your best to impact the mechanics, influence your horse, take charge, and ride.
By getting on a horse, we are altering the mechanics of the gaits with our weight, which often isn’t placed properly. All our wiggling around in the interest of a specious desire to “follow” is not going to make matters better, but worse. For example, if you are carrying a big tub of water, it’s moving all the time as you move, and is much more difficult to carry than something like lumber. Hauling sloshing riders is much more difficult than hauling firm, toned riders using their core muscles to make themselves more still.
Further, any attempt at clarity of communication between rider and horse is lost in the sloshing motion often seen and regarded as appropriate “following.” This is taught as “move your hips” or “follow the motion of the neck.” What is really happening is that the rider is giving up herself to the horse. The horse owns the rider. What a helpless feeling!
Horses need structure. They exhibit this in their daily lives with their pecking order. Once the order is established, there is very little fighting. With horses and people, it’s the same. We must establish that we are the leaders of the herd without apology. It’s freeing to the horse to feel the structure in the rider’s body.
In the picture above you can see a young horse fully using herself because of effective riding.
A rider must have an intention to OWN the horse’s motion. This means intending to keep the horse in front of the aids, and use his core. He will only use his when we use ours! If we use core muscles and influence the horse to take on a more uphill, lowered-hindquarter posture with quick hind feet and a strong back we actually have to sit a little too still. Often we will look like we are working very hard, and being a bit rigid, and we are! It’s a heck of a job to convince a butt-high horse to get lower and under with the hind legs, but when we can do that, we can create mechanics that are worthy of following.
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I often tell my students “DFS.” Don’t Follow Slop! A horse that has his back down is very soggy, or sloppy. His hind feet are also slow, so I call that combination “sloggity.” If you follow a sloggity horse, you have very little chance of moving up the levels.
It is extremely difficult to get quick enough hind legs for piaffe or clean changes when a horse has been trained with this “following” thing high on the rider’s list of goals. You can’t get speed with slosh because you weakly let the horse get behind your core. (I’m not suggesting driving more with the hips in a thrusting motion either. That’s also slop.)
Horses have varied abilities to move as high quality dressage horses! I have often thought riding a well-bred, high quality dressage horse that moves with natural ability can hamper the rider’s learning because the rider loses the inclination to improve that horse’s carriage. The teacher sees a lovely horse and keeps perpetuating a lack or throughness by saying, “good” when it’s not good.
Often, at this point, the rider has a vague feeling that the horse is slightly off the aids, maybe feels like he’s running downhill. Things are definitely not quite right, yet the teacher says “good.” This teaches the rider to ignore personal feelings of a lack of safety, to ignore feelings that something is frightening or wrong. For personal growth and emotional power, the rider NEEDS to OWN those feelings and express them. The teacher has to get a different idea of what is really “good.”
If that teacher could compare what she is looking at under that rider, with how that horse might be able to go if really ridden forward and encouraged to bring the hind end under by a toned-core expert, she would be amazed at the difference and would be much more able to help her student.
Julie Penshorn teaching
This is one of the biggest problems with clinics and other trainings for judges and teachers – the horses are not also shown under an expert rider so the observers can see how much better that horse can go, and can see the change. Thus, observers and riders in these clinics get a false perception of “good.” Additionally, teachers sometimes say “good” to make people feel good, even knowing the work is poor. That is dishonest and perpetuates the flawed relationship between rider and horse and can contribute to the other problems mentioned above.
Unlike the fancy horse, the less appealing one (that nag you are stuck with!) that must be ridden through and well to produce anything of value, has taught the student and the teacher a lot more! In their trips to the show ring the judge has been critical, giving 6 or 6.5 on gaits and comments of “not through” or “needs more connection from back to front.” With this horse the problem is so much more obvious, the judge and teacher are not deceived. This horse, with a committed team working with him, might never beat the other horse, but will definitely have to be much better ridden in order to be competitive.
The predominance of the first horse in today’s dressage arenas at about the same time that we see the fairly new rider directive to “follow the mechanics” has resulted in much poorer riding and the necessity to produce more top quality horses to meet the needs of the ever-poorer riders.
That’s not my idea of success and I don’t aspire to be part of that.
Dressage is about is shaping and influencing the horse to move in very specific ways. It is when we don’t follow, but rather lead, with our bodies, that we can explain to the horse the changes we want in his body. And when we try to do that, we come against the line on our dressage tests under rider’s position and seat that says “following mechanics of the gaits,” as well as our own personal histories, and the associated emotional barriers we have. It’s as if this line on the test encourages us to acquiesce to feelings we should reject, and give up our power.
What the judge is looking for is the rider’s ability to move with the horse and not bounce around all over the place. However, the judge’s idea of what that might look like sometimes requires the rider to give up their power. For example, I am a 45-year veteran of the sport, riding FEI, and I have gotten comments in this section of the test indicating that I should not sit so still and firmly as I try to influence the gaits of the horse under me. Should you follow the mechanics if the motion is just bad? Or marrying that to a real-life example, what if the treatment you are receiving as a woman is just plain bad?
Will you become a great woman by being pretty and following the lead of others? No. Neither will you become a great dressage rider by following the mechanics of the horse, unless they are the mechanics you want. Dressage riding is not sitting pretty and doing nothing! Neither is that an aspiration for a life! Trying to learn to influence these mechanics requires an emotionally honest and consistent relationship between rider and horse, and this is where we see riders bump into their unconscious minds. This is where the emotional powerlessness shows up in women and girls. It begins with a meeting to review goals and objectives, analyze test data (including discussions of individual staffs), and discuss the performance of administrators. cute-n-tiny.com order generic cialis Perhaps we get our needs met http://cute-n-tiny.com/cute-food/tiny-asparagus-bundle/ cheap viagra usa halfway. Other reasons which have impact on erection are cardiac disease, lowest cost of viagra diabetes, hormonal disparity, neurogenic issue, diabetes, mental tension, hopelessness, negative results of certain drugs and injurious lifestyle practices. In overnight cialis tadalafil addition, hormonal imbalance, erotic dreams, infection in the urinary system.
One of the most essential contributions dressage makes to lives is as an assertiveness-training program. I feel most successful as a teacher when I can help people who have come to me to learn to ride, to discover that they no longer have to play the role of a victim, but rather, they have personal power.
I like the acronym, “OWN” to describe the following: “ONLY WITH ME NOW!” as a demand from rider to horse, empowering her to take charge of the horse in a clear but gentle way as she is learning to take power in her own life. The excellent dressage rider needs to OWN the mechanics of the horse, not follow them! — see more next time!
