Many riders are confused about the difference between a horse being in front of the leg versus a horse that is rushing. It can be difficult to differentiate between power that is nicely carrying you forward and power that running ahead of you. Although the difference can be small enough to often go unnoticed, the impact that it has on development gets much more noticeable the longer that it is allowed to go unchecked. Gaining impulsion and activity is a common goal during dressage training, but learning to control and balance this power is an essential step in developing a relaxed, confident relationship with your dance partner. The first step in developing tempo control is understand what tempo really is. Tempo and rhythm are not the same. The encyclopedia describes tempo as the “rate or speed of a motion or activity” or how many times a beat happens during a set amount of time. Now rhythm is described as a “regular repeated pattern of movement”, so speed is not measured in rhythm, only the regularity is considered. Rhythm is fairly easy to recognize during training, but in order to develop control of the tempo, you must control the energy that is being created. Unfortunately, when we think about control during training, many times we see an imagine involving many half halts and heavy contact restricting the horses power, but this is not necessary. The clearest and most fair way to improve our control during training is by explaining exactly what we expect out of our horses consistently every time we ride. This may sound too easy, but horses are far more often confused than resistant and clarifying expectations always helps improve communication between horse and rider, so that is what todays exercise is focused on.
During the warm-up portion of your ride, put extra focus on where your horses energy is. Does your horses engine feel like it is dragging behind you, pulling ahead of you or idling right underneath your seat? The latter is ideal, but typically our horses start off with too much or too little energy, depending on their natural tendencies. Even though your horse may usually be one way though, be sure that you have a solid handle on how they are feeling today. Even the laziest horses have a rushy day and hot horses can get behind the leg just as easily as the less than motivated ones, so take the time to ask your horse how he/she is feeling today. Starting in medium walk on a 20 meter circle, take a deep breathe and relax your seat and lower leg. Most horses will shift their energy when we stop micromanaging and just how they shift will tell you where their energy is. If your horse immediately slowed down when you relaxed your seat, their energy is behind you. If your horse got quick when you relaxed, their energy was running ahead of you. This is a very simple way to “read” our horses energy and adding this question to your warm-up can help clarify where your horses energy is at. Ok back to that 20 meter circle! How did your horse answer? If your horse slowed down, ride an upward transition into working trot for about a quarter of a circle and then return to medium walk. Repeat this exercise until your horse better maintains the energy without the assistance of your leg. If your horse quickened when you relaxed your seat, ride a transition to halt and stand for a three count and then return to medium walk. Repeat this exercise until your horse maintains the energy even with the additional freedom of a relaxed seat. Be sure that you initiate the transition as soon as the shift in energy occurs, whether it is a shift up or down. This is where clarity is important. If you “correct” your horses shift in energy by placing the transition at varying tempos, they will not have a firm grasp on what tempo you actually want and what tempo is too little or too much. Be consistent and praise all attempts in the right direction. It is amazing how much verbal appreciation can help let our horses know that they are on the right track, so don’t forget to use your happy voice! Repeat this exercise in working or collected trot, depending on your horses level of development. You can ride this exercise throughout the arena, but I suggest at least starting on a 20 meter circle to help narrow your own focus. In the posting trot, find your preferred tempo. This tempo does not depend on the horses gait size, so whether your horses trot is humble or over the top, a good tempo is solid and feels like something you would like to ride for a while. Now you don’t have to be capable of keeping this tempo forever (because if you could, you wouldn’t need this exercise!), but you DO need to find it. If you don’t know what your goal is, you cannot expect your horse to know it either. So once you have found that goal tempo, relax your middle back and forearms and watch how the tempo changes. If the tempo increases, ride a transition into medium walk. This transition should be ridden carefully with a goal of a good quality medium walk as soon as the trot just begins to become quicker. It is important that the transition is not sloppy or abrupt. Although it is a correction for the increase in tempo, it needs to be well timed and something that will help to reset your horses tempo. Walk several steps and return to working trot repeating the exercise until you feel an improvement in the tempo maintenance. Now if your horses tempo slows when you relax, prepare for a transition into working canter and ride a half 20 meter circle in canter and then return to working trot and repeat until your horse maintains the tempo better without the assistance of your leg. Repeat the exercise is working or collected canter as well. Riding a transition into working trot for a tempo that is too quick and riding several strides on lengthening for a tempo that drops below ideal. When riding this exercise in the canter, be sure to maintain your canter positioning when you relax your seat. You should have your inner seat bone relaxed down when riding the canter, so if you lose this position as you relax, this will confuse your horse and may cause a loss of the canter. Focus on relaxing any tension in your thighs, tightness in your calf or lower leg and resistance in your back. These are all muscle engagements that should not be necessary in your goal tempo. A sinking down inner seat bone, outside leg drawn behind the girth and open chest are all elements that should be maintained during the canter, so don’t “lose” them while riding the exercise. Be sure to give your horse breaks throughout the exercise. This is not an exercise that will come quickly, think of this as something that will be added regularly to your riding plans. The more clear you are about the tempo you want and the quicker you correct your horse for shifting above or below that tempo, the better that tempo will develop and become capable of being maintained. Help your horse out and let them know what you want so they can give it to you! You may be surprised at how much your horse listens when you tell them exactly what you want.
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Are you a complementary rider or a mirror rider? In order to properly self diagnose, let’s talk about the differences. According to my trusty dictionary, to complement someone or something means that you “fill in where there is a lack” or “add where needed” or (this is my favourite definition) “make something complete”. In contrast, to mirror someone or something means that you “show a direct reflection of” or “give an exact replica of” whatever is being done. Now that we have the facts, let’s ask the question again, do you complement your horse or do you mirror your horse? Buck Brannaman once said that, “The horse is a mirror to your soul. Sometimes you might not like what you see in this mirror and sometimes you will.” This statement is true on so many levels. The right side of our brain immediately applies this to our emotions and this is true. If you are not happy, your horse knows. If you are not enjoying todays ride, your horse is aware of this. If you are still upset at the guy who cut you off in traffic on the way to the barn, your horse will pick up on this. Now different horses respond to human emotions in different ways. I have worked with horses that are acutely aware what is passing through my mind at any given moment and will respond accordingly. I have also worked with horses who seem to be eternally happy and unchanged by human emotion. Although their responses may be different, I believe that both horses are equally aware of our “condition”. Just like humans, horses have unique personalities. Some horses are more forgiving than others and some horses are more responsive, but they all know. Although horses vary in the way they mirror us emotionally, the way they mirror us physically tends to be a bit more consistent. If your back is tight, it will be very difficult for your horse to relax his back. If you are crooked in the saddle, your horse will not be straight. If your body is full of tension, your horse will not be able to relax. At times, this feels unfortunate. When you are nervously warming up at a horse show, it is really inconvenient for your horse to mirror your tension. When you are having trouble controlling your body in the saddle, your horses mirroring this can really add to the issue. When you decide to work on one element of your riding and everything else falls apart, this can feel disheartening. Well, I have some good news and some bad news. Bad news first…. this will never change. Our horses will always mirror us and there is nothing we can do about it and in my opinion, we shouldn’t want to do anything about it! Allow me to explain… horses make wonderful trainers. No matter how much I develop my eye, I will never be as quick as your horse. So instead of becoming frustrated by this “mirror”, look at it often and use what you see to make yourself a better rider! With the understanding that our horses mirror us, lets figure out how we can best complement (hint hint!) them during training…
Now, lets look at some of the affects of complementary riding vs mirror riding… Affects of mirror riding:
Affects of complementary riding:
Striving to be a complementary rider is one of the best goals you can work towards. Since our horses mirror our actions, if we turn around and mirror them back, we will become stuck. You and your horse are partners and partners need to complement each other in order to get the most out of the relationship. We are supposed to be the leader in the relationship, but ultimately, we are only fully in charge of our own actions. Next time you are about to respond to something your horse is doing, think about responding with complementary aids to help “fill in where there is a lack” and make the feeling or the movement as good as it can be.
Happy riding!!! Structure is an absolute necessity when it comes to having success in training your horse. I have always been an advocate of riding with clear, simple aids, but this blossomed to a whole new level during my time with the Bartels. There are several reasons that maintaining structure during training is so important. The biggest reason for me is just how far apart our idea of a great ride is from what our horses would rather be doing. Now I am a firm believer that there a lot of horses out there that genuinely enjoy being ridden and love the partnership they have with their rider, but I also know that when your horse is out in the pasture on a sunny day, there is not a big empty space in their heart that can only be filled by twenty seven canter transitions… right? So as soon as we stop riding with structure, they begin filling in our “holes” with what they feel is right. What is your horses idea of the perfect day? Grass, sunshine, no bugs, freedom and being naked is probably pretty high on the list too. Is traveling uphill on that list? Maintaining jaw softness? Tracking straight? Being focused on a humans requests above all of the other incredibly interesting things in their surroundings? Most likely not…. so when you think about it in this way, it is very easy to see why so many riders tell me that as soon as they stop riding “well”, their horse “falls apart”. The reason I put these words in quotes is because I want to replace the word “well” in that idea with the word “structure” and “falls apart” with “returns to their natural tendency”. To me, the idea that every time I stop riding with structure, my horse returns to his or her natural tendencies is not very confusing or frustrating at all. Yes some elements may continue for a bit thanks to muscle memory or training good habits in the past, but its only a matter of time that your horse will fall out of auto-pilot. I like to think that the reason we train positive repetitions, good muscle memory and strive to create good habits in our horses is not so one day we can stop riding so well, but it is kind of like insurance for the moments when we make a mistake. I have no desire to stop riding the best I can (that would not be fair to my horse), but I do know that I will make mistakes in the future and if I do have a lapse in good judgement or forget to give my horse clear structure, hopefully the hours in the saddle that I did ride well, will help my horse to help me during those times. I think there are too many trainers with the goal of creating a machine beneath them that knows what they have to do and what will happen if they don’t. Is this a training partnership? Not in my book. The reason that I want to ride my best as consistently as I can is that I want my riding to matter to my horse. If I am riding fabulously, I want my horse to go fabulously and when I am not riding so great, I shouldn’t feel upset when my horse mirrors this. So how do we avoid losing the structure of our ride? As I type this question out, I feel like I need to say that it is completely normal for mistakes to happen. Mistakes are the way that we learn how to do things better the next time. Today is not about trying to be the perfect rider, it is about forming a structured goal for every ride that helps you to make the most out of your time with your horse. So, in answer to the question, the best way to avoid losing the structure of your ride is to begin every ride with a goal. There is something heavy about a goal. For some reason, riders tend to lump goals and potential failure together in the same category. For myself and for my students, a goal is simply something to ride towards. If you reach that goal today, wonderful! If you didn’t quite get there, you already have a goal for tomorrows ride. A great rider doesn’t look at a goal in the context of winning or losing, but as a way to maintain your focus and gauge your progress. Imke Schellekens-Bartels says that the time you spent riding without a goal is time wasted in the saddle. I loved this when I first heard it and loved it even more as I thought more about its application. She didn’t mean that every day has to be spent learning something new and difficult, she simply wanted purpose to what a rider is doing in the saddle. It is pretty easy to understand why this is so important on the days where something new or more advanced is being introduced, but it is truly just as important during day to day schooling, on the trails or through a set of cavalettis. Becoming a structured rider will improve the relationship between you and your horse in two different ways…
Our main goal as a rider is to try to convey what we want to our horses so that they will do it, right? That sounds way easier than it actually is. Unfortunately, our horses do not speak English and we do not speak horse. In human to human communication, we can describe exactly what we want with a few simple words, but between horses, body language is the way to go. In addition to our vastly different communication methods, I believe that communication in general is much more important to our horses than it is to us. How many times have you heard someone say, “Well thats not what I meant.” or “I mean no offense.”? Well to a prey animal that lives or dies by their ability to read the communication given off by other animals and humans, what you communicate is very important. Tips for riding with structure:
Horses, in general, are lovely creatures. Yeah there are some bad seeds in the bunch, but I have found them to be very few and far between. Something handy about the great majority of horses is that they warn you when something is about to happen. So many riders talk about how their particular horse does something naughty “out of the clear blue sky” and I am not saying this is impossible, but I do believe that it is unlikely. This is kind of like the saying, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one was around to hear it, did it make a sound?”. Allow me to explain… Just because we were not aware of the warning signs, does not mean that they were not given. I remember watching a friend of mine ride a very cheeky young horse and someone behind me said, “Its funny how she is so full of herself, but she doesn’t run away.” Well, this horse was not deciding not to run away, this talented rider was adapting her warning signs and preventing disaster by doing so. This particular rider is very good at what he does, but he is not a magician (although I have had my doubts at times). Every one of us can ride this way, but it requires a structured awareness of not only what your horse is actually doing physically, but what they are communicating about their future plans. Some small, but important signs that often are ignored are small rhythm changes, habitual drifting in a particular area (even the tiniest amount), a shift in sensitivity to your aids (either becoming more sensitive or less), a change in breathing patterns… and there are many more signs that can be added to this list and you do not need to be clairvoyant to recognize them. I often ask my riders, “Where are his ears?” during a lesson. A horse cannot be fully focused on you with both ears pointing out of the arena. This is certainly not a guarantee that something horrible is about to happen, but it is an early warning sign that you either have lost or are losing their focus. When you are on a nice relaxing and your horses walk begins to speed up, don’t wait until things make a big change, correct the change when it is small. Just being aware of the signs your horse is giving you helps to keep you aware of what their plan is and the earlier you become aware of changes in their plan, the better position you are in to react successfully. I hope this helps motivate you to begin making structure a very important element of the time spent with your horse. Remember, structure doesn’t mean rigid and goals are your friend. Happy riding everyone!! Success thrives in the right environment. Plants need to have the right amount of water and sunlight to grow. A great steak needs the right amount of heat and rest to be tender. A fine wine needs to be stored at a certain temperature and a shoulder-in will only be as balanced as the trot you began in. In dressage, a large portion of the success of each exercise is secured or lost in the preparation. I love this! It can be so frustrating when you struggle with something… a new movement, exercise or feel, but it is even more frustrating when you don’t know why you are struggling with it. When a horse or rider or both are struggling with the elements of a new movement, the answer is almost always found in one of the steps you took to get to this point. As you train your horse, you are building a foundation. This foundation is made of many building blocks and they are all very important. You can’t ride a perfect shoulder-in if you are not in a perfect collected trot, just like you can’t ride a horse if he isn’t broken yet ;) The early blocks, such as forward, steering and brakes are all obviously popular, but for some reason, as horses begin their ascent up the levels, less importance is placed on the building blocks and this always haunts you in the end. Now this article is not meant as a call for everyone to restart their horses, but as a diagnosing tool to help pinpoint the cause of training issues. This week, we are going to focus on what building blocks we need in order to have success with specific exercises. As you go up the levels, you and your horse will becoming capable of more advanced movements. Training these movements every day is not ideal for your horse, mentally or physically, but you should train and improve your “building blocks” on a daily basis. All of the prep work and foundation checks may seem tedious or necessary at times, but you will be rewarded with consistent success in future movements when you do. Lets get started! Intro: Entering at A and riding down centerline is the beginning of all dressage tests. It can be ridden in all gaits. While riding the Intro tests, you will be asked to ride down centerline in a medium walk or working trot, but as you go up the levels, you will be asked to canter down centerline and eventually even ride piaffe and passage on the centerline. Many riders feel as though they are walking a tightrope when they ride down the centerline, but a well built foundation can transform that tight rope into a beam or a bridge or even solid ground ;) - Building Block #1: Relaxation. Relaxation may seem like it should be three or four notches down the list, but I put it at number one for several reasons. Most importantly, if your horse is struggling with tension or distraction, it is not the best situation to train great centerlines. The more you can replace negative experiences with positive ones, the better, so when you are are in the development stages of training on the centerline, try to chose days where both you and your horse are relaxed and can concentrate on the task at hand. Maintaining your own relaxation is just as important. Stressing about a few inches of drift or the exact placement of your halt, only takes your mind away from the more important things. Relax on the centerline and treat it just any other line you ride in the arena. Perfection will come… - Building Block #2: Straightness. This may seem obvious, but I am not talking about straightness of the centerline. I am talking about straightness as a rider. As soon as we enter at A, we start trying to prevent every possible mistake long before it happens and as a result, our horses get all tangled up. Now I am not throwing all of the blame of you as the rider, but if you are adding a little leg here and bending a little there, the odds of your horse traveling straight down centerline are even more slim that that centerline seems. Next time you’re in the saddle, concentrate on maintaining your own straightness throughout the arena and then continue that straightness right down the centerline. Training: The “stretchy circle” is introduced at Training Level and is required through First Level. This movement is ridden in working trot. When a rider asks me about this movement, they typical ask what to do a few steps before the circle in order to get their horses head down. Unfortunately, those last few steps before the stretchy circle are where you cash in on all of the prep work you have done over the past few weeks, months… even years! That little ol’ 20 meter circle can feel like your horses 20 second confessional to the judge. A correct stretch is the fruit of much labor and when the foundation for that stretch is solid, the stretchy circle becomes the moment where you get to show off all of your great training. - Building Block #1: Contact. The purpose of the stretch is to show the judge that your horse is on the bit. When a horse is on the bit, they will follow the bit where the rider takes it. When most people think about a horse being “on the bit”, they think about being in a round, competition frame and this is true. If a horse is nicely on the bit, they will be round when asked, but another positive result of being on the bit is that your horse will follow the bit forward and downward as you lengthen the reins. Now that is your horses job, but you have an even more important one! Ideally, we will have the same connection up and round and we do long and low. In order for that to happen, we need to be the same rider, riding with the same contact working towards the same feel. Start off slow… when you are happy with the contact in the working trot, begin working your way towards a stretch one inch at a time, because if your horse won’t stretch one inch lower and longer, why try two? - Building Block #2: Energy. In order for a stretch to maintain its balance and connection to the bridle, the horse must maintain activity behind. It is quite common for a horse to lose activity during the stretch. Who could blame them? Maintaining the activity during the stretch requires energy and push from behind i.e. hard work. So next time you ride the stretchy trot, keep an eye on the energy in the working trot and remember that if it your trot starts to droop a little, fix it. The stretchy trot is a movement just like an extended canter, you need to ride it clearly and sometimes this means correcting a lack of energy, which can make all the difference in the stretch. - Building Block #3: Balance. It is very important that you remain balanced in the saddle when stretching your horse. It can be very tempting to lean forward or collapse your seat as your horse begins to reach forward and downward, but this can send your horse onto the forehand. Keeping your body upright and balanced in the saddle will help you horse stay balanced under you. Even the smallest rider can send their horse off balance by allowing their chest to collapse forward. Keeping your chest open and over your hips will help you to stay in proper balance over your horse and will also help to prevent your lower leg from creeping back too far behind the girth. Remember, our horses mirror us. If we remain balanced, it is much easier for them to do the same. First: The leg yield is introduced at First Level and is ridden in working trot. The leg yield is the first lateral movement required in dressage and many argue that it is the foundation for all future movements. I think this movement is a bit more tricky than it first seems. Yes, the actual movement is simply a yielding of your horse from your leg, but there is more to it. Any of my students will tell you that I put a lot of thought into training leg yields. I consider them very important. A correctly trained leg yield will easily develop into shoulder-in, travers and half-pass, but repeating a poorly executed leg yield can create crookedness, unnecessary stress on your horses body and confusion in future training. In competition, a judge is looking for the quality of the working trot to be consistently maintained and for your horse to remain in alignment, both front to back and side to side throughout the leg yield. If the foundation of your leg yield is not solid, one or more of those elements will be impossible to maintain. Taking the time to properly prepare, train and execute the leg yield will help pave the way for success in many future exercises. - Building Block #1: Straightness. Before training lateral work, it is very important that both you and your horse are straight. As a rider, maintaining even rein contact and keeping your body straight in the saddle is the most influential thing you can do for lateral work. During the learning process, every rider has this little thought creep into their mind…”If I were to just pull my horses head a little bit this way, it will help him get to the rail quicker….”. The problem is that it does work. You will get to your destination faster, because over bending your horse will send them off balance and they will feel the need to catch themselves by running through the opposite shoulder. Although, you may be heading sideways, this is not a leg yield. A correct leg yield is just like it sounds, a yielding from your leg. This should not require a bend in the neck. When you read the directives for the leg yields in First Level Tests 2 and 3, “Regularity and quality of trot; consistent tempo; alignment of horse; balance and flow” is what a great leg yield should demonstrate. Your horse should remain correctly aligned throughout the movement and this requires us to be aligned as well. - Building Block #2: Response. The main purpose of the leg yield is to train and then demonstrate your horses response to your leg aid. The better your horse responds to your leg aid, the more successful your leg yield will be. For example, a horse that needs 5 or 6 nudges to transition from medium walk into working trot will need 5 or 6 nudges to yield your leg in other exercises and this is too many. Improving your horses response to your leg by riding medium walk to working trot transitions and then “small” trot to “big” trot transitions will help prepare them for the leg yields. I do not recommend schooling leg yields every day, but you can certainly school a better response to your aids every time you are in the saddle. Second: The turn on the haunches is introduced at Second Level and is required through Third Level. This movements is ridden in medium walk. The turn on the haunches may seem like an insignificant movement in the Second and Third level tests, but it is far from it! It is your horses first introduction to collection at the walk and is one of the building blocks for a great piaffe down the road. Not only does it challenge the control you have over your horses quarters, but it can also expose areas that are weak in your foundation. The USDF rulebook says, “In order for the horse to perform a balanced and engaged turn on the haunches, he must develop an increased sensitivity to the rider’s aids, in which the horse becomes lighter and quicker in his responses to the rider’s leg and weight aids. In addition, increased suppleness and mobility in the shoulders of the horse are developed as the horse becomes proficient in the exercise. This increased mobility also assists in the rider’s ability to straighten the horse, an important ingredient to collection.” Developing the ability to maintain the activity, quality and regularity of your medium walk while demonstrating bend and fluency throughout the turn is no small feat, but once accomplished, will positively effect all aspects of training. - Building Block #1: Obedience. This is a movement that requires a lot of focus from both horse and rider to perform correctly. It requires simultaneous response from both leg and rein aids. In the turn on the haunches, your horses forehand will turn a half circle around the hind legs, while maintaining a pure and active medium walk. The hind legs will not cross and if the front legs do, they must cross one in front of the other. In preparing for this movement, a horse and rider should be able to smoothly walk a square with small 90 degree turns in each corner. When riding these “square turns”, ensure that your horse maintains consistent activity in the walk and softness in the bridle. - Building Block #2: Clarity of Aids. It is very important to understand the correct aids for a turn on the haunches. If you are unsure or experimenting as you ride through this movement, it will not be successful. When a rider asks me to describe the correct aids for this movement, I often walk through it on foot and recommend that they do the same. The mistakes that can happen during a turn on the haunches are small and if you are not positive about what you are asking for, these mistakes can easily go unnoticed. When you think about riding this movement, the quality of the walk must be maintained. Your turn on the haunches is only as good as the medium walk that it is being ridden in. If the walk becomes stiff, crooked or lateral, take time to repair the walk and then school the movement again. - Building Block #3: The aids. Your horse should stay straight under you with softness in the inner jaw. Before you begin the turn, deepen your inner seat bone and keep your inner leg next to the girth. Your inner leg helps maintain correct body position and prevents your horses inside hind leg from stepping in on the turn. Your outside leg will be slightly behind the girth, maintaining activity in the walk and initiating the turn. Your outside rein must stay in contact to prevent over bending of the neck and will be used for half halts during the preparation and execution stages of the movement. Once the turn is complete, your outside rein and inner leg will help straighten your horse back onto the track. Third and Above: The flying change is introduced at Third Level and is required through Grand Prix. This movement is ridden in collected canter. Flying changes are mysterious to many riders…. trainers…. and horses for that matter. It is a directional transition within the same gait without the need to actually change the direction you’re traveling in. Earlier, we talked about how complex the leg yield is and although this may be met with some eye rolls, the flying change is quite simple. Don’t get me wrong, there can be difficult elements to understanding the flying change by both horses and riders, but the actual flying change is not very complicated. Every horse does them playing out in the pasture or shying away from something scary. They are simply picking up one lead out of the other. Although it is physically very easy for a horse to do a flying change, connecting an aid to the response can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Some horses take longer than others and some riders find it more or less confusing, but the good news is that I have yet to find a rider or horse that never figured it out. Correctly building the foundation for a flying change is really essential for both the horse and the rider. Yes, the horse is the one actually doing the change, but we are driving. Until a rider truly understands the aids, timing and feel for the flying change, the movement will remain a mystery. This doesn’t mean that the changes can’t or won’t happen, it just limits the positive effect a rider can have on the preparation and execution. Whether your horse is already proficient in the flying change or just beginning them, the canter that you ask for the change out of is the most important insurance you can have for a great flying change. - Building Block #1: A self-propelled canter. It is very important that your horse is in front of your leg before riding a flying change. A good flying change requires activity and jump in the canter. When a rider is in charge of constantly creating this activity, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for applying the aids for a change. If your horse loses activity, becomes hollow or is tempted to drop out of the canter prior to the flying change, he/she is not in front of your leg. Of course, mistakes happen, but use the mistakes to help make show what you and your horse need to improve on. A self-propelled collected canter should maintain the activity and jump easily and should always respond when leg is applied. If your horse ignores some of your leg aids or it is common that they need reapplied, there is a great chance that they will ignore your aids for a flying change. - Building Block #2: Balance. Being self-propelled and well balanced go hand in hand. Balance requires consistency and if the energy created in the hind leg varies from stride to stride, balance will be difficult to achieve. Think about the fact that you are sitting in the “center” of your horse. Activity in the hid leg should help lift the forehand, this explains why we need consistent energy from behind, but there is also a need for consistent contact to help “receive” that energy. If your contact is is inconsistent, your balance will follow. Last, but not least, is the side to side balance. When preparing for the changes, ensure that horse is as even as possible in both the response left and right and in the flexion. A horse with four good “quarters” will have much better success in the changes. - Building Block #3: Straightness. When you watch a well executed flying change, the horse remains straight before, during and after the change. This helps to prevent a shift of energy, loss of balance or crookedness in the change. Although horses may struggle with straightness in the early stages of learning the changes, it is important to develop straightness and maintain it as their training progresses. A self-propelled, well balanced, straight flying change will someday become beautiful one tempis! Happy riding everyone!!! |
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