This week I want to touch on something that is very important in training and riding, but unfortunately, it is hardly ever addressed in lessons or in books and magazine articles. It has to do with training strategies. How do you decide how to proceed next with your horse? How do you know how to improve a movement, a transition, a turn, the rein contact, the horse’s suppleness, or any other problem you may encounter? Many good, experienced riders make these decisions purely intuitively, based on their gut feeling and their experience with many different horses, and these riders are very often correct in their decisions. But this kind of skill is unfortunately difficult to communicate and to pass on to others.
The way the horse performs transitions to the halt and from the halt tells us a lot about his training. Many horses and riders struggle with these transitions. Half halts often don’t go through in down transitions, so the horse inverts or curls up. The halt isn’t square, the horse is crooked, to name just some of the most common problems.
In my own practical experience, I have often observed that resistances in the poll and resistances in the hindquarters tend to go hand in hand, so in order to overcome the problem we need to address the poll as well as the hip.
This is a great discussion of how a thinking rider can correct the horse’s attempts to evade the demands of the shoulder-in by using the other lateral movements to bring both hind legs underneath the body. This somewhat indirect approach is much more effective than trying to create the correct bend by pulling on the inside rein, or trying to create a contact on the outside rein by using “more inside leg and more outside rein”, which are so often the standard recommendations of trainers. These direct approaches actually only make the problem worse, whereas the indirect approach teaches the horse better body awareness and it makes the hind legs stronger and more supple, so that he is able to perform a correct shoulder-in easily and without feeling the need to evade.
The swinging movement and energy connection that are the result of a horse working properly through the back create a feeling you will never forget. Choose exercises and arena patterns that encourage the horse to engage and flex his hind legs, and remember to use your seat in a dynamic way that supports the horse’s movement, so that he is able to lift his back, engage his hind legs, flex his hind legs, and push off again with them in a forward-upward direction.
You can make the training easier and better understandable for the horse if you try to look at it from the horse’s point of view. Ask yourself what it is you are asking the horse to do in physical, biomechanical terms. Find out which elementary skills your horse needs to possess and which elementary types of movements he has to be able to do in order to perform a certain movement. Then try to build him a ladder of small learning steps that teach him those elementary skills that he is still lacking. Try to utilize the principle of the economy of motion whenever possible, i.e. lead the horse down a path where the movement or transition you want to ride appears to be the most energy conserving thing the horse could do under the circumstances.
What does it mean to ride from the inside leg to the outside rein? And how do I do that?
Inside leg to outside rein is an abbreviation for a relatively complex set of movement patterns that result in a very supple, balanced, straight, and agile horse. The job of the inside leg is to initiate the circle of aids by bringing the inside hind leg closer to the outside one as well as closer to the front legs. This results in a weight shift from the inside shoulder onto the outside pair of legs, which results in an expansion and stretch of the muscles on the outside of the horse’s bend, this in turn creates a contact with the outside rein, which is then able to connect back to the outside hind leg.
There is a general tendency in all living beings to conserve energy, to avoid conflict if possible, and to travel the path of the least resistance. When they move, they try to do so in the most comfortable manner and with the least possible expenditure of strength and energy (they are only human, too).
Water seeks the lowest energy level by flowing downhill, through openings, and around obstacles. Electricity always seeks the path of the least resistance. It’s a natural law that you can observe every day in countless manifestations.
8 habits that will make you a successful rider. If you prioritize the items on this list, you and your horse will progress, slowly but surely. Whenever you feel lost or frustrated, return to this list, check if you have been implementing it or if you have become sloppy with some of these items. If you put one foot in front of the other, you will succeed step by step, even if progress sometimes seems to be painfully slow for all of us.
Energy is not an official part of the training pyramid. It’s not really a formal category of training, although teachers will sometimes ask students to ride a more energetic walk, trot, or canter. I suspect that when teachers tell the students to “ride more forward” they often mean “create more energy”, but the word “forward” tends to lead to more speed, rather than more energy or more power.
The closest thing in the official terminology is Schwung/Impulsion, but it’s not quite the same as energy.
You can communicate so much in a subtle way to the horse at the walk. You can influence better the bend, carriage, size of the circle, and rhythm/tempo if you begin by establishing it at the walk. But not every horse is so keen to walk at the beginning of the work session, I know! They have to learn through gentleness, calm groundedness, and guidance. Once they learn how then it becomes a habit.
Every horse and every training situation presents us with challenges and problems that we need to solve because no horse and no rider is ever perfect. There is always something that can be improved. In a sense, these imperfections and shortcomings give us a job. Without them, we would have nothing to do.
In order to decide what topic to work on, which exercise to choose, or which aid to give, we have to analyse the horse and the training situation. We normally notice surface level symptoms first, such as a rein contact that is too heavy, or too hard, or uneven, or a stiffness in the hindquarters, shoulders, or rib cage, or an issue with a turn, transition, or movement.
Reading the descriptions of the old masters suggests that the features that most people associate with collection, i.e. shorter strides, higher elevation, or a slower tempo, are by-products rather than the essence of collection. They are visible surface-level phenomena, whereas the true nature of collection is functional and can perhaps be felt rather than seen.
When I was a teenager, I had no problem getting on any horse, any time, anywhere. Riding a horse was a little bit like riding a bike. Simply get on and go. Over the years, this changed considerably. More and more, I realised that I had to be in the right frame of mind, and the horse had to be in the right frame of mind in order to be able to do productive work. Otherwise, I would rather not ride the horse. This frame of mind is not so easy to describe. It’s something that evolved slowly over many years for me. I need to feel grounded, at peace, with a sense of inner calm, so that I can focus on the horse without being distracted by thoughts about other things. If I am upset or angry, it’s not a good time to ride.
Recently, we have received a lot of questions about how you can improve the canter or the canter depart. This is obviously a major issue for many riders. This topic is very suitable for explaining the biomechanical principles behind it.
You can tell a lot about the training of a horse by looking at his muscle development, especially the muscles above the spine. Well trained horses have a well developed top line. Poorly trained horses often have a hole in their muscling front of the withers, the thoracic and lumbar spine may stick out, and the points of the hips are pointy. The muscles along the underneck may be hard and lumpy. Their lateral neck muscles may feel stringy and hard, rather than supple. Their hips and shoulders are often difficult to move because the muscles are so contracted that they don’t allow much movement.
We have probably all had days when we felt like we had completely forgotten how to ride, when it seemed as if we couldn’t do anything right. I suspect that as long as we ride, we may never be completely safe from experiences like this. Fortunately, the incidents seem to become fewer and farther in between, the more we learn. - Or maybe we just don't take bad rides as personally anymore, because we know that we will have another good ride again soon. Just like we know after a good ride that there will be more difficult ones waiting for us in the future.
When Alois Podhajsky was the director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, he sometimes noticed that someone watched him during the morning workouts with a disapproving eye. So he sent his groom up to the gallery to relay the message: “The Colonel couldn’t help but notice that you disapprove of his training. He is inviting you to come down and ride his horse for him because he would love to learn a better way.” Not surprisingly, nobody was brave (or incautious) enough to take the bait and say: “By God, I’m going to get up on this horse and show him how it’s done!” That’s a very clever and very effective way to silence the peanut gallery who thinks they are so much better than the riders in the arena who are actually trying their best to do a good job with their horse.
In order for the horse and the rider to become the best versions of themselves and the best possible team they need to have a good relationship. The basis of this friendship between horse and rider is mutual trust, mutual respect, and effective communication. In all three areas, the burden is on the rider to prove herself to the horse, that she can be trusted, that she deserves respect, and she needs to learn to become a good communicator.
When I returned to riding as a middle-aged person, my first horse had a very loud ‘no.’ He was cheerful enough about doing the things he wanted to do, but my goal - to learn dressage - prompted a storm of tantrums and hissy fits of truly epic proportions. This, of course, felt horrible. He was treated well, I thought, and the requests I was making were not very difficult. So why did he spend his time looking for ways to make my life hard? Why did he keep saying ‘no’?
When you are working on your own, you can investigate certain questions together with the horse and let the horse show you how he wants to be ridden. Each horse is different, each situation is different, and the preferences of individual horses change over time, as they develop and move up the levels. That’s why you should investigate these questions again from time to time with your horse in order to be able to adapt your seat and aids to the horse’s changing and evolving needs.
The old masters considered the horse’s natural crookedness to be a major obstacle in developing balance, suppleness, collection, impulsion, and “obedience” (i.e. positive responsiveness to the aids). Put positively, functional straightness is the foundation of balance, suppleness, collection, impulsion, and “obedience”. Without straightness, the horse won’t get very far in his training. Unfortunately, overcoming crookedness is not a trivial matter. It requires constant attention, and if the rider doesn’t work on straightening her horse every day, his innate crookedness will gradually increase again.
In one of our courses, a member asked a question about crookedness. She wanted to know which exercises to ride on the hollow side and the stiffer side to combat the symptoms of crookedness. There is unfortunately not a simple, straightforward answer to this because crookedness leads to imbalance on several different levels, such as…
I’m sure you are all familiar with the concept of Straightness as one of the elements of the German FN Training Scale. Those of you who are rooted in the French tradition know it as one of Alexis L’Hotte’s three main training principles (Calm, Forward, Straight). You have probably also run into its opposite - crookedness - as a tricky and quite pervasive issue. But has anybody explained to you what straightness is and why it is important? Why should you spend your entire equestrian life correcting the horse’s natural crookedness, as Jacques d’Auvergne wrote? Can’t we just go out and have fun on our horse?
In practising mindfulness (as with Feldenkrais) you have to bring your whole being into the process. In my opinion, this is exactly what all of us need to do in order to be a true horseman or woman.
So you have decided to take the leap and start using a double bridle but you want to make sure you do it correctly. We have put our collective years of experience together to give some advice to help you achieve this.
In modern dressage, the double bridle is often used as if both bits were designed identically. Most riders hold all four reins with the same tension. So the horse and rider don't get the benefit of the finesse of two bits that are designed differently and act very differently. The double bridle is not intended as a part of a costume. It is not there to get the head down. It is not there as brakes to stop your horse! In reality, the double bridle can bring a whole new dimension to the conversation with your horse.
For me, introducing the double bridle is almost like being slightly near-sighted and putting on glasses. With glasses, I can see a lot better. With a double bridle, you can feel a lot more details because you receive information through four reins and two different channels. And you can talk to the horse even more precisely than with just a snaffle.
When a flying change fails, the reason is usually that the horse became crooked and/or fell on the forehand. This results in a loss of the connection between the inside hind leg, the ground, the rider’s weight, and the reins which prevents the half halts from going through. That’s why things generally don’t improve if you keep cantering and keep repeating the aids for the flying changes.
It saves much time, sweat, and aggravation for both horse and rider, if you interrupt what you’re doing, bring the horse back to the trot or walk, or even to the halt, straighten and balance the horse, check his body for stiff, braced areas, remove the muscle blockages, and re-explain the biomechanics of the flying change (i.e. shift the weight, change the bend, move the pelvis).
As the horse is developing his conscious competence, he will often need time to think and to plan his next move so that he can perform the task deliberately. As he moves from conscious competence to unconscious competence, he can do flying changes anywhere, any time, with less and less preparation.
Happy New Year! It’s time to set our 2022 Riding Goals!
The New Year is upon us yet again. I think for most of you, it would be fair to say that 2020 and 2021 may not have gone according to plan for you, but if you were creative and resourceful, you may have been able to find a way to still continue your progress and learning, in spite of the less than perfect circumstances.
Not to make light of what has been a very tough two years, but I think it is also important to take stock of what HAS gone well and why. Times like this can teach us valuable lessons such as:
✵ No one else is more responsible for your learning more than you are.
✵ You are in charge of your learning.
✵ When there is a will, there is a way.
✵ Within every problem, there is a solution.
✵ You are more capable than you may have previously realized or believed.
- Learning 35
- Mindset 32
- Problem-Solving 39
- Strategy 46
- Biomechanics 28
- Contact & Connection 24
- Exercises 16
- Rider's Seat & Aids 35
- Tips 38
- Training 50
- Transitions 6
- History 5
- Movements 21
- Old Masters 8
- Straightness 11
- Body Awareness 20
- Impulsion 5
- Principles 19
- Longeing 1
- Retraining 1
- Walk 1
- Online course 8
- Canter 8
- Physiotherapy 6
- Visualizations 5
- Feldenkrais for Riders 10
- Trend Tuesday 1
- Double Bridle 2
- Flying Changes 1
- Lesson Blogs 2
- Online 1
- Piaffe 1
Not everything in riding is glamorous. Not everything is special, magical, and brilliant.
Much of the most important work we do, as riders, is work that is simple - even mundane - in its simplicity. But it is where the real treasures lie.
It is one thing to teach a horse a new concept, movement, or skill set. This is important work, too, but at first, it will come with many rough edges. When you introduce it to the horse, you get it in its crude, unpolished form. It is far from “finished” and the real work unfolds from there.