Clear and effective communication is the foundation of good riding and training. Without it, confusion sets in, making progress difficult for both horse and rider. This article explores the importance of clarity in intention and aids, emphasizing the need for consistency, proper timing, and a well-defined training approach. By understanding how to communicate precisely and predictably, riders can create a more responsive and confident horse, leading to a more harmonious partnership.
Since exercises have several different properties at the same time, they can belong into several different categories at the same time. It always depends on which aspect you want to focus on at the moment.
And just because you think of an exercise as highlighting the use of the outside aids, for example, doesn’t mean that you don’t need to use the inside aids at certain moments.
It’s important to keep in mind that these categorizations are neither absolute nor are they mutually exclusive. An exercise can fulfill more than one gymnastic purpose. But categorizing the exercises according to their gymnastic effect can help us understand a problem or design a custom exercise to address an issue we have identified.
Sometimes we are asked about how to structure a training session, or how to build the horse’s training over the years. There are several basic principles that you can follow in structuring the training of your horse in each ride, as well as longterm, through the years. Training should always revolve around refining the basics, such as improving the horse’s body awareness, coordination, balance, straightness, suppleness, permeability, the quality of the gaits, and eventually impulsion and collection. Dressage movements are on the one hand gymnastic tools that help the rider to improve these basics, and on the other hand they allow the rider to gauge to what extent the horse has mastered these basics, where there is need for improvement, where there may be holes in the training, and deficits in the horse’s body awareness or understanding.
As we are learning to ride and train, we sometimes encounter big problems that seem to appear very suddenly, and we wonder: what happened??!! Everything was going fine, and all of a sudden, the horse is acting up. Maybe he suddenly stopped and refused to go forward, from one day to the next. Maybe he started turning around for no discernible reason. Maybe he started to rear or buck. In some cases, the reason is pain-related. But in some cases, the extreme reaction is the final stage in a longer process. The rider kept making small mistakes with her seat and aids that the horse didn’t like. So he started to react in small ways at first. Maybe he pinned his ears in certain situations, or he lost some impulsion, or he became more crooked, or he inverted. But when the rider didn’t notice the subtle warning signs and didn’t change what she was doing, the horse had to send out larger and larger signals. Some riders only get the message when they get bucked off. But by that time they have missed hundreds of smaller warning signs over a period of several months. And once the horse is so annoyed that he bucks or rears, the problem has become very serious.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Many riders struggle with a square halt for years. For those who are not familiar with the term, here is a brief definition: In a square halt, you should only see two legs when looking directly from the front, from behind, or from the side. The weight should be distributed evenly on all four legs at the lower levels. At the upper levels, there should be more weight on the haunches than on the front legs.
