, , , , , , ,

A Different Way of Looking at Gymnastic Exercises

, , , , , , ,
A Different Way of Looking at Gymnastic Exercises

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.

, , , , ,

Working With Horses Coming Back From An Injury

, , , , ,
Working With Horses Coming Back From An Injury

When you are working with a horse that is coming back from an injury, you can use dressage exercises to help him recover. Of course, this is more challenging than regular dressage because there is always a risk of re-injury. There are a few things to consider that can help you in the rehabilitation process. The following list can be applied to sound, healthy horses as well, of course, but it’s even more important with horses that are recovering from an injury.

, , , , , ,

How do I teach a square halt?

, , , , , ,
How do I teach a square halt?

A square halt in which both hind legs are underneath the body, the weight is distributed evenly over the support base, and the horse is round, elevated, and light, is something that many riders struggle with. Most horses will leave one hind leg out behind, or they have one front leg farther under the body than the other.

, , , , , ,

Confront the difficult while it is still easy - Tao te Ching (63)

, , , , , ,
Confront the difficult while it is still easy - Tao te Ching (63)

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 Leg-Weight-Rein Connection

, , , , , , ,
The Leg-Weight-Rein Connection

When I was riding the other day, I remembered a quote from Nuno Oliveira: “When the horse resists against the left rein, try to replace the left rein aid with your left leg.”

My horse had started out a little stiff on the right that day, and I could feel it coming from the right hind leg through my right seat bone, and I could feel the same stiffness in the right rein. This is a crookedness issue: the contact in the right rein felt heavier and harder than I liked because the right hind leg wasn’t stepping under enough. This usually also means that the horse supports too much weight with his right front leg.

, , , ,

Why does my horse invert in transitions?

, , , ,
Why does my horse invert in transitions?

If the horse inverts in transitions, there are several possible causes. Some of them have to do with the horse, some of them have more to do with the rider. Transitions are always susceptible to mistakes because the footfall and the balance have to change.

, , ,

Ask The Right Questions

, , ,
Ask The Right Questions

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.

, , , , , , , ,

Transitions, Transitions: Simple, but not easy

, , , , , , , ,
Transitions, Transitions: Simple, but not easy

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.

, , , , , , ,

Dissolving Resistances

, , , , , , ,
Dissolving Resistances

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.

, , , , , , , ,

How To Improve The Horse’s Straightness In The Shoulder-in

, , , , , , , ,
How To Improve The Horse’s Straightness In The Shoulder-in

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 8 Different Types Of Exercises

, , , , ,
The 8 Different Types Of Exercises

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.

 

, , , , , , , , ,

Some Thoughts About Energy

, , , , , , , , ,
Some Thoughts About Energy

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.

, , , , , ,

The Relaxed Walk at the Longe Line

, , , , , ,
The Relaxed Walk at the Longe Line

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.

, , , , , ,

The Thinking Rider

, , , , , ,
The Thinking Rider

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.

Cart (0)