Different Interpretations
Many dressage riders view the movements in very absolute terms, based on the definitions in the FEI rule book. When someone rides a movement, like a shoulder-in for instance, it either fulfils these criteria or it doesn’t. In other words, it either IS a shoulder-in or it’s NOT. This is very much a judge’s viewpoint, which is valid in competitions and exhibitions. However, in training, I take a more fluid approach. I prefer to look at movements as points on a continuum because it’s unrealistic to expect a horse or a rider to be able to perform a perfect shoulder-in or half pass, the first time they try it. So, we as trainers and teachers have to build a road, or a staircase for the student to get from where they are to the finished product. This means we have to set priorities in the way we teach movements and approach the end goal in many small learning steps. If we aimed for perfection or demanded perfection at the first attempt, we would set the horse and the rider up for failure, stress, and frustration.
Setting priorities means ignoring certain imperfections for the time being because they have a lower priority than other aspects of the movement.
Example #1
For instance, you can visualise a continuum with a leg yield on one end and the shoulder-in, counter shoulder-in, or haunches-in on the other.
When you approach these lateral movements, the first step is to teach the horse that instead of both hind legs moving exactly parallel with each other, one of them can step in front of the other, which creates a weight shift onto the non-crossing hind leg and an increased suppleness of the hindquarters. In the beginning, this may take a relatively crude form without much bend. The horse may even make some funny movements with his head and neck as he is trying to figure out the new balance. It is helpful at this stage to practice mainly the transitions in and out of the sideways movement, without staying in it for very long.
When you ask the haunches to yield to the inside, away from the arena wall, you may not be able to control the outside hind leg very well at first, which means that the horse won’t be able to show a correct lateral bend yet. But it’s a start. Once the horse is able to move his croup in and out, you can try to frame the outside hind leg more, so that it no longer escapes to the side, but steps under the body. The more you succeed in keeping the outside hind leg underneath the body, the more the horse will develop an even lateral bend through this entire body. Over time, the leg yield with the nose to the wall evolves into a counter shoulder-in. During this process, there will be moments in which you have better control over the outside hind leg, so the movement is closer to a true counter shoulder-in on the continuum. But there will also be moments in which you lose the outside hind leg or in which the shoulders escape to one side, so that the movement is closer to a leg yield, or the neck bends excessively and the hind legs don’t sidestep at all. That’s life. Mistakes happen to everyone.
When you can ride a fairly good counter shoulder-in on most days, you can start driving the outside hind leg more forward and closer to the center of gravity until it reaches so far under the body that the horse’s pelvis has to change its position by bringing the formerly outside hip more forward than the inside hip. This creates a change in bend and the counter shoulder-in develops into a haunches-in.
The same principle applies if you ride the horse on the 2nd track of the arena or on the quarter line and ask the haunches to yield slightly towards the outside of the arena. Gaining control over the outside hind leg will enable you to keep the hind legs on the line and move the shoulders to the inside lead so that a shoulder-in develops, and driving the outside hind leg more under the body will eventually lead to a renvers position.
Since the horse will be somewhere along this continuum for a large part of his training, one of our teachers, used to say: “Let’s not give it a name yet. Then we’re not so locked into the specifics of angle and bend, etc.”
Example #2
Another example of the continuum is the leg yield/shoulder-in on the circle and the TOF in motion. Many horses find turns on the forehand in motion too difficult at first. But they are able to yield their haunches slightly to the outside on the circle line. You can start by moving the croup merely one hoof’s breadth to the outside. This is so easy that almost any horse can do it. The steeper the angle becomes, the more difficult it is for the horse because it requires greater flexibility of the hind legs and greater support of the outside hind leg in particular. Increasing the angle between the horse’s body and the circle line will gradually lead to the hindquarters describing a circle around the front legs.
The concept of the continuum also leads to the idea of “homeopathic doses”. It’s not necessary to ride a full-fledged shoulder-in or haunches-in on 3 or 4 tracks in order to obtain a gymnastic benefit. Sometimes it’s enough to move the front legs or hind legs just a hoof’s breadth to the side, or even merely to hint at a movement so that the horse thinks about it and the rider thinks about it. No-one can see it, but you can see and feel the gymnastic effect. These homeopathic doses often improve the horse’s straightness and bend, and they improve the rider’s awareness and coordination of the aids.
Example #3
Another example of these principles is a continuum that starts with the haunches-in on the circle and ends in a pirouette. You can begin by riding a 20m circle and moving the hindquarters one hoof’s breadth to the inside. This is fairly easy for most horses. When you spiral in while maintaining the haunches-in, the inside hind leg has to support an increasing share of the weight, until the haunches-in circle becomes a passade, and eventually a pirouette.
As the horse is learning and practicing these movements, you will feel resistance building in one of the horse’s hind leg as you approach the limit of its flexibility and strength. At this point, it’s time to reduce the demands or exit the movement temporarily and come back to it again later in order to gradually increase the horse’s strength, flexibility, and balancing ability.
Summary
Maybe you could try to apply the concept of the continuum that stretches between the first beginning of a movement and the picture perfect execution the next time you ride. Use it as a roadmap to teach your horse a new movement or to improve a movement that he already knows.
Think of the ends of the continuum as yin and yang. Each one contains a trace of the other. A half pass still contains elements of the leg yield, and the leg yield is like the seed from which you can grow the half pass.
Don’t get too fixated on certain surface level specs of a movement, but work with the gymnastic ingredients, such as shifting the weight from one side to the other, asking the hindquarters to sidestep, turning the shoulders, bending, pushing with a hind leg or flexing it.
Don’t get nervous if a mistake happens and you’re moving closer to the lower end of the continuum. Observe instead which ingredient you lost and try to restore it to move closer to the upper end of the continuum.
Try also to explore the concept of the homeopathic doses to refine your coordination.
