Consequences of Crookedness
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…
When a Flying Change Fails
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.
Roundness and Softness in the Canter
During the last year I have been working on the roundness and softness of the canter with Gulipipas. When his canter doesn’t feel good, it is because the inside hind leg is not flexing enough. This results in a rough feeling under the seat and resistance against the inside rein. To the extent that the inside hind leg softens and flexes more, the canter stride becomes rounder and softer.
This made me think of Gustav Steinbrecht’s statement that the impulsion and roundness of the canter strides comes from the outside hind leg…
Why the Seat is so important for the canter
The seat is always important in our riding. It plays an important role in everything we do, but in the canter, it is even more important than in the walk and trot. Due to the bigger movement in the canter, the rider’s seat gets challenged more than in the walk and trot, and the horse often needs more support from the rider’s seat in the canter in order to keep their balance.
Shaping And Reshaping The Canter Stride
How Do I Get A Good Canter?
Conventional wisdom says that for dressage you need to buy a horse with a good walk and a good canter because these gaits are difficult, if not impossible, to improve, whereas it is much easier toimprove the trot. Like many generalised rules, it is not altogether wrong, but it’s not completely true, either. On the one hand, it is accurate to say that horses with a calm, round, uphill canter and good suspension are much easier to train than horses with a rushy, scratchy, downhill canter. On the other hand, it is possible to improve the canter quite a bit, if you know how.
2 Exercises To Improve Your Canter Departs
We introduce two exercises from the Arena GPS series (www.equestrian-mobile-guides.com) that help to prepare and improve the canter depart.
Both exercises are most effective when you ride trot - canter transitions. They are simple enough that you can ride them with a 1st or 2nd Level horse.