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Roundness and Softness in the Canter

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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…

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Don't lose sight of the whole picture

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Don't lose sight of the whole picture

This week’s blog is another practical tip that comes out of mistakes I made in the past. Every time something goes wrong it is an opportunity to look more closely at what is happening, how it is happening, and why it is happening. It is a great chance to learn something new and to gain deeper insights into the biomechanical and psychological causalities in riding. So, in many ways mistakes are blessings in disguise because they can push us further along and help us attain a higher level of understanding and competence.

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Mouth and Tongue Issues

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Mouth and Tongue Issues

I recently received an email from a lady with a question about a tongue issue that her horse had all his life. His tongue often comes out of the front of his mouth, c. 4cm, and goes back in, almost like a snake’s. It sounds like a licking motion. He has a tendency to worry and to get distracted.

Since I don’t know the rider or the horse my advice had to be relatively general, suggesting several possible causes for this phenomenon that she can investigate on her own. And then I thought that this might be an interesting topic for others as well because mouth and tongue issues are not uncommon, and they can be caused by a variety of factors.

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Self Carriage, Balance, and Lightness

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Self Carriage, Balance, and Lightness

We are often asked how to get a horse light in hand and off of the forehand when he is leaning heavily on the bridle. Both issues are closely related to each other. The rein contact that the horse offers is not a localised affair that is limited to the rider’s hand and the horse’s mouth. It is, rather, the result of the horse’s balance, overall posture, and muscle development. That’s why it usually doesn’t help to change bits, because the underlying causes are located somewhere else.

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Transitions Into Higher Gaits

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Transitions Into Higher Gaits

Transitions are always vulnerable to mistakes because the horse’s balance has to change from one gait to the next. The energy level is different in each gait. The necessary amount of core muscle engagement is different for both horse and rider. The movement is different. That’s why transitions are always prone to disturbances in the horse’s outline and rein contact. If the horse gets crooked or strung out, or if he loses balance, it will be reflected in the suppleness and the rein contact. Riding a smooth transition means managing all these different ingredients and helping the horse stay straight and in balance. That’s why so many riders and horses struggle with transitions.

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Listening to 'No'

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Listening to 'No'

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’?

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How To Switch Focus (What to do when it’s not going well)

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How To Switch Focus (What to do when it’s not going well)

It happens to all driven and focused riders at some point. We get so focused in on what we are trying to work on that we lose perspective or we forget to add in enough variety of other things because we want to “fix” this certain issue (and we want to fix it TODAY!).

On the one hand it is important to have a level of perseverance. Giving up at the sign of the slightest resistance or problem is not a path to success, but there comes a point where our dogged perseverance can backfire and make the matter worse. In those circumstances, we need to shift our gears, pivot in our approach, and shift our perspective.

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Riding And Emotions

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Riding And Emotions

Guest post by Marcella Becker.

Pretty much everybody that chooses to spend his time with horses puts their heart and soul in it. Certainly what motivates us all is the love of horses. Nonetheless, once we start getting really serious about our riding the entire project becomes at times laden with frustration. There is no rider who has not been at times (and this will happen again and again) right at the limit of their ability.

 

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Reasons Why Your Horse Is Not On The Bit - Part 2

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Reasons Why Your Horse Is Not On The Bit - Part 2

Everything is connected in riding. Rhythm, balance, self carriage, straightness, suppleness/stiffness,  back movement, rein contact, impulsion, collection (i.e. flexion of the haunches) are all interrelated and influence each other. Rider balance and horse balance, rider crookedness and horse crookedness, rider stiffness and horse stiffness affect each other in very direct ways. Any improvement in one area leads to improvements in all the other areas. Unfortunately, it works the other way around, too: a problem in one area will also have negative repercussions throughout the entire system.

 

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Reasons Why Your Horse Is Not On The Bit - Part 1

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Reasons Why Your Horse Is Not On The Bit - Part 1

I vividly remember one riding lesson that I had in my early days. My teacher told me: “Your horse needs to be more on the bit.” I was painfully aware of this because on the one hand it was hard to overlook, and on the other hand it was the one problem I was struggling with more than anything else. I would have loved to ride the horse more on the bit. But I didn’t know how. I wasn’t riding the horse inverted on purpose. I needed more practical, actionable information in order to be able to do a better job. Over the years I researched this subject in depth because it was so difficult for me for a long time and discovered many factors that are involved in riding the horse on the bit.

 

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Shorten The Reins!

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Shorten The Reins!

Everybody has heard the instruction “Shorten the reins!” countless times. And many riders get in trouble when they try to execute it because they take it literally, and their teacher doesn’t elaborate on the how and why. So they shorten the reins from front to back, and many horses resist more or less vigorously against their hand. This is one of those cases where the instruction maybe perfectly correct, but too incomplete to makes sense to many students. "Shorten the reins" is one of those instructions that need to be translated into practical action steps because it has to start from behind. Otherwise, you can get into an ugly fight with your horse.

 

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Mental Flexibility (it's a suppleness thing!)

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Mental Flexibility (it's a suppleness thing!)

In riding we often spend a large amount of focus on establishing and polishing the suppleness of the horse's body. We even often refer to the necessity for suppleness of the rider's body.

What is often, however, not mentioned or considered is that we also need to develop suppleness in the horse’s MIND, in his way of thinking. How flexible and resilient he is. How he adjusts to new circumstances or new exercises or new ways of doing the work.

And this also applies to the rider. As riders, we need to develop our own suppleness of thinking so that we also can become more flexible in our thinking, creative in our work, adjustable to circumstances, and resilient to circumstances.

So what does this look like?

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Be Like Water. Pivot.

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Be Like Water. Pivot.

Traditional riding instruction was often very rigid and inflexible. Disharmony or disagreements with the horse were usually framed as discipline and respect issues. That’s why you were told to prevail and insist that the horse carry out your orders at all costs - which can very quickly lead to fighting with the horse. The possibility that the horse was unable to comply due to a misunderstanding, a lack of balance, a lack of body awareness, a lack of suppleness, a lack of strength, or due to pain was rarely considered.

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Curiosity, Creativity, Innovation, And Rebellion

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Curiosity, Creativity, Innovation, And Rebellion

This is a subject that is interesting for students and teachers of dressage as well. We all want to learn to ride. That makes us curious. Curiosity leads to questions like: “How does this work?”, “How do I need to sit?”, “How do I ride a shoulder-in?”, “How do I teach a piaffe?”, etc. In pursuit of these questions, we take lessons, read books, and watch videos in the hopes of finding answers. Over the last 30 years the amount of equestrian literature has vastly proliferated, so that you can find many different publications to choose from on most topics. So far, so good. The danger is that there is a long tradition in the history of dressage to believe that there is only one true and correct way of riding and training. Everyone believes that THEIR way is the one and only RIGHT way, and that everyone else is, therefore, wrong.

 

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Evasions.

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Evasions.

To the rider it may sometimes seem that the horse can come up with an unlimited number of evasions that enable him to protect his hind legs. But from a systematic point of view there are only FIVE different ways in which the horse can avoid flexing his haunches and supporting the weight with his hind legs:

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