Tuesday, December 2, 2014

I got my butt kicked in a dressage lesson. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

I've managed to get back into regular dressage lessons, and we're just progressing in leaps and bounds. Our new dressage trainer is really working on my position, and of course, when I ride better, Paddy goes better. Amazing, isn't it?

Our warmup currently consists of a lot of walk work, getting him moving both his shoulders and haunches away from my leg, and getting him to halt off my seat. We often spend 20-30 minutes just walking, trying to get him to listen to my leg and seat to a point where trot work can be productive. We're working on ways to make our warmup more productive, but Trainer keeps telling me that some horses require 2 hours to warm up and not to be impatient. Eeek!

Eventually we start with the trot. We stay on a 20 meter circle, and work on a few steps of trot, transition to walk. Over and over again. If he stays balanced and not rushy, he can trot a few more steps. The moment I feel him try to speed up, take the bit, etc, that's the moment I ask for the downward transition. The goal is to get him balanced and listening to my seat, so that I can just THINK downward transition and he'll balance back. This is the critical part - I CANNOT pull on him. He's got to be listening to my seat, and the hands/reins are just there for steering. If I start pulling at this stage, he'll just get heavier and heavier as the ride goes on, and ignores my seat more and more.

Usually during this stage, he decides to get with the program and really go to work. For the next 10-15 minutes, we work on keeping him on my seat aids, not pulling on the reins, keeping him on my leg aids (or rather, off my right leg lol!), and not pulling on the reins. If I've done it all right, we end up with him being really up into the bridle, balanced, and suuuuper flexy-bendy. This is where we do our best work - we can work on leg yields, shoulder in, and baby lengthenings. Of course, if I start pulling, I can undo all the work we've done to this point in a matter of minutes. It's a good incentive to keep my hands still!

If we haven't fallen apart yet, we move on to canter. In our last lesson, we did a TON of trot-canter-trot-canter transitions on a circle. It's easy for him to get flat and rushy at the canter, so this really helped us both work on staying balanced because everything came up so quickly. It felt awful and I was exhausted by the end, but looking at the video, it's not as bad as it felt.



I was really happy we had schooled all the canter transitions in the lesson (despite my legs feeling like Jello after), because at the show, Paddy broke to trot in the middle of a canter circle. No biggie, we quickly reorganized and got back to it.

I'm starting to collect so many little nuggets of riding wisdom in these lessons that I've started a new page, "Dressage Wisdom," to track them all. What are the best dressage tips you've gotten?

18 comments:

  1. Dressage is the best-est :) Nailing down a few dressage tips is hard, but over the summer I participated in a really eye opening clinic, and bulleted the main points here: http://theredheadedmare.blogspot.com/2014/07/clinic-brain-dump.html
    Not sure if any of it makes sense/would be helpful to anyone else, but I find myself going back to it if I get a little stuck.

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    1. Oooh, thanks for the clinic recap! There are some awesome gems in there!

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  2. I think Nancy & I might share your pulling problem. I must try getting her to halt off my seat!
    Now to remember this too when I am next in her saddle!

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    1. Pulling works every time, right?

      Until you let go, and then your horse stops dead. It's like reverse psychology, I swear.

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  3. One of the best tips I've gotten, which can certainly apply to all aspects of riding is: "Think it, ride it, put the horse there". Such a simple concept, but a lot of riders will be riding a Dressage test and surprise the horse by hurriedly asking for a canter without preparing first.

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    1. Yes, knowing what you're about to do is really important!

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  4. I'm doing the walk/trot version of this right now. If I even think about pulling, Courage inverts and loses his balance, plus I'm trying to teach him to trust the contact, so it's all about very soft hands, very quiet aids, and him really tuning in. It's not exciting, but I can really see it working for him.

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    1. Don't. Pull. On the Reins. It's my new mantra!

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  5. Many years ago when I was a young Pony Clubber who saw dressage as that boring thing you did before you got to the good stuff, I thought dressage was all putzing around the arena at a snail's pace with your horse's head kinda down. During a camp, an instructor told me "Dressage isn't about 'slow'!" Sounds pretty "duh", but it really did make me reevaluate the way I rode dressage tests. Now, instead of trying to slow my horse down to a reasonable pace, I just try to give their energy somewhere to go!

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    1. Oh yes, I call "using the energy for good, not evil". Totally with you on that!

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  6. nice lesson - you two look great! i am so guilty of constantly pulling on the reins... but these exercises sound like great ways to wean myself from the habit. glad you're enjoying them so much!

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    1. It's so haaaard not to pull, I swear it is!

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  7. Yay lessons! One of the themes in my lessons (those that I am teaching since I don't take them anymore) is having a good idea of what you want your aid to mean to the horse before you give it so that the horse can be successful.

    It happens a lot in teaching a lateral movement- let's say haunches-in. The rider knows that they want haunches-in so asks but then just keeps pushing and pushing for more. First, the horse can get frustrated because they realize that nothing is enough for the rider and some horses will start to act up or refuse to do it. Second, this causes the lateral movement to be really wishy washy because there's no end point and the horse just keeps trying to go for more and then failing so they start fishtailing.

    You can apply it to anything though- before you give an aid, evaluate what your expectation is and at what level of performance by the horse can you give some kind of praise or release of the aid (which is praise in itself). This helped me a lot teaching the passage to Rico. I wanted more lift and more energy all the time and he just got discouraged because in his mind, he couldn't give me what I wanted. Once as he realized I'd praise him for something he COULD do, he was more willing.

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    1. Good point about the asking and rewarding, then stop asking. Sometimes I tend to drill stuff too much, I think. "Just one more step" or "Just a little better". It's hard to balance not pushing for what you know he CAN do (because he was brilliant at it yesterday) and what you SHOULD do (because he can barely keep his brain in his head today). It's so much about feeling and timing!

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    2. That's a great point! I used to have that problem with Pig. I'd ask for a haunches in for the first time, and expect it to look like he was a GP horse. Obviously that wasn't remotely possible for him. Dumb. Now I try to be more careful about rewarding the response off my leg and seat, and only get after him when he doesn't maintain what I rewarded him for. Much better system! We have plenty of time to work towards looking like a GP horse. ;)

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  8. Totally agree with Megan's comment, 'letting go' as a reward is one of the hardest things for me to learn. Your warm-up plan sounds good, but some horses need TWO HOURS??? I'd be collapsed in a soggy heap in the corner of the arena by then!

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  9. There is no middle ground, you are either making the horse a little bit better, or a little bit worse. Spoken to me by Thomas Ritter.

    Expect great things, but remember to praise the little accomplishments. Sylvia Loch in her writings and video

    A brace in the rider or horse indicates a loss of balance. My teacher, Diane Sept

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  10. Sometimes Pig and I stay on a 10-20 m walk circle for 30 min getting him working off my seat and leg aids to the degree I need him to for the rest of schooling. Our whole warm up can last upwards of 45 minutes. Sometimes the warm-up is the whole ride. Whatever it takes to get him flexible and listening. It's awesome that your trainer is willing to take the time to get you guys where you need to go.

    The pulling thing is so interesting. My trainer has me release on horses that try to pull against you. Just for a moment. She says "a horse can't pull if there is nothing to pull against." It's good reasoning, and really seems to work. Generally I release for a moment, boot the horse, the horse raises it's head and releases the pull, and I go back to contact. It takes, maybe a stride. With some horses I'm repeating it a lot, until they get the hint. With others it takes one or two repeats and they never try it again. It's definitely a learned skill, though. My first instinct is always to pull. So hard to resist.

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