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[RC] dressage instruction for endurance riders - Glenda R. SnodgrassI would like some opinions on dressage instruction for endurance riders. Hoping to get back into riding endurance, after a bit over 2 years of not riding at all, I recently started weekly dressage lessons. After four lessons, I'm getting my legs back and my body is remembering how to ride again, so on that front I'm pleased. However, the lessons are not exactly what I expected, which is where I would like some input from experienced endurance riders who have also taken (or given) lessons. I'm not sure whether I need a different class (I'm doing group lessons), a different instructor, or a different set of expectations and understanding of what I am doing. Most of the things the instructor tells me to do (full contact on the bit, sit deep in the saddle and drive with my seat, squeeze tight with my lower legs) are things I consider to be contrary to what I should be doing on a distance ride (which is really the only thing I care about <g>). I have always tried to ride with most of my weight on knees and inner thighs with my seat lightly floating above the saddle seat to stay off the horse's back and out of his way, with my knees acting like a hinge/shock absorber constantly balancing my body in this floating position. This is an easy thing for me to do, whereas setting deep, driving with my seat, is very difficult and feels unnatural to me, which means I'll have to put forth a lot of time and effort to learn it, and I'm not certain this is what I should be spending my time and effort on. I ultimately want to learn better balance off the horse's back, not long-legged and deep-seated while driving with my seatbones and squeezing with my lower legs. I want to learn to signal turns better with my body, but what I learned from reading is to turn by facing the direction I want to go with my head, then my upper body, and the horse would turn in the direction I'm facing. That's definitely not what we do in dressage class, tho, my instructor has never mentioned that concept at all. I have the impression that my instructor is focused on teaching dressage for dressage tests, which is not something I'm interested in (although the rest of the class probably is), rather than teaching basic principles of dressage which could be applied to distance riding. So my question is this: do I need to learn this deep-seat riding style that she is teaching before I can progress to other things that will be useful to me in distance riding? Is that a necessary component of riding skill that I have missed out on? Or am I in the wrong class? Would I perhaps be better off with a jump instructor learning hunt-seat equitation, or simply a dressage instructor with a different method? I'd really like to know what the rest of you do. -- Glenda R. Snodgrass Before you begin, consider ... The Net Effect http://www.theneteffect.com (251) 433-0196 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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