Re: ridecamp-d Digest V98 #84

[katja <halfmeyer@cc.ucsf.edu>]

Hi group,

I have 5 min. on my hands, so I thought I put in my 2cents worth and try
to explain some dressage stuff.....<excuse my English though>

Making the horse go sidewards there are TWO different exercises one can
do: The first option a rider has is the one that is appropriate for the
more unexperienced horse-rider combination. It is basically the start to
teach a horse to move away from the pressure of the rider's leg. The
rider leans towards the side he/she wants the horse to move AWAY from,
that means if one wants the horse to move away/sidewards  responding to
pressure applied to the LEFT side of the horse, the riders leans a
little bit to the LEFT side by shifting his/her weight to the LEFT
seat-bone. Making the horse move away from pressure on the right side
of  the horse, the rider shifts weight to the right seat-bone, okay?
Starting this lection, the rider has to make sure FIRST that the horse
is bend gently to the side the rider wants to apply the pressure to and
wants the horse to move away from, so that means:
1.  introduction.....horse gently bend to the left, so that the horse's
left eye becomes slightly visible to the rider. Try to follow some kind
of fence on your right side, makes the introduction a lot easier!

2.  gently shift your weight to the left side, if necessary shorten the
left rein a bit, have contact to the horse on the right rein as well,
because you want to stay on a straight line after all.

3.  move the horse away from the fenceline a little bit, towards the
center of the arena <or the imaginal "circle" you are on in an open
field>. Use your RIGHT leg to do so together with some more of the left
rein, at the same time have enough contact on the right rein to still
follow some sort of straight line, if you don't make sure you have some
kind of a straight line in your mind, you end up on a circle....

4.  now is the time to apply as much pressure on the LEFT side of the
horse as the rider is capable of doing, you sort of push the horse into
the sideward movement out of the position you and the horse are in after
the "introduction". Be sure to still have the horse bended to the left
side... Your right leg remains a hand width behind the girth and makes
sure that the horse's rear end is not just walking straight while the
front end pretends to move sidewards. <isn't it neat how horses always
find ways around special exercise..?!>If communication is well
established, your horse should move sidewards now.......<e-mail me for
trouble-shooting>

Okay?! Understandable?!

The other lection possible in dressage is for the more advanced
horse-rider and leads to those fancy sideward movements in trott and
canter you can see at highest level dressage shows...the german folks
call it: Traversale
This time the rider leans INTO the direction he/she and the horse want
to go while the leg-aid remains very similar to the exercise I described
above. the seat-bone shift is so to say opposite to the exercise
described above. The aim is to keep the horse as straight as possible in
the spin and still move sidewards. This exercise is for advanced horses
that passed the stage of learning to bend, relax and respond to the
rider's aids, it does not bend, flex or help the horse to understand the
rider if horse and rider haven't been clear BEFORE they start training
this exercise.

My experience is very similar to Erin's lecture about horses versus
waterballs, once they learned to move AWAY  from pressure <which is a
tough exercise for them, Monty Roberts observed that horses are INTO
pressure animals> the rider should start using this advantage and train
on sideward movements by shifting weight to the side he/she wants the
horse to move AWAY from. In this case it works like sitting on a
waterball and it helps to bend and flex the horse at the same time. I
also consider it as a good exercise to train on communication between
horse and rider and to do some fine-tuning on leg aids.

Allright, enough of lecture, back to work! Have fun trying some of the
stuff if you feel like it, hope this info helps...........

Katja