Tag: dressage

Just do the homework

It’s been a long hard winter. I’m sure some of you have been really organised and managed to do lots of riding and training?!

I decided this winter that we would be kind to ourselves: I gave the horses January off to concentrate on eating and keeping warm out in their field. Rocky, our 5 year old Hanoverian, did some extra growing, which wasn’t quite in the plan. Then the rain came.

What I did do this winter was lots of studying. Just do the homework.

Riding is a physical activity. Training your horse correctly for longevity requires theoretical knowledge as well as physical skills.

I read and re-read a few of the Classical Dressage texts: Charles de Kunffy is a perennial favourite: his concise prose is so clear and the illustrations chosen are always completely inspirational.

https://g.co/kgs/qUETn4

His little but perfect book “The Ethics and Passion of Dressage” should be in every equestrian’s library, in my humble opinion. I feel very fortunate to have audited several of Charles’ clinics, at Dovecote Stables and at the now defunct TTT, as well as riding with him for a couple of lessons.

I did quite a lot of Facebook discussing- on sites such as Classical Horsemanship. Contrary to the modern defensive dressage divas, I find these sites incredibly informative. Once one starts to learn who to listen to, who really knows their theory, and how to spot others who just spout catchphrases without really understanding the nuts and bolts of correct training. And those who do know their stuff will always answer questions, really helpful and unfailingly polite, while those just spouting politically correct jargon but not actually doing the do cannot explain themselves and get defensive or offensive when questioned.

Just do the homework.

Facebook and online discussion are a fascinating exercise in communication too- do I understand my problem or the horse’s dilemma well enough to phrase a question that will lead to a useful answer?

Thomas Ritter has done a fabulous series of “Facebook lives” over the winter- these are still available online as a really generous free resource, and some of the mini challenges have been great, even if I didn’t manage to do the physical manege work yet to make the most of the exercises shared. I will be doing more of that homework now we have some light nights to enjoy.

I’ve found a yoga teacher I like, and that teaches just around the corner, which is great. I will have functional, unlocked hip flexors one day before I die…

But the main thing I did was to just do the homework, to make sure every ride counted. We don’t have an arena, so a lot of the winter riding we did was hacking in the forest, between snow and rain and hail.

I didn’t slop around on a loose rein, enjoying life. I didn’t ride my horse around in an artificial outline, stifling his urge to go forward. I made sure every step was taken with the longest possible forward and out neck that he could balance, with a relaxed jaw and poll, and I thought about my equitation absolutely every step that I could. Are my buttocks soft, have I got one on each side of the horse, are my knees level, are my legs rotated so I have thigh bones not fat in contact with the saddle, are my elbows pointy, are my upper arms a vertical part of my back, is my back flat not hollow, are my thumbs holding the reins, not fingers, are my fingers folded not grabbing….and most of all, can I stretch my lower leg back so it feels like my heels are collecting the hocks of the horse, I get a slight kneeling in church feeling and the angle behind my knee opens up?? None of these are positions to be held- the magic happens in the movement of change, the transition, so it is replace, replace replace, on a loop like a computer programme, round and round my body.

I made sure Cal was straight from tail to poll, no funky kinky stuff, and I tried to think about him stepping with even weight through both forelegs, and I did a little bit of shoulder in, haunches in, half pass as we walked and trotted around, but mostly I just worked on me.

And a big change occurred, suddenly over a long winter.

A soft, inflated lifted top-line developed. His neck and lumbar back look amazing. The contact became incredibly consistent, although he still head shakes on windy days. His stride has got longer, he has cadence and suspension developing.

And he is absolutely just a pleasure to ride. Keen, alert, fun, sensitive, self motivated, jumping all sorts of awkward crazy logs off a one stride turn, just for fun.

Just do your homework folks- it’s worth it.

But do the right homework- practise only makes perfect if the practise is correct.

You are either improving your horse or breaking him down.

and there is no try, only do or don’t.

Your horse will tell you when you are doing enough.

Enough is always much more than you think- if it ain’t changing, you ain’t doing it.

And don’t bullshit yourself, you are doing yourself and your horse a massive disservice if you do anything less than your best.

Just do the homework, with a big massive smile 🙂

Working on a perfect seat

January and February have been challenging from a riding point of view here in the UK; I have been making the best of the worst conditions by working on my leg position and tone, part of the lifelong task of working on a perfect seat.

There is often a theme to our learning. This winter, I have been doing a lot of background reading, and whilst perusing the photos, I have found myself fascinated by the photos of jumping and dressage heroes of old, all with a perfect seat balanced to the ground, and a really good strong leg position.

Eddie Boylan on Durlas Elile from Einar’s personal collection- world champion 3 Day Eventer and also successful at GP dressage
Arthur Kottas from “Kottas on Dressage”

Leg positions with good angles between ankle, knee and hips.

Photo from “Creative Horsemanship” CDK
Photos from “Creative Horsemanship” CDK

For me the key feelages have been that the it is the outside muscles of the legs that are engaged, not the inside. A rotated thigh allows the thigh bone to lie flat against the saddle; there should be no muscle in the way. For me this is legs off saddle, an inch up, an inch out and away, and then thigh rotation and heels out and back as if they are connected to the hocks of the horse. Piriformis, a pesky little muscle in our hip-joint,  screams at me when I have done enough.

There are other key feels for me: I have to stretch my weight down and over the top but along the outside of my thigh- like kneeling in church.

And I have to push my legs back and my toes up- I found a great way to access this feeling on the ground the other day- I stand in riding stance, and then, without changing anything else above, I move my feet back several inches so they are well underneath me. Imagine kneeling in church to get the feeling of down the thighs. Or the feeling that your knees are pressed up against a bar or a wall. That last feel finally got my kneecaps rolled down a fraction not opening forwards . When I do this ‘enough’ in the saddle, Cal stretches his topline and reaches forward to carry me beautifully on a softly lifted back. And that fabulous lifted stretching topline has nothing to do with the reins!

This work has involved a lot of stretching my hip flexors, through yoga, Pilates and with regular attention from a really good physio  who does Myofascial Release.

For those of you who haven’t yet discovered the magic that is MFR, this video gives a good overview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdRqLrCF_Ys

Draped legs, gently framing the horse’s sides.

Shana Ritter – from “The Biomechanical Basis of Classical Riding “

The degree of tone in the lower legs, required to support a horse in collection.

Thomas Ritter – from “The Biomechanical Basis of Classical Riding”

Jumping position with the back flat, the shoulders up, the bum pushed back, the legs still grounded, and above all the hands giving towards the horse’s mouth, not balanced on the crest for support.

Above are some of the photos from my winter reading that have inspired me to work harder.

Sources-

“Creative Horsemanship” Charles de Kunffy

“The Biomechanical Basis of Classical Riding” Dr Thomas Ritter

“Kottas on Dressage” Athur Kottas- Heldenberg

for more reading suggestions https://www.nelipotcottage.com/books-i-am-glad-i-found/

Hoping my seat is up to inspection 😉

Homework for my long-suffering readers:

Someone asked a really simple question the other day

“what motivates you?”

and the flip side is “what limits you?”

Be really honest with yourselves: if you don’t know what limits you, you can’t move past the limit.

For me Cal made it really obvious I had to learn to ride him better to get the best out of him.

I wanted a novice eventer, and inadvertently bought a seat horse. Who would insist on me working really hard, every ride, towards a perfect seat.

 

Every moment matters

Every moment matters; with your horse, every moment is training, something.

Every moment matters was loosely the subject of a brisk discussion in the pub last night. I didn’t manage to explain myself very successfully in the pub (red wine effects possibly) so I thought I’d have another go at clarifying my thoughts.

Every moment matters: The quote that started the discussion:

“There is no neutrality in riding: you are either actively improving your horse or actively breaking him down”

Charles de Kunffy, Ethics and Passion of Dressage


It is our responsibility as riders is to make sure the horse is physically able to carry us comfortably at no long term detriment to his body. 

“The first basic commitment for riders, borne of our love and respect for the horse, is to rebalance the horse under the added weight of the rider and his equipment. This is a never ending process that lies at the heart of the young horse’s training….However the perfecting of the composite balance of horse and rider is a never-ending task.”

Charles De Kunffy -The Ethics and Passion Of Dressage 

Horses in the wild have a natural balance that equips them perfectly for a life spent mostly grazing. The majority of their weight is on their forelegs, as they spend 60% of their life with their head down inspecting blades of grass. Their long spine hangs between hips and withers supported only by long back muscles. The hind legs act to push or thrust the horse along but do not naturally fold and create lift. 

Horses are also naturally crooked, just like us, the majority are right handed or right convex banana shapes. Anyone who rides knows that one circle tends to get larger, the other smaller, that turning in one direction can feel like falling and the  other like turning a ship around. In the wild, this doesn’t really matter, although the horse on the outside of the herd is the one that gets eaten so the very unbalanced tend to be the most neurotic. Once ridden regularly however, if the one sidedness is not corrected, in a right convex horse the left forelimb and the right hind are most prone to injury as they do the majority of the weight bearing work. 

Horses are also somatic beings- their body state determines their mood and their overall health. An unbalanced horse is an anxious horse, an anxious horse is prone to ulcers and injury. 

Every moment matters when we choose to sit on a horse. We have to improve on their natural balance, otherwise the additional load of a rider and the increased work required when being ridden will place undue stress on the fragile forelegs. For this  reason we work to transfer the balance gradually back so the hindlegs take more load. To achieve this the back needs to learn to lift the rider and also to connect the flow of energy from hind to fore. This takes training.

The premise of classical training for me is that the training is absolutely correct in achieving improved biomechanical function and that improved function then leads to a happier calmer horse. 


What became apparent in the pub is that people make assumptions based on language.

Classical 

Training 

“Classical” –  it occurred to me in hindsight that to some people Classical means “Haute Ecole” or Airs or Piaffe and Passage. When I say Classical I mean training,  right from the beginning with Classical principles. I do agree that not every horse needs to be trained to Haute Ecole to make a good riding horse but every horse does deserve to be trained correctly from day one and that correct training will lay a foundation that enables the horse to do any job safely and to the best of its’ ability.

“Ride your horse forward and straight” Gustav Stenbrecht

Such a simple instruction- but getting there requires us to restore the horse to his natural balance under the weight of  the rider, and improve his crooked tendencies, so we can then teach him to lift his back to carry the rider on a well supported spine in order that riding does not harm him. For me that is where Classical riding starts. 

And where many horses are failed by their riders who take shortcuts or simply do not understand basic training principles.

“Training”- one person in the discussion doesn’t like the word training, because it sounds too regimented. 

Again, a language dilemma. I don’t mean schooling or drilling, training does not have to take place in an arena. In fact,training is occurring every minute that you spend with your horse. Every moment matters because your horse is watching you, learning what responses you expect, and repeating behaviours that seem to meet with praise. With this truth comes another; if your horse always does something “annoying” like walking away from the mounting block, that is what you have taught him, albeit inadvertently. Better then to be mindful every minute and ensure that you are training desired actions. Which is why every moment matters.

“The horse knows no right from wrong and learns everything indiscriminately. Therefore, in schooling him there is no neutrality”

CDK again-it’s so important he said it twice!

For in hand and ridden work, we have 3 sets of kit in our training toolbox, our seat and aids, the exercises, and the arena patterns. Two of these can be used hacking out, but the geometry of the arena contains magic and to never make the effort to school in the defined marked out arena and use the patterns to work their magic for you is to limit yourself to 2/3 of your training possibilities. 

And there is no excuse for drilling. By combining the patterns and exercises there are literally thousands of things we can do in an arena. I can think of about 50 variations of a 20m circle without pausing for breath, inside bend, outside bend, shoulder in, straight, haunches in, changes of pace, changes of topline, innies and outies etc etc.

I don’t school often enough. We are fortunate to live in the middle of some of the best off road hacking in the U.K. and we don’t have an arena. However I do my best to ride mindfully every minute- if I am always training, at least I am doing it deliberately, although often not perfectly. If I receive an unexpected result, I don’t blame the horse, I analyse my seat and aids and check where the confusion might have arisen.

“..all [training exercises] follow one another in such a way that the preceding exercise always constitutes a secure basis for the next one. Violations of this rule will always exert payment later on; not only by a triple loss of time but very frequently by resistances, which for a long time if not forever interfere with the relationship between horse and rider.”

Steinbrecht again.

Are my horses robots? No way!!! The other Classical principle is that the aids and exercises are used in a way to set the horse up for success, so that he offers the desired response and can be rewarded. The horse is never punished- what you receive is what you asked for. That’s a hard one to get used to.


A completely correct and balanced seat is essential to damp down white noise and allow clear aiding- this is always a work in progress but my photos do show definite improvement over the last few years. 

“The horse knows how to be a horse…we have to learn to be a rider.”

CDK again- my favourite.

A Classically trained horse is enabled and empowered to use his body efficiently, willingly, correctly with two equal hind legs and therfore no blockages to the transfer of power from tail to poll. So we ride at full revs, the whole horse, but with absolute calm.

So there we have it. A quick reflection on my point in the journey. 

Some people may say they just want to have fun, and ride their horse. And that’s fine, as long as we remember that fun is a human word. And ask ourselves regularly and truthfully if we are having fun with the horse or at the expense of the horse. 

“The improvement of understanding is for two ends; first our own increase in knowledge, and secondly to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others”
Please do comment- for good or bad ?