“Ride more forward!” is probably one of the most frequent instructions dressage riders hear from their teachers. Unfortunately, riding forward is often misunderstood as riding fast (by teachers as well as students). However, true “forward” begins with the horse "thinking forward”, which means that his first instinct should be to take a step forward (not sideways or backward) whenever you apply a driving aid.
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…
My understanding of the training scale is constantly evolving and changing, based on my practical experiences and observations. The first time I heard about the Training Scale (Skala der Ausbildung) was during theory lessons for the German Bronze medal, which is the prerequisite for participating in recognised shows. For the exam we had to memorize the terms Takt (rhythm), Losgelassenheit (relaxation/suppleness), Anlehnung (rein contact), Geraderichten (straightness), Schwung (impulsion), and Versammlung (collection). - And that was pretty much it. There wasn’t really any explanation for what these terms or concepts were about, or what the relationship between them was. We only had to be able to name them and to tell how to recognise them.
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.
Connection(s) and throughness is actually a rather large topic on which you could write a whole book because there are several different aspects to it that you can explain in great detail. There are many different connections that have to be established between the rider’s aids and the horse’s body, between the horse’s legs and the ground, as well as between the different parts of the horse’s body. With each new connection, the energy of the horse’s hind legs can travel more freely through his body and the permeability for the aids increases. Every time a connection is lost, the permeability diminishes and the movement impulses of the hind legs as well as the rider’s aids get stuck.
Yesterday I worked with Patrick and Solo, his Kladruber gelding. It was a lesson about developing the horse’s body awareness and connecting the horse’s feet to the ground and to the weight. Over the years I noticed that many horses don’t have good body awareness. They don’t seem to know exactly how many legs they have, or where they are. It always reminds me of quantum physics. If you know where a particle is, you don’t know where or how fast it is moving, and if you know where and how fast it is moving, you don’t know where it is. Horse’s legs are sometimes a little like that, too.
Where are we and what are we doing today?
We are visiting Noor Tanger and Patrick Molenaar in the Netherlands for a few days.
I worked with Noor Tanger and her PRE Stallion Oclajoma on developing power in the hindquarters, especially pushing power. We explained to him that he can put more energy into the walk, trot, or canter, without getting faster, and that he can slow down the tempo without going to sleep. These are not intuitively logical concepts for most horses, but they have to learn that a driving aid does not mean “go faster”, and a half halt doesn’t mean “take a break”. Tempo, stride length, and energy level are different parameters of the gait that can be adjusted separately.
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.
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.
