dancinghorse | A bit (OK, a lot) more dressage neep (Reply)

Moving this out from Comments again, so it won't get lost.

raithen had some questions and observations:

Ok. My bad. Thanks for clarifying what you meant by pacey -- that makes way more sense (that's the problem with being in the gaited world -- riding and terminology are ALMOST but not QUITE the same....). And now I understand other comments I've heard over the years MUCH better.

Yes, dressage uses the terms differently. There's this whole thing about "pure" (which I think means diagonal) gaits i.e. four-beat walk, two-beat trot, and three-beat canter, without variation and without addition of the different lateral gaits. Lipps have been bred to have extremely diagonal gaits, but big movers may still get tangled up in the walk or cross-canter because they can't control their movement that well.

So a pacey walk is a walk where the hind end runs up on the front and gets stuck.

I am very intrigued by your comments about the value of having a schoolmaster around when you are training a young horse. ONe of my biggest reasons for considering parting with my beloved Joey is that *I* have tonnes to learn yet, and Joey needs to learn it all, too. ANd feeling it on a trained horse would make a world of difference. And I want to be able to train JJ effectively, so I need to learn.

As plutosonium said, it's the access you need. Is it precisely the gaited part you need to work on, or can riding any well-trained horse help you with the aids and timing?

Hrrm. Much to think about. Why can't I just be really wealthy and keep them all, and buy more?

When you figure out how to do that, let me know. I want it, too.

ok, I am gonna ask: I am housesitting and don't have my books handy -- remind me what shoulder-fore is?

Shoulder-fore is about the concept of functional straightness. The way the horse is built, if he lines up his outside shoulder and hip, he's actually crooked--because his shoulders are narrower than his hips and when they line up like that, he's angled away from the direction of travel. If he's going to be straight on the circle or corner, he has to line up his inside shoulder and hip. Then his inside hind is taking the weight and providing the thrust, and he's moving smoothly around the curve. The other way results in a sort of ratcheting motion where he's constantly having to jerk himself back in the direction of travel or else he veers off and away from the circle. This happens a lot with green horses and also with rail-class horses--they're trained to glom onto the rail so can't easily do figures. They feel terribly stiff and un-maneuverable if you're used to the suppleness of dressage horses. A dressage horse learns to bend around your leg but keep the hips and shoulders aligned on the curve, very smooth and fluid and very balanced. It makes all the fancy stuff possible.

So, the inside shoulder lined up with the inside hip gives you shoulder-fore. Later as the horse becomes more advanced, you can do shoulder-in, which is a collecting exercise.

Collection in dressage is different, too. It is not shortening or slowing of stride but shifting of weight to the hindquarters and raising the forehand. The stride may shorten but shouldn't slow or change rhythm. The ultimate expression of collection is the piaffe, and then the levade. You can't get those without the lowering of the hindquarters. Just cranking them in won't do it.

So what Pook is doing is learning how to move evenly in each foot into each rein, and how to keep his rhythm steady and stay balanced and straight on the circle. All of this is preparation for the fancy cool tricks he'll do later--piaffe, passage, pirouette, and yes, extensions and tempi changes. He's learning to balance himself under me. The more he learns it, the more amazing he feels--he gets this floaty sensation, and the figures become shapes in space. It must be how horses perceive the world--in a purely kinesthetic way.