Ambidexterity: The Right Hand Teaches the Left

Add a Little Logic to Your Dressage

Static versus Dynamic Aids

Describe your 'forward' aids. In your head, describe them. Now, describe your 'waiting' aids. Now, describe your 'bending' aids. Describe how your horse reacts to those aids. In your own words, please. Each horse may feel a little different in their response, and each rider's aids might feel a little different to the horse. You might have different words to help you identify and differentiate than does your trainer, or your barn buddies. Embrace that.

There might be slightly different versions of the same aid, that feel just a little different to the horse when, say, a correction is made. I like to think of at least two versions of the same aid, let's talk for instance about the forward aid. I may start with a static aid - one that is more steady, gradual, pressing, guiding, forming. It's clear, and not negotiable, but it's also not forceful. Maybe those are the aids that I want to use most often. Steadily riding around, forming the horse to accommodate to my body position softly pressing and molding her. They are firm, yet soft and easy. If one of those aids doesn't work - if my horses doesn't go forward when my seat and leg changes it's intention, maybe I need to correct by using a dynamic aid. Here is where I make a firmer, stronger aid, amping it up or turning up the volume to make my point clear with more energy. Maybe I use a slightly different part of my anatomy - more of my leg or seat in a stronger way. Maybe I'm just changing the rhythm and surprising the horse by making a strong change in my aid. This change, if done with the appropriate level of intensity, should get a response. Then, we go back to the softer, more static aids and get on with life. Don't let those dynamic aids linger, you need to keep them in reserve for correction purposes. Be creative, but be sure that you're not changing your position to get it done - this is the key!

Going broader, if the session itself is becoming a drag, switch it up! If things feel too 'static', like you're going along getting duller and duller, and your individual corrections aren't working, try to make the session itself more 'dynamic'. Do more quick transitions: walk, halt, trot, halt, walk, canter. School transitions within the gait, for example, collected trot to medium trot - but only work on the transition, not the medium itself. Don't do so many strides of medium or lengthened trot that the horse's energy starts to dwindle toward the end of the diagonal. Just build the forward/back response by doing 3 strides medium, 6 strides collected, 3 strides medium, 6 strides collected. Repeat quick transitions over and over to energize. Repeat with some intensity until the horse begins to anticipate you. Praise them for looking for your aid. It will teach a big response to a quiet aid in no time.

Tendency is not Destiny

To approach our tendencies as destinies does ourselves and our horses a disservice. It's easy to hold yourself to outdated expectations. Use your imagination to create the future.

EXERCISE:

Try this: envision your horse, feeling like another horse altogether. It's valuable to sit on a well trained horse as frequently as you can possibly manage. Take this feeling, close your eyes, and ride your horse with the expectation that he is that other horse. Perhaps your horse is slow to respond, frequently behind your leg. Sitting on a forward horse will give you a new standard a new 'ideal' to seek. Feeling it once, visualizing the future is the first part of achieving it. Keep going.

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." Plato

The ideas read about here have been bounced off the waters of Lake Superior and some horses' ears. Instead of losing them to the wind, they're kept here: a record of musings heard here and there on life and dressage - to share or to not, but definitely to keep.

Metaphors will often be made, keeping life in dressage and dressage in life. I view dressage as a spiritual practice, much like yoga - a practice to hold ourselves to daily and set goals for ourselves, realized through the sport and transferred into our daily lives. Goals and ideals such as flexibility, strength, power, suppleness, rhythm, ease, creativity and of course, balance.

The title of this post states, "The beginning is the most important part of the work." Not only, I think does this mean that initiation is the most important part of making any change or development, but that throughout the course of training the concepts learned at the very beginning will serve to be the most important and the most ever-present. Take care to prepare well. Set high expectations, be compassionate and as always, move forward.

EXERCISE:

Have a plan for your warm up, and then take it from there. Ride from beginning to the end of the session, consciously taking your horse through the lower levels first. Ride him just like a training level horse for the first 10-15 minutes, working on just the basics. Think: POSITION (yours), FORWARD (his), FLEXION (suppleness/bending), RELEASE (cruise). That's it. Nothing fancy for the warm-up, but make sure you get through the checklist. If you have the reactions in place, you should have a good ride. :)