More Thoughts on Why a Person Needs a Hands on Trainer
Virtual Teaching: Is it Possible?
Dressage Saddles
Thoughts on Uneven Feet
What Makes Riding So HARD!
Improving Your Position
Increasing Engagement
Other Test Problems
Judging
The "Sloggity" Horse
Ways to Get Your Horse to Step Up to the Plate: Continued
Ways to Get Your Horse to Step Up to the Plate
Rider's Position and Seat Score Being Multiplied by 3
Dressage Deliberations

More Thoughts on Why a Person Needs a Hands on Trainer - Monday, 12/14/2009 - Julie

While teaching the other day, I asked one of my students, (Mary) who is also a riding teacher, what she finds valuable about riding with a teacher present, as compared to reviewing a video that has comments on it, at at later time. She said, “If I didn’t have immediate feedback, I wouldn’t be able to remember the feel I got when it was good.” As I thought about that, another benefit came to mind: I help my students get their “feel” by persistently and repetitiously telling them, during their ride, when they don’t have it right. Then, when they get it, or improve it, I tell them so immediately so they get that feedback and add to their “feel.” It takes years to develop the skill to ride expertly, but all along the way are little “feel” improvements that add a critical piece to the riding puzzle. Riding is an incredibly fascinating mystery. We get to celebrate all our little breakthroughs along the way!

Virtual Teaching: Is it Possible? - Tuesday, 12/08/2009 - Julie

OThe latest craze is to be able to spread yourself so thin you don't even need to be there! What I mean in this case is, teaching from a video, etc.

I really can't see how a teacher can do a good job when they are teaching from a chair, let alone teaching from 200 miles away (I'm confined right now-- following ankle-repair surgery --to a chair, and feel frustrated with my limitations). Teaching should and must be a hands-on job. Most of us think we can see a lot more than we really can, and putting the hands on the rider's body or the horse's rein is extremely educational.

For example, often I'll walk alongside a student and hold the reins to help her get the horse round. The horse often won't get round until the rider gets the position just so. Then the rider figures out what was needed. Now how do you do that from afar?

Additionally, the best tool I have for my visual learners is to hop on and demonstrate on the student's horse, just what I'm asking for. This serves several purposes: It helps me find out what they were doing wrong, and it helps me see how the horse is responding to the rider's aids, and I can then illustrate how to do it right. This works great for students to see, also at this time I may modify what I am teaching, now that I have the horse's opinion! I am sorry, even first-hand, it's a very difficult job to be a very good teacher. From a distance it would be impossible to do anything but correct the gross and obvious flaws. If you're a gross rider, you don't need a teacher from 200 miles away! Your local teachers will do just fine!

Dressage Saddles - Sunday, 12/06/2009 - Julie

Dressage saddles have evolved greatly over the past two or three hundred years. Here is my brief summary on their history:You can look at some of the oldest paintings and see riders with VERY straight legs, and often leaning back, sitting on their fannys, with heels way down and horses heads behind the vertical (very baroque). Latter, during the 1930s to the 1970s you saw what looked like a modified jumping saddle with more forward flaps. These riders usually jumped as well, since this was the era of the masters coming from the military, i.e., the calvary. The saddles accommodated a rider who wanted to jump and do dressage in one saddle. These riders often had horses that weren't quite round by today's standards, and they rode with a fairly short stirrup and usually a deep heel, but their upper body was sometimes more forward. Now we have a trend toward a very straight leg with a deep heel again, and most of the round horses are behind the bit. I vote for an improvement on all of them. I like a saddle with a fairly forward flap that allows my leg to bend so I can properly place my thigh and use it (without bend at the knee the only part of the thigh you can use is the back-- that makes you sit on your butt too much). Then, I want the stirrup bar placed a little bit back from the old calvary riders' saddles, so I can get my fanny more to the front of the saddle and keep my leg back under me -- not that good for jumping, but good for dressage -- so I still need two saddles! By sitting here I can get a more supple horse, because I'm not pushing the back down with my backside! I can give a lighter ride, even when I'm sitting in the saddle because I'm more in a crouch (elastically, like a cat ready to pounce), not sitting in a lounge chair. So my tip to you is this: ride in a jumping saddle every day for two weeks. Use quite short stirrups (they should hit your ankle at the ankle bone), lean much more forward than you think you should have to, and keep your back flat -- not arched, not rounded. Make sure you engage your entire leg, not just grip with calves. Turn the toes in as much as you can, without losing your calf. Keep your hands on the neck and figure out how to ride with your weight and your legs. Do a lot of bending and go forward so your horse gets through and supple (see other blogs). Then go back to your dressage saddle and I bet you are ready to throw it away! It will press your thigh back WAY too far and you will see what I mean about riding on the back of your thigh cuz you'll be doing it, or at least you'll feel how it makes you want to arch your back! So, in summary, riding on the back of the thigh, with the heels way down with an arched back, will make a horse drop his back. You're asking him to make you a hole, or as Mary Wanless says, "a man trap." Read her work for more info.

Thoughts on Uneven Feet - Sunday, 12/06/2009 - Julie

Been out of the saddle now for a few days with my ankle surgery. Lots of time to contemplate. My latest thought is, "No wonder horses with bad shoeing jobs have sore backs!" Walking around on crutches with one leg longer than the other due to the big cast on it, is killing my back! Looking forward to the end of this week when it comes off and I even get to swim during my non-weight-bearing phase of recovery. All my muscles seem to have gone into immediate atrophy (a real problem with stall rest!) As you may know, the only sure way to check the lateral levelness of the horse's hoof is from an exray. The vet can give helpful recommendations to the shoer, who then must make a mental note of the corrections needed. From the side, it's easier to know when you have it right, but never simple. Shoers can measure the angles, but slight differences in the hoofs due to the horse's preferred way of grazing or eating hay, almost always wear one foot different than the other. This causes the heels of one front foot to be higher and makes it hard to gain symetrical balance. It also impacts saddle fit, since the horse also is likely to have an alteration in his shoulder. It moves up, that is, high heels on a hoof = high shoulder on that side.So, the saddle can be flocked to accommodate your crooked horse by filling the low side, toward the front/shoulder area with flocking until it sits more level. Saddle discussion next time.

What Makes Riding So HARD! - Thursday, 12/03/2009 - Julie

Lucky us, we chose one of the most comprehensively complicated tasks to pursue in life. But hey, it's fun trying! So, what makes it so hard? I think it's because you have to become the consumate multitasker, while doing the zen thing -- nothing! Ponder that!

Improving Your Position - Monday, 11/30/2009 - Julie

Try standing up regularly during your ride. Don't stand up high, just a little. Like a jumper's two point, sort of, but with your butt toward the front of the saddle. Then just barely sit down. You should be able to do everything in the standing postion that you can do in the sitting position. That position is used to help keep you still. You must be still or you ruin the horse's balance.

Increasing Engagement - Monday, 11/30/2009 - Julie

There are many ways to encourage your horse to engage his hind legs. One of my favourites it to leg yield with the horse along the wall, pushing his hind end toward the inside and leaving the front end on the rail. You must do this in walk and then in a fast posting trot. Do not sit down as you post! You’ll go straight into what Mary Wanless calls “the man trap” and I call “the pocket.” It’s the hole the horse makes for you in his back when it is down. The back goes down when the hind legs don’t work properly under the horse. To get it up, don’t sit on it! Don’t believe that you must touch the saddle at every posting stride. You can ALMOST touch it. This quick posting and going at a 35 degree angle sideways helps tremendously to quicken the hinds legs.

Co-Dependency as a Rider - Thursday, 03/11/2011 - Julie

They took out the second level stretching circle at the canter. Big mistake in my opinion, except perhaps it should have been in third level, because it is very difficult to do well. But, if you have no stretching circle in canter, you have no balance. So, practice it, even though it’s not required.

Judging - Thursday, 11/26/2011 - Julie

This is a tremendously hard job. Can anyone really do it well? Man! I’ve been riding for 30 years and I still have better feel than eyesight and I miss more than I care to admit in my students’ work during lessons. However, I try to solve that problem by getting others to watch the ride I create on a horse and then helping me get that ride from a student. It helps greatly that I have several teachers and competent riders at Sunborn Stables. This way we can all help each other. And, that allows us to see what it should/could really look like.

When a judge sees you, she’s seeing you and your horse with fresh eyes. She has no idea how much more throughness your horse could have offered you. She probably can’t even imagine how good those hind legs and back can look. That’s the problem. They then end up rewarding crappy throughness, connection and engagement in order to focus on the easier-to-see details of straightness and bend. Furthermore, the tests don’t always help us ask our horses the right questions. See tomorrow’s blog!

The "Sloggity" Horse - Wedday, 11/25/2009 - Julie

This is a horse that has a soggy back and slow hind legs. This is a serious flaw because nothing can be built on a soggy back and without quick hind legs there isn’t enough motor (impulsion) to convince the hind legs to step under the body, and without this impulsion there is nothing pushing the back up.

You can look at many of the pictures in Dressage Today and see sloggity horses. Everyone looks and says, “See how light he is.” I look and say, “Where is the connection? This horse isn’t really round, and he’s not stepping under. This may be pretty to some, but it’s not correct!” The only way this horse and rider will win is if the judges are political or the execution is so precise that they overlook the lack of throughness. Dressage tests give a lot of points for precision.

Ways to Get Your Horse to Step Up to the Plate: Continued - Wednesday, 11/25/2009 - Julie

(1) Start over with the steps from the previous lesson, and add to that. Now that he’s awake, and you can make an instant halt, you are ready to make an instant trot transition from your walk. If it’s not there easily from your seatbones and core which are changing very slightly, he’s already asleep again, or you never had him in the first place. Go back to walk-halt transitions and touch him a couple times with the whip as you turn on the forehand following the halt attempt. He has to be awake!

(2) When you can transition readily, he has his hind legs underneath him. However, next he’ll probably fall on his face again. No horse likes to work his hind legs! (I liken this to swimming. When I swim I drag myself along with my arms, and I’m lazy with my legs. I have to force myself to kick harder and use all my body. Same with the horse. You must encourage him to kick harder!) So, make a transition down to rebalance him and encourage the bending of those hind legs. If he misses this one, stop and turn on the forehand or reinback. Then proceed with walk-halt or walk-trot-halt. Usually he’ll fall one way with the hind end in the transition downward. Most of the time you should turn on the forehand from that side. That’s the leg that’s most keen on avoiding bend.

(3) Finally, if you can do it at the walk and trot, you can canter in good balance. However, almost everyone believes they can grind their horse into the canter with enough leg and a driving seat. NO! Don’t use much of any leg and get light in the saddle! Position your inside leg quite forward when you ask, but barely use it. The horse must jump into the canter easily. Often they’ll take one step, indicating they understood your aid, and then they’ll drop back to the trot. This horse is not yet forward. Go back and repeat the simpler lessons – but you may need to use a stronger correction when he misses your aid. From the canter you can transition to trot or walk if the balance is good enough.

(4) Do it all with lightness. Don’t let him hang on any part of your body! If you feel him getting heavy, shake your arm above the elbow to “shake him into position” and then throw the rein away – make it loop. You must repeat this promptly before he falls onto your hand again. I’ve heard other trainers call this type of rein aid “playing with your horse.”

Ways to Get Your Horse to Sep Up to the Plate - Tuesday, 11/24/2009 - Julie

Ways to get your horse to step up to the plate and not depend on you bailing him out (i.e. carrying him around, or killing yourself trying!): (1) Practice medium walk to halt, where the halt must be instant – not one or two steps after your request. If you wait a few steps for the horse to grind to a halt, you get a horse whose hind end stops and the front end keeps going – in other words, he tips over on his forehand resulting in an unbalanced halt from which your horse will not be able to transition up.

(2) In order to make the halt instant, ask gently and quietly -- with your core muscles only, but allowing them to change very little -- and expect an instant halt response from your horse. He won’t do that at first, he’ll ignore you and drift through your halt. So, when he doesn’t halt, you must INSTANTLY turn on the forehand or rein back. You must get his attention, so a tap with the whip is usually in order too. If you drag him backward or sideways you get no better results the next time. Make his feet move quickly! Repeat as necessary.

DANGER – DON’T LEAN BACK! It’s all too easy and I did that way too much in my previous years. Now I stay way forward with a critical caveat: I tuck my butt under. I’ll take some pictures and post them somewhere so you can see the difference. The tucked fanny helps you straighten your arching back (it’s likely you do it, 99% of the riders I teach do) and gets your horse to bend his back up and hind legs under. They copy your position.

Rider's Position and Seat Score Being Multiplied by 3 - Monday, 11/23/2009 - Julie

Dumb! This is a great place for a judge to reward students and friends. It’s a political nightmare! Furthermore, it’s bad practice because this is so subjective! Everyone rides differently and many get results with positions that are out of the mainstream. So what! That’s how the sport should evolve and improve. If a great high-jumper or swimmer used a different technique, everyone would be copying him/her. In this sport we try to funnel everyone into a straightjacket. We need to allow the space for people to experiment and see what works for the best result with the horses. Most of my best riding has been through personally sorting out small position nuances that no teacher would ever be able to teach me, let alone see me doing.

Dressage Deliberations - Sunday, 11/22/2009 - Julie

Welcome to the Sunborn Stables blog. The articles from our stable are written by me, Julie Penshorn, unless otherwise noted. I welcome your input, thoughts, questions, difficult training problems, etc., So please feel free to comment! Here’s what I’m thinking about today:

Co-dependency – it may seem like a term used to describe relationships between people, but it also can describe relationships between a rider and her/his mount. Codependency is being overly “helpful,” or another way of putting it is “doing someone’s work for them.” I think this is what we often do, as riders. Here’s how: instead of expecting the horse to ante up and step under his body in order to gain the balance to do a movement, we use all our muscles, our core strength, our arms, our legs, to “help” him balance. This results in a horse that can’t do it on its own. I am reminded of the Native American saying . . . something like, “If you do something for someone that they can do themselves, you make them weak.” Ponder that! Tomorrow, some ways to help you and your horse out of co-dependency!