The lightness of a dressage horse is different from the “lightness” of almost-no-contact hunters… It’s a more powerful lightness as you can feel the energy recycling from your seat/legs to the haunches across the back to the reins and back to your hands. I agree with netg that maybe you need a “lightbulb” moment… Next time you ride, be sure you are using your legs and seat to engage the haunches. In my VERY LIMITED experience, former hunter riders some times do not understand how much leg might be needed… He may become lighter. Be sure your hands are “alive” - little flexions, etc to break up the stiffness that comes with leaning on your hands. Talk to the instructor about how heavy the horse was. Ask the instructor to hold your hand and you pull the amount you felt. If she thinks that’s OK, perhaps find a different situation.
What do you mean? The horse was working “correctly”? Or she pulled him even harder? Or?
She was tired of telling me to pick up more contact. So she had me halt and she took the rein (down by the bit) and said for me the hold the reins with contact. I showed her what I felt was the right amount of contact. She then pulled incredibly hard (and steady)…and I said that is an incredible amount of contact. She smiled and said, yes, very different from hunters. I get that this is not hunter/jumper but since I have played polo, evented and trained many a baby…I just in my gut cannot believe this was the RIGHT amount of contact. If any of my horses were 1/2 as heavy in the bit as this horse, I would be very disappointed.
I do understand about being on the bit is not a “look”. The only when I started circling for balance and asking for up/down transitions…did those come into the lesson. I watched the silver medalist give a lesson and I liked her style. I was a little surprised when I showed up for my lesson and I was with the assistant. It is possible she paired her with me since the assistant used to ride jumpers and thought maybe we would speak the same language? I am not too sure.
I think I am able to gage where everyone is at with this topic, and I think I might be looking for another barn.
A ride-review-ride judge did that with me one time, and I didn’t say anything but was certainly thinking, “no way in hell”. Not that I didn’t need to pick up more contact at some point, but if I had to ride with that much contact to “do dressage” then I’d find something else to do with my horses.
The other thing I won’t do is adjust the bridle so that the bit is halfway up to my horses’ eyeballs, and I don’t give two hoots how tight anyone else thinks the bit should be because I’m just simply not doing that to my horses.
You can work to get the horse up some from leaning when you ride. It’s a simple quick movement of the hands forward while you add leg. It effectively lets the horse know that you are not going to let them lean. It needs to be very brief and take up contact immediately. You do not want to encourage him/her to root for the bit, just take away the ability to lean. Some of the more experienced people may be able to describe it a bit better.
Since the instructor quite literally told you how insanely heavy the contact that she is expecting is, I would be looking for a different instructor.
I had the opportunity to ride a 3rd/4th level horse years ago when I was a dressage beginner, and the contact required to get him ‘round’ was insane. To maintain it, I was having to pinch with my knees as to not be pulled out of the saddle! Since that was how I was being taught, I did the same thing to my poor mare years later. The contact I was told to keep made my hands numb. There are many dressage instructors, successful ones, that ride like this and teach others to ride like this.
When I got tired of numb hands and having to whack, whack, whack, leg, leg, leg my mare to keep her moving at a sucked back gait with the heavy contact, I finally asked a previous instructor for help. Years later, the bad training is mostly gone. My mare is really light in the bridle, even as we are working 3rd level moves now, but it does require reminders a couple times a ride that leaning on my hands isn’t the way we do things anymore and she is responsible for carrying her own head. If I hadn’t ridden her in the heavy contact all those years, I really don’t think she would have developed this habit, but we live and learn. She is light to the leg too; legs of steel and arms of steel are not required to do dressage.
I would be leery of doing corrections not sanctioned by the instructor on a horse you don’t know. Keep looking! There is a better fit out ther!
If you don’t 100 % buy into what a coach is teaching you then you need to get another coach.
I watch the progress of ammies at my barn riding with local coaches who ask that the rider put their full body weight on the reins to get the horse “round.”
Very few of these riders have the heart to ride like this on their own so they only “school” in weekly lessons. But have nothing else in their tool kit to do outside of lessons other than trot circles.
The few that do school like this end up with very heavy horses on the forehand and often SI or hock injuries before they are out of First Level.
They end up with busy legs and hands, kicking on every stride, wearing spurs, etc. Also often leaning back in the tack.
I am just going to agree with everyone else, from what you described it sounds wrong.
is there a chance you could work with the other trainer?
Some trainers push beginners (in dressage you are a beginner just like I would be a beginner in polo) on their assistants to give them experience, however that is not great for you .
You really should get the best instruction you can find, learning dressage is tough and takes a long time to get even semi proficient.
My first dressage trainer when I started ( I was a former eventer) was an ex Olympian, good trainers will generally teach anyone who wants to learn.
