But if your coach can’t communicate this to you to the extent that you have to have someone explain it to you via internet forum, you probably need a new coach. Not that that has anything to do with the OP.
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Any one who has followed my posts over time will understand when I say your instructor sounds woefully ignorant!
Roundness comes from behind. It comes from the energetic engagement of the hocks. It is not necessary at Training level, becomes more useful at First, and absoluterly necessary at levels upwars frim there.
Riding education and training comes in building block form. First the horse learns to go forward on a gentle curve of a 20m circle and gracefullly change the rein, Then horse/rider learns to move away from the drawn back leg, as in turn on the forehand. Then he and/or the rider, learns to Leg Yield. Again step by step, building block by building block. Any gaps in the educaton sooner or later show up.
Use of the reins on an engaged horse is as soft as the wiggle of a pinky. The key is getting the rider/horse to the level of producing engagemnt. With some combinations of horse and rider it takes months, others, it takes years.
Teaching is a journey, sometimes smooth sailing, othertimes stormy seas. The same for learning to ride.
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@centaursam, please forgive my bluntness, but I am “hearing” things in your posts that have bugged me for decades.
Your post illustrates why I do not do dressage lessons, and why I have not done dressage lessons, except for one, during my 50 or so years of trying to ride seriously.
I guess I could go out on a search to find a dressage teacher with school horses that teaches riders dressage in such a way that it does not torment/torture the horse. I just do not have the energy to do so (my MS). My MINIMUM qualification for my theoretical dressage teacher is that they would never demand that I ride their school horse behind the vertical. I WILL NOT compromise on this. Why in the world would I want to spend $90.00 an hour to ride a horse improperly according to all that I have read about riding for the last 50 years? Why should I pay $90.00 to cause the horse’s mouth discomfort? In my humble opinion I would be paying to learn how to ride a horse badly and I do not need any lessons in that, I do quite well enough with that on my own.
Investigate French dressage, their school is different than the modern “Oh I want to end up in the Olympics!” school of competition dressage. The ones that I have read seem to have some compassion towards the horses’ sensitive mouths, as in they do not cause the horse such pain in the mouth that the horse escapes behind the vertical to somehow escape the unrelenting pressure every step they take under a rider. I would also recommend reading some books by Sylvia Loch who did the Portuguese school of dressage.
The lesson horses I ride are not particularly light in hand when I start riding them. I do not blame these horses who patiently teach beginners and intermediate riders how to do the basics of proper riding. But after I ride these horses a few months for just 30 minutes a week, they do become light in hand, for me. They become more responsive to the leg. They start getting a little bit more cheerful because they learn I will not torture their mouths with unrelenting hands or their side with harsh spurs. They start using their backs properly which means they can get their hind legs forward under their center of balance, which helps the horse round its back under me and “swing” gently under my seat.
AND these horses start using their hind ends, mainly because I do not block the horse’s forward motion with my hands. I use my lower legs a lot at first with properly timed leg aids that I immediately release. I work on the horse’s back so it starts to relax and work properly (at first mainly by getting my weight off the horse’s back until the horse says OK by gently “swinging”). Then, and only then, do I cautiously start exploring beyond a passive contact, always following the horse’s mouth with gentle hands, with my hand aids given by little tweaks of my finger.
If a riding teacher told me she wanted me to make the horse “round” he/she would get a deeply detailed rant about exactly why I won’t do this, backed up by quotes from a few centuries of dressage books written by some of the top dressage riders in history. I would add the point that I am no way interested in partially strangling the horses I ride, how I do not want to cause unbearable pain by demanding that they jam their jawbones against some sensitive glands in the throatlatch area, and how the horse’s mouth is a sacred trust, not to be abused in the pursuit of a ribbon, a cheap ribbon at that.
I have basically been doing this most of my riding life. It was difficult for me the first 20 years or so as my riding teachers had the attitude of “what do you know” as I desperately tried not to abuse the horse I was riding. After being off on my own for over a decade, when I got back into taking lessons I had a lot more confidence, and I had absolutely no fear of telling the riding teacher that on this horse, at this time, what he/she is telling me to do is contraindicated by the bad results from the horse, and for me behind the vertical (round?) is ALWAYS a bad result. The main result I get now is that these riding teachers will actually listen to me as I get results from the horse they had not seen before, results from insisting on the calmness and comfort of the horse. From each teacher I have had, riding their school horses, I have gotten the remark of “I’ve never seen that horse do that before” as the horses willingly take contact with my handicapped hands and obey me without the usual resistances they give other riders.
I found a good teacher early, but I ended up living hundreds of miles from her. I spent the next 40 years sporadically trying out riding teachers (and dropping them) until I finally found a riding teacher who was willing to listen to me and would appreciate the fact that the horse she put me up on was behaving better, looked happier, and doing some stuff the teacher had given up on, simple things like good transitions, turns and halts without the horse resisting my aids.
My present riding teacher also teaches dressage (and yes, my teacher did get dressage training from a decent teacher.) She often tells me how she uses what I have shown her to teach her dressage riders to become better riders even though I am a Forward Seat rider who has absolutely no interest in riding a horse in collection because I know MY limits on horseback.
“Roundness” starts at the hooves of the hind legs landing under the horse’s center of mass, then it flows up through the horse’s back, and what the head and neck of the horse does is completely dependent on what the hind legs and back operate. A rider CANNOT get true roundness from manipulating the bit so the horse goes behind the vertical. This is under the category of “the facts of life”, true roundness begins in the hind legs not the neck.
Sorry for the novel. I admire your persistence centuarsam, and your deep desire to ride horses with humanity and correctly. Keep on looking, keep on questioning, and in a few decades of experience everything will become clear, I promise you.
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Outside of the concerns regarding your trainer wanting you to use your reins to make the horses round - was I not mistaken that you said to lease it would cost $125/lesson and you only got 2 lessons a week with no other free rides? But base lessons without the lease are $90? Not sure why you wouldn’t just continue with lessons there (if this trainer remains a good fit for you).
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She should be able to explain what she wants in a way that you understand. That said, I’m not willing to condemn any trainer without seeing what is really going on. To ride a horse forward from behind, you need to receive the energy in your hand and recycle it. True lightness comes later.
My trainer has said a lot of terrible sounding “sound bites” to me that would make her sound clueless if taken out of context. But they’re things she didn’t mean literally as end goals - they’re things I needed to hear in the moment to make the right correction.
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@RedHorses Very helpful epic, THANK YOU! I definitely can be going overboard with wanting to eliminate my hands as much as possible. I think I’m also still learning about how much contact is necessary as I’ve found that not all lightness in the reins is good which is what I find myself constantly going after.
She does tell me that I need to engage my seat/legs along with the reins and that it’s a matter of timing and finesse. That, along with how “much” of each aid, is what I’m struggling to grasp. Some days I get it, like this morning’s lesson which went very smoothly. Other days it just feels like a mash up of a bunch of aids and nothing works.
@Jackie_Cochran I always appreciate the book recommendations as well as the novel, thanks Jackie 
@Piaffe11 As much as I like the lease horse, I get what you’re saying and I’ll probably stick with my current setup.
@joiedevie99 Agreed, and I’m most likely doing a bad job at comprehending what she’s saying because I’m coming into this with very rigid and possibly unrealistic expectations.
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Simply telling a rider to engage their seat and legs is accurate, but more useful to the student would be how to engage seat and legs. A horse can become “up and engaged” without the use of reins, but it does require the rider to be able to micromange their own body.
And that is what leaves some of us lyng awake at night, attempting to convey the “how to”. For some riders longe lessons on an educated horse can be an eye opener.
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I wanted to pick up on OP’s comment in passing that they switched from jumping to dressage because they weren’t making fast enough progress in jumping.
Dressage is way harder technically than jumping. The big hurdle in jumping is nerves on the rider’s part, at least once you are over 18 and have lost the fearlessness and bounce of youth.
Dressage requires balance feel and also relaxation. Paradoxically it can also require not trying too hard. Once you tense up or get too goal oriented or listening to a coach, you can lose all that.
I’m a huge believer in miles in the saddle where you practice components that build muscle memory. Go for a two hour trail ride and keep your leg down and your hands following. Ride in trot two point for 5 minute stints on trails until you have the strength. Do big gallops where you keep your butt in the seat and learn to roll. Etc.
Reflect on the moments when it all comes together and try to recreate that feel.
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This thread has kinda inspired me to bring up a new horse. I’ve this gelding that just turned four. Because the mare i’ve been training is undergoing treatment for EPM i was going to take only the buckskin and work him toward Western Dressage, but…i think i’ll take along my never-been-backed big(big for ME …he’s barely 16h) bay standardbred and see if we can start him undersaddle also. I like to take two horses to my coach weekly because a) i gotta lotta horses and b) helps make the 3hr r/t more worthwhile. Today i found a saddle to fit him and ground drove him around.
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This is actually relative to my lesson yesterday. The night before I hadn’t slept well so I was really tired. When I’m tired, I don’t really give a f!*$ so I’m really mellow. The main horse I ride picks up on this very well and I think it’s the reason why yesterday was great, I was very relaxed.
Most days I’m very intense and really focused on achievement and as you have indicated, that doesn’t necessarily translate well to dressage. Now the trick is how to get mellow and relaxed without being tired…
The reason I find riding so important to my wellbeing is that it only works if you are focused and in tune with the horse. That means I need to let go of outside ego driven goals and figure out how to connect with the horse. It’s not like any other sport because it is primarily about dancing with another species that doesn’t speak your language.
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when i have to test with one of my dogs for work i swallow half a benadryl. I can still walk around on rubble and remain alert and coordinated, but the edge is off and i don’t interfere with my dog.
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There’s an old saying about “Keep the horse between your legs” And the quick reaction to that is "Well Duh!’, it’s better than sitting on the ground. 
However if you think of it differently, as if you are walking a circle at a particularl speed, and you keep that horse between your legs, appying push back presure when one leg or the other is being shoved against, using only as much pressure to keep your legs on that accurate circle , using your seat and hips to maintain the speed you set, you’ll answer your question. In time you will need not think of it, your body will automatically compensate. It only takes endless repetitions. 
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my crazy coach is teaching me by saying my legs have been chopped off and she is having me ride with just nubs. It is weird as heck, but i get it.
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Yes that’s from Sally Swift I think. It gets you to focus on your seat and stop bopping with your calves or heels constantly.
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my hands/arms are following and nice and quiet, but my legs are loud as heck. I tend to move them all OVER a horse. She’s (coach) has gotten me to remain around the girth, used to be i’d move a leg/toe to a shoulder or to a hip LOL… both things (light hands and grippy/mobile legs) come from riding bareback on a rope halter for …decades.
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@eightpondfarm, I have MS, no proprioceptive sense, and my riding teacher got after me about my wandering lower leg for YEARS. I just could not feel it happening.
Then, reading deeply into “Riding and Schooling Horses” by Harry Chamberlin (he once ran Fort Riley the US cavalry school) in the section about proper leg position he said that relaxing the knee completely would result in the lower leg going back.
I went to my anatomy chart, considered everything else he wrote about leg position, and decided that he was saying not to relax the rectus femoris muscle on the front of the thigh. Once I started to keep a little tension in my rectus femoris muscle my lower leg stopped wandering all over the horse.
I still cannot tell where my feet are, but by keeping that muscle slightly tense my riding teacher has completely stopped yelling at me about my lower leg wandering around.
The horses I ride appreciate this.
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my legs do not wander though. If i want a horse to move his/her shoulder to the right, i’ll move a toe up to her left shoulder and press there… same with moving the aft in a direction My hands merely guide the head my legs have been doing all the work. At liberty my knees on the shoulders guide the head instead of my hands. But, like… riding through deep woods, pivoting a horse around trees…i’m all over the horse…like a monkey. i just kinda made-it-up. back in the day i rode liberty demos in or out of an arena, with my handsome morgan stallion, Flight. I called it: Flying Flight. But, Dressage has improved my riding quite a bit …i thought i was a good rider, and i am really good connection-wise with a horse, but dressage has really upped the ante. I really do love learning this artform.
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I’m with you on this regarding the legs. As soon as I get over my hand obsession, I need to focus on my legs because I know my legs are pretty noisy as well. Part of me always wants to kick, squeeze, grip, etc. and it’s hard for me to just let my leg hang. I’m a lot more comfortable sans stirrups but as soon as they go on, it’s as if my legs are completely different and much more active. I’m working on turning my toes inward a bit since I tend to go “jumper mode” with toes pointed out often but it’s uncomfortable torqueing my leg inward.
@centaursam You are being so wise so work through all this instead of just jumping in and buying a horse. Ownership is a financial money pit these days. AND, if something goes wrong you can be in for thousands in vet bills with a blink of your eye.
Yes, if you can find a barn within reasonable distance with a good trainer and lease a nice horse do it and never look back.
Ownership is fraught with health care, saddle fitting, dentistry, farrier, training issues etc etc.
And on the subject of frustrations with riding, here’s a book to read: The Inner Game of Tennis.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Inner-Game-of-Tennis-audiobook/dp/B0012FK22S/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwieuGBhAsEiwA1Ly_nRIwGuIqsktFBP_QiwPdKKvw-rJcU_eMwt46DvkFnQRlfqcbdjQ2jhoCYjAQAvD_BwE&hvadid=241882948498&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9014883&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=13359060215815825690&hvtargid=kwd-98947320&hydadcr=2764_10399802&keywords=the+inner+game+of+tennis&qid=1624997725&sr=8-1
What you get out of it is learning to LOVE practice. Every little detail. Just the other day I was visualizing my shoulders releasing during the walk. Learning to love every little detail. It’s in the basics that you become a good rider.
Michael Jordan shooting baskets for HOURS. He.loved.shooting.baskets. You get the point. Quit having an agenda and goals and being hard on yourself and just commit to the basics. Every ride I see if I can improve my contact. How basic is that?
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