[QUOTE=angel;3302286]
For what purpose have you posted this video? What does having children and dogs to do with riding?[/QUOTE]
Good grief. Maybe she’s proud of her friends hard work ??.. Gzzzzz
:lol::lol::lol::lol: I want to see that video too, of the flawless independent seat!
I went to the Klimke symposium in LA in the mid nineties. What I came away with was hearing him say “I don’t mind” when the horse would make an honest mistake. Especially with the horses starting passage. their trots got a bit confused.
I don’t even have to watch the video to know that everyone here who learned to do a canter pirouette was less than perfect while they were learning. I also know that no matter how much you know, not every canter pirouette is perfect.
So… congratulations to whoever I am not seeing on video, for having a good time with her horse and making progress in spite of having kids, and those five dogs!
Why all the fuss? This is a nice video of someone starting the canter pirouette work. The horse makes common mistakes and the rider makes common mistakes- it all looks like a completely normal lesson. The instructor sees the problems, understands the development of the canter and the movement, it is a very reasonable picture of early work. Her seat is just fine, the horse will be more “through” as he learns the work, it is normal.
Gee, seems to have gotten quite tense in here. I just posted the video because it is a training video and in the future, I hope to post another that will show their progression. I am proud of my friend. I feel dressage is a process. This is a horse I had real doubts about. And, these are several excerpts from a longer lesson. I don’t feel that there is anything dire happening, but actually something fun, interesting, enlightening and heartening.
I find all of the praise to be an insult to the time and effort that I (and others that have done the same thing) put into finding high calliber instruction and sweating my buns off. It took more time to learn to do it correctly, but the end results are far more rewarding and you don’t destroy your horse’s long-term soundness doing it.
I think this may be the most self centered comment I have ever heard a dressage enthusiast make. And that is really saying something :yes:
Videos are an imperfect way to evaluate a horse and rider. Still, they are a way for people to connect with each other and share what they are doing. I applaud that effort. Anyone who takes the way someone else rides personally, let alone to the extent that they believe it is insulting, needs to seek professional help, and I am not talking about working with a trainer. I mean someone who has access to a prescription pad. :rolleyes:
It was just a really very sad comment. I feel very bad for the person.
I have heard people say stuff like this before. Someone did this at a clinic. She went totally postal because she felt someone else did better at the clinic than she did. Jealousy is a real sad thing.
The people who are finding fault with the video - there’s no point in talking to them about this. They are very sure they are better at finding fault than the people who are happy with the video, and the people who don’t agree with them don’t ‘get’ dressage at all, they’re just idiots.
If only it were that simple.
First, I will admit that I could have been more diplomatic about what I said. Sorry.
However, my statement was not aimed at the rider in the video, it was aimed at all of the overly complimentary remarks on this thread in reference to the video.
I don’t care for overly complimentary remarks when I see riders doing work that is more advanced than their seat. It almost always ends up creating unsoundness in the horse.
I would not have had a problem with some complimentary comments had they been a little more tempered with some possible corrections involving the basics.
Because this is a public BB it can be misleading to others who are trying to understand correct dressage.
I apololgize if I sounded self-centered. I just do not have a lot of patience for complimenting what I have learned is incorrect and results, eventually, in making the horse unsound.
There are a lot of faults in this video but I am also aware that NO one, not even the best of trainers who ask for a movement never done by them on a particular horse to come out absolutely flawless on the first try or even the second or third.
Most BNT will NOT show the early training stages as many times it could look a little “off”. I find this post both rude and presumptuous and a bit arrogant as well.
One of the few times I agree with SLC’s assessment of this video.
I was complimentary of this video (and still am) as I am an instructor and we say “good, good” on what is good and an improvement for today. We have higher expectations next week, next month, and next year and so the student progresses through the levels. I heard the same words being said from Jan Brink at the FEI trainers conference this year.
This rider sits well enough for the exercise at hand, clearly Chris is high caliber instruction, and this rider has as all of us, have sweat her buns off to get here.
I think you may have a misconception of “correct dressage” your terms. Dressage means to train. As the horse and rider go through comfort zone (the level they can easily ride), to stretch zone (movements that the horse is prepared to learn, but hasn’t been introduced to yet), mistakes will happen. The rider learns to train the horse by the instructor assisting the rider in learning how to correct these mistakes. If everything were always perfect and the horse never took a wrong step, how would the rider learn to correct if the horse was too forward in the pirouette in the show ring, or losing the canter, or losing the balance, or switching behind, or making the pirouette too big, or losing impulsion, or bend, or engagement. It is when the horse loses an element, the instructor assists the rider in correcting the horse, that the rider learns to train the horse, thereby developing better timing and feel fand positioning for when something is starting to disappear. My first training on canter pirouettes was some 20 odd years ago. I had only shown 3rd level at that time. Was my seat anywhere looking like it knew how to ride a pirouette-no way! Did that horse ever go unsound…No! I am really glad my instructors through the years have believed I could learn to train these movements, and didn’t hold me or my horses back because I didn’t already have a seat that was “developed enough”.
I just can’t help but believe you have not trained many/any horses to do canter pirouettes or you would not speak the way you do.
Ding, ding, ding! I think we have a winner!!! :lol:
It’s to be expected that early attempts at canter pirouette would show room for improvement. However, asking horses to perform ‘collected’ movements before the basics are solidified (in both the horse and rider) greatly increases the risk of damaging the horse’s joints. There is good reason to be concerned.
What basics are not solidified? This is a good rider on a good horse being taught by a good trainer. The video shows a good, normal training session, as MickeyDoodle stated.
I see a lovely horse being ridden well by someone with a good seat and a well developed sense for feel.
The only criticism I would make is that it looks to me, from what is shown in that short clip, that the horse needs to be working on a larger pirouette at this stage of training. He is trying to spin. Falling into rider’s inside leg and losing his canter on such tight turns.
A question to all. The prep in walk Ps/timing of aids of the teacher are very correct, but the question is: Shouldnt a horse be more collected/sitting/shortening (maintain amplitude) vs slowing the stride/flattening before the P is being asked? Isnt the later a set up for problems in the P? Should a horse be ever be asked to execute of P from a slowed canter, or is this problematic? Even in walk P’s many horses tend to become sluggish/less active, so this doesnt set the horse for a behavioral pattern for canter P. Shouldnt a horse first learn more collection onto the spot and immediately forward merely from the stability in the seat of the rider? Remember “my horses, my teachers” where Podhajskys teacher said go back on work on the quality of collection, lateral work on a circle, straightness/etc for a month, and then starting the Ps were much more successful.
[QUOTE=ideayoda;3305591]
A question to all. The prep in walk Ps/timing of aids of the teacher are very correct, but the question is: Shouldnt a horse be more collected/sitting/shortening (maintain amplitude) vs slowing the stride/flattening before the P is being asked? Isnt the later a set up for problems in the P? Should a horse be ever be asked to execute of P from a slowed canter, or is this problematic? Even in walk P’s many horses tend to become sluggish/less active, so this doesnt set the horse for a behavioral pattern for canter P. Shouldnt a horse first learn more collection onto the spot and immediately forward merely from the stability in the seat of the rider? Remember “my horses, my teachers” where Podhajskys teacher said go back on work on the quality of collection, lateral work on a circle, straightness/etc for a month, and then starting the Ps were much more successful.[/QUOTE]
The turning is not the problem with any P, it’s the quality of the canter, once that is diminished one should return to the fixing the canter work. I like starting canter P with really good working canter, collected, and meduim transistions on a circle, and once I can get good collected canter for 5 or six strides and a good honest forward reponse out, I start the turning but never turning a horse more than it can keep a good canter, and when the horse gets stuck (which they all will at some point) you refresh the canter and try again, staying in a backward canter only teaches them that that canter is okay which it isn’t.
Sure,it’s not always pretty and yes horses will make mistakes, and get stuck and have things to work through. But, one shouldn’t sacrifice the quality of the canter for the sake turning around in a P.
yes, but if we all waited until the collected canter and quality of gait/rhythm/expression were 100% before starting the p’s, nobody would ever get them!
the p’s are developed through time, practice, strength and suppleness training, etc. they don’t start out perfect.
the only way to train a horse to do a beautiful pirouette, is to train the pirouette.
you can train the pirouette canter all day long, for years, but if you never try to add in the turn, then once you do, you will see how much time has been wasted. just adding the turn, even if only a 1/4 turn, will slightly disintegrate the quality of canter, balance, and rhythm at first.
I know horses that can hold a beautiful pirouette canter for many strides, do transitions in and out easily, because that’s all they ever did, as their riders are most concerned with perfecting it. now you ask them to turn as well as maintain that very collected canter, and they struggle almost as much with learning it as a horse who is just being introduced to the concept of pirouettes.
you can set them up for it all you want, but at the end of the day, the pirouette can only be perfected by training the pirouette.
not to say thet most horses would not benefit from some serious strength training in the pirouette canter, and the development of the quality of the gait.
What part of the turn in the pirouette proves difficult? Almost every problem I have had when teaching a horse canter pirouettes didn’t get better by doing them when the canter had deteriorated.
I am not saying that you can make perfect pirouettes with just a good canter or you shouldn’t do them unless they will be perfect. I am saying that the fact that the canter had deteriorated badly in the pirouette, never got better when cantering around the circle (still jumping “up” behind in the canter, on forehand, and I didn’t see him in front of her leg) why go back to do more?
There are some good videos on youtube of Steffen Peters and Janet Brown-Foy. There is some good work on canter pirouettes on the Fourth level videos. SUre there are mistakes, and they certainly are not for 9’s but its all about the canter.
Collection canter should be progressively be developed in degress through 2nd/3rd (esp from si/renvers/travers on circles/honest rebalancing hh/etc), and THEN start with 1/4 p. A step/two and move on. They are a natural extension/progression of correct collectability. IF the rider starts first with P’s and then trys to develop greater collection there are problems, including the often seen slow tempo, cross cantering, hindlegs (braced/straighter in the hocks) way under the horse rather than flexing the joints actively. The way to develop a good p is to develop good collection through great lateral work (to control straightness and rebalancing from hh). Imho, the pirouette is rather a litmus test of whether the horse does have a good/pure collected canter (onto the spot), is balanced, takes the aids/etc, not the other way round.
