Maybe if we squeal and stamp our feet, we will get a proper reaction.
Still waiting on that video…
I’m not sure exactly how to phrase this question so please bear with me. What degree of totality is expected at the GP level in terms of self-carriage?
An easy/basic way to think about it is–Is the degree of collection such that the movement looks easy for the horse? The horse needs more collection and more self carriage (suppleness etc etc) to make a half pass from E to M look effortless than a half pass from E to G, for example. Does that help? Am I understanding your question? (You can’t really look at a horse and say this horse is capable of X amount of self carriage but is only showing Y amount, or that this horse’s X amount is Z% of the total possible by any horse.)
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The utmost degree of totality.
People are expecting robots.
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@Dutchmare433 Yup. That much makes sense. I guess where I was going with this: I’m a fairly decent and long time rider but only began real dressage a couple years ago. I’m also a yoga teacher and biomechanics/alignment freak. Above all, yoga emphasizes finding both strength and suppleness/ease in a posture. And that while you may be actively engaging one part of the body in a posture, the entire body still has to work to maintain a healthy alignment. I’m more and more convinced that’s the key to good dressage as well.
Between the videos above and one of Andreas Helgstrand I watched a few weeks ago it looks to me like when the horse is consistently btv the line of energy dies at the beginning of his thoracic spine. The neck is dead. When the rider asks for lateral flexion the horse complies but his neck looks floppy because the suppleness is there but not the strength (active engagement through the entire body). There’s also very little movement in the head and neck at all which looks like tension to my untrained eye. There’s less buoyancy through the legs and shoulders and top line.
I went back and watched Edward Gal and Totilas’ record-breaking test at Olympia. Of course I’m aware that Gal’s training methods were not without controversy. However, something I think he does well is riding with contact that allows Totilas to actively engage through his neck. He’s sending him forward into the space of the bridle but also creating a point of sticky energy that Totilas can really dig into and carry the bit through and get his back end under him and create buoyancy through the shoulders. Totilas seems to move his head and neck more than a lot of other horses at that level. Nothing excessive; just a continuation of the wave of energy moving along the spine.
IMO, two things are happening: 1) A stretch involves several muscles and some of those need to contract to activate the Golgi Tendon Organ. For a contraction you need something to press through. I could well be misinterpreting this but it appears that self-carriage has evolved into sending the horse forward into a freefall and not the bridle. 2) We’re not really sending the horse forward off the leg because of #1.
I guess I’m trying to get a sense from the upper level riders on here of how much pressure or counter balance do you feel from the horse when he’s otv, maintaining contact, and driving forward off your leg? Has it changed in the past decade or so? The sale and ISO ads I see for amateurs seem to want a horse that’s “light in the bridle” as a non-negotiable. The few times I’ve managed to get things dialed in at the extended trot with the FEI-level horse I lease there’s definitely a counter balancing energy running up and down the reins. Not a pull, not the lemme-lean-on-the-bit-to-see-if-you’re-awake-up-there game he plays sometimes, but it definitely moves my arms when my fingers are closed on the reins. Am I doing it all wrong?
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Great post @Wanderosa . One of the trainers I work with, who knows my horse, once took my hands to show me how much power I would feel when he was through and pushing forward. I was surprised. I am sure there are riders whose horses are feather light at all times. I thin its a goal, not a reality for most of us with our horses… and when I look at some of the “lightness is everything” trainers they are usually either in Piaffe (ultimate collection, on the seat, all energy going up and around not forward through the bridle so yeah, light in the bridle…) or working in a lower level frame on the snaffle. Hocks out back, no collection.
As I move up the levels and learn more and more, I also get that “energy” coming back to me through the reins - like that classic diagram of the circle of the aids. The more he is collected and through and pushing and going forward, the more push into the bridle - and the more I feel through the reins. Not dead, not leaning - but powerful.
(Admittedly for brief bits of time. Then it’s back to leaning on me, time for a HH… wait no I did not mean halt - go forward! LOL its quite a game finding the balance. Loving it!!)
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@Wanderosa, I honestly think the “how much” question is really misleading when talking about what is “correct” with contact. When the horse is in self-carriage and the contact is correct, the fundamental difference in how the contact feels is that it feels alive. Not “active” in the sense of mouthing the bit or whatnot but living - like the difference between shaking hands with a stranger and walking hand-in-hand with a loved one. With handshakes, we can make analogies about pressure - what’s too light, what’s too hard, what’s just right. When walking holding hands with a loved one, though, there is a 2-way communication through pressure, squeezes, tension and release. The 2-way communication part is the what makes it an “alive” feeling.
The lightness of the pressure will be a consequence of the self-carriage. There is a range the pressure can be in - the living feeling is what you want to look for. If you get lightness without the feeling of living contact with the mouth, the horse is probably not working over its back correctly. I am not well-studied in biomechanics (or yoga, or frankly UL dressage), but your descriptions of alignment and what is going on with the neck and tie-in at the thoracic vertebrae are apt. (This IMO is a basic concept, not an UL concept.)
In terms of ISOs asking for horses light in the bridle, a horse that is trained and can go in self-carriage will not necessarily do so without a lot of effort from its rider. A horse that’s not naturally light in the bridle can be challenging to ride in this respect. It doesn’t automatically mean it is easy to obtain correct contact and ride in self-carriage with a naturally light horse either, but maybe the journey is more pleasant! I wouldn’t try to guess what the right feeling should be from ISOs!
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With respect to the question about how much lightness or “pounds of pressure” one should feel in the reins of a horse who is properly “through” for his level of training, I would add that it depends on how the rider is using his body. In particular, I mean that if you are accepting that pressure from your body-- holding your ribcage up and stable, with some living tension there, and riding from your shoulders and elbows, that pressure will feel less. Its the difference between using enough muscle to hold yourself upright in an an ottoman and sitting on that same ottoman as a ballet dancer would. I notice that if I’m sitting on a horse with my body relaxed, doing the bare minimum it takes to keep myself sitting upright (as in natural for us all), if an instructor pulled on the reins to show me how much pressure I should expect, it will feel like a lot. If, on the other hand, I have sat up like that taller, more elegant ballerina and remembered to ignore my hands, but feel the reins in my elbows and shoulder, that same pull feels light enough.
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Personally, the amount of pressure in my hands is the amount of pressure in my hands whether I’m hanging on the reins, or sitting up and using my core to stabilize myself so that my hands can work independently. What feels different to me is the quality of the contact, and then of course, the way my horse reacts.
I’ve fairly recently gone from a very light, giving contact to a firmer contact (2lbs, maybe more?, as I’ve finally worked my way through more of the lateral flexibility issues I’ve been so focused on. Surprisingly, my horse, who has always been very sensitive in the mouth, seems to be fine with the added pressure, and while I wouldn’t mind if it was lighter he’s the one who is working into the bit more now. I have my theories about why that is, but realize that I can’t really know what he’s feeling or thinking.
I also think that if the pressure is lighter or stronger than what a trainer prefers and they want to change the amount of contact the horse will take, then it’s certainly possible to teach him do that. In fact, trainers talk about doing that all the time (teaching the horse to take a firmer or lighter contact, and/or respond to lighter aids).
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An anecdote from me. I trained my horses for over a decade. I won. One ODE by 66 points on my dressage score.
I became a Level I instructor for dressage, cross country and show jumping and went to work under a level III Dressage instructor studying for my level II.
I had never ridden a trained horse before and found out I could not ride.
I rode 8 dressage horses a day for 6 months. At least 5 lessons a day while I was there. I learned so much.
Once I learned how to use my seat (I thought I was using my seat before going there) and once my core muscles were strengthened. (I thought they were strong before going there riding over 5 hours a day beforehand), the horses were so light and lovely to ride.
I went home and hopped on the horse I won the ODE with. I was on a loose rein. In the second corner I picked up the reins. Before I could react Pepper had gone backwards to A. I dropped the reins and picked the reins up a lot more gentlier and he was fine.
I did not know how much my riding had changed until he told me, because if asked I would say light horses and I have been taught that you should have the weight of a dressage bridle in your hands.
I can tell you with my current boy I can hold the rein with just my thumb and point finger. I know when doing that I shouldn’t be and I should be holding the rein in a fist, but they are short reins. Maybe it wasn’t how hard I picked up Pepper’s reins. Maybe it was how short I did.
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Yeah. I don’t think I ride that well, as someone trying to remodel my hunter way of sitting on a horse to the dressage and western way of sitting on a horse. So my experience of what I feel in terms of connection is not to be trusted, LOL. Or more precisely, every time I learn to ride straighter/sit up more, find my core, relax my hips and ride from my elbows and shoulders (rather than my hands), I realize how much I was missing even when I was riding as much like a tall German man as I knew how.
But, I do have lots of feel, thanks for more than 4 decades on horseback. I can feel when that living “handshake” feel in my hand comes from a horse who is pushing through from the shoulders and the whole neck, not just leaving that part of the body “dead” or stiff and then giving me a feel by tucking their chin or not.
I think I can feel when a horse has “given me his back,” and I think I can feel some stuff about how he’s using his hind leg (it’s being quick enough or hocks well under or not). But the better I get, the more I feel something different. And out of that difference comes the “scales falling from my eyes” about what I was missing.
When I can feel and reliably produce all those things in the horse’s body-- his lifting his shoulders, his staying loose in the back, his tucking his pelvis when asked, then I think I’ll be “in charge” enough of the relevant parts of the horse’s body that I can speak to what I feel in my hands. But even with being a good, effective, feeling rider and our species being very dextrous in our hands, I think it is of limited value to talk about the feel in the hands without being equally feeling and influential with respect to the rest of the horse’s body.
My mantra is that the head and neck are a means to an end: What I really want to do is ride the part from the shoulders back and then let the head and neck be free for the horse to use as he decides in order to hold himself in that uphill frame. I’d like his neck to be relaxed and soft, or with the amount of isometric tension in it that the horse chooses. But that is all after we have the ideal of having gotten control of the shoulders-to-hind-feet. The very best way would be to gain that control without having to dictate the position of the head and neck to get there.
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That I can see, because the neck is right there and I can see when the poll drops! 
I think I can feel when a horse has “given me his back,” and I think I can feel some stuff about how he’s using his hind leg (it’s being quick enough or hocks well under or not). But the better I get, the more I feel something different. And out of that difference comes the “scales falling from my eyes” about what I was missing.
I can feel some of it thanks to hours and gigabites of videotape, along with opinions from those who I think probably know what they’re looking at, but the more I watch the more questions I have about what I’m seeing/feeling.
I too, have been riding for many decades and would love to be able to apply what I think I know more effectively, but alas, the body just isn’t able to cooperate the way it once could.
I’ve also only been paying attention to dressage for a few decades, and was seriously misled for some of them, which was why I decided that it was more important for me to understand the theory and develop my eye, than to continue to listen to those I wasn’t sure knew how to do what I wanted to learn how to do. Not that I ever stopped riding to do that, but just started experimenting and thinking for myself more.
When I can feel and reliably produce all those things in the horse’s body-- his lifting his shoulders, his staying loose in the back, his tucking his pelvis when asked, then I think I’ll be “in charge” enough of the relevant parts of the horse’s body that I can speak to what I feel in my hands. But even with being a good, effective, feeling rider and our species being very dextrous in our hands, I think it is of limited value to talk about the feel in the hands without being equally feeling and influential with respect to the rest of the horse’s body.
I can mentally measure the pressure in my hands, but can’t really describe an effective feel vs a not so effective one. You’ve hit on part of it though, the “through” part, but I also think it may be important to stick with a soft, light contact simply because stronger pressure causes bracing, which IMO interferes with what I want. Just riding a horse causes enough bracing without also forcing him to have to struggle against a strong contact, or worse yet, a btv posture.
My mantra is that the head and neck are a means to an end: What I really want to do is ride the part from the shoulders back and then let the head and neck be free for the horse to use as he decides in order to hold himself in that uphill frame. I’d like his neck to be relaxed and soft, or with the amount of isometric tension in it that the horse chooses. But that is all after we have the ideal of having gotten control of the shoulders-to-hind-feet. The very best way would be to gain that control without having to dictate the position of the head and neck to get there.
Agree, because I think that driving a horse against the bit can so easily put him into a position that makes it harder, and sometimes impossible for him to do what I want him to be able to do. So up until very recently I let my horse choose where he wanted his head and neck to be while I tried to influence his body–except when it comes to where I’ve allowed him to carry his head and neck laterally because he so strongly prefers to navigate turns with his head and neck to the outside and his shoulder leading. Not that years of insisting that he bend to the inside has changed that, but at least it has taught him that it is possible to bend in the direction he’s turning!
I think all the loose rein riding was useful for us because it allowed him time to figure out his own body and how to navigate my small indoor, and gave me plenty of time to think about what it is that I want (theory).
I also need to get back to posting videos, because the feedback, whether I can use it at the time or not, has always helped with the theory part.
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