My mare is oddly bendy. My constant struggle is to try to get keep her body level. Halfpass is our difficulty. She’ll curl into a sickle-moon shape at the drop of a hat. …so OP… I’ll give you a little of mine if you’ll give me a little of yours!
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Try a leg yield from quarterline or centerline to the wall, but don’t straighten when you reach the wall.
(Leg yield is haunches in on the diagonal line. So, if you’ve been doing correct leg yields, you’ve been doing haunches in…)
Not at all. Haunches in is bent in the direction of travel (traveling right, bent right). Leg yield has very little bend, but the bend it has is AWAY from the direction of travel (traveling right, bent slightly left).
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LY becomes H/I only if you change the flexion, and increase the bend, Moving in the direction of the bend.
Just little differences. 
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No, this is incorrect. What you are describing is half pass, not leg yield. Leg yield is pretty much unrelated to half pass, except that it can be useful if you’re schooling half pass and it starts to go south.
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For diagrams of Haunches in (Travers), Half Pass, and Leg Yield see DR111 (in the USEF Dressage rules).
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Your avatar is hilarious!
It is really me. I don’t race any more, but I still do corner working/safety crew. In fact, I will be corner working at Summit Pt (WV) this weekend.
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Don’t want to be corrected? Don’t share incorrect information, especially with people who clearly don’t know better and are looking for correct information. Easy peasy. 
I don’t think anyone on the board minds being corrected. I (and clearly others) don’t think it needs to be done with snark and attitude, which is what you are doing. Really unnecessary.
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I thought it was a naked man!!! 
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No, I have/had tan colored leathers.
But some people DID call them “lady Godiva leathers”!
For Silly ore’s cartoon!
I’ve used this cartoon numerous times, but in this instance, it was @Feathered_Feet who employed it so well!
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i try …always… to keep my mare parallel to the wall. Her entire body straight and parallel to the wall as she crosses her legs to move us over, laterally. It isn’t easy with this horse! So, are you saying that i could let her be bendy?
I see leg yield as more like shoulder in on the diagonal. If you bend you bend away from the direction of movement.
That’s why leg yield is a very first step in lateral moves. The shoulder in set of moves, bent away from the direction of travel, are easier for horses especially green horses, whether you are doing shoulder in on the wall, on the diagonal, or a full side pass Western style.
The half pass set of moves including half pass, haunches in and pirouette have the horse bent in the direction of movement. They take more practice and fitness to master. You can also use the half pass body position to do a full side pass Western style, or a Western spin or pivot. You could of course also do a leg yield to accomplish the same job as leg yield.
However to the extent we are thinking of leg yield as a basic beginning building block for horse and rider alike, it’s more useful to think of it as tending towards shoulder in.
My coach sees no gymnastic utility in keeping the leg yield totally straight, and tells us to think of it as a shoulder in on the diagonal. Obviously if I’m riding a test with leg yield I’d keep the horse straighter as that’s what’s wanted for competition. You can think shoulder fore and still be basically straight.
Obviously you don’t want the horse falling in the outside shoulder in leg yield or in shoulder in, but that’s part of training and strengthening the horse.
@eightpondfarm you need to practice whatever your coach is telling you in the lessons you pay for. You can ask the coach how much bend or slant (these are two different things) is acceptable at your stage of training. Typically though I’d say that we move towards a more difficult move through less difficult versions.
The stick straight leg yield isn’t necessarily doing much gymnasticizing, is my understanding. The real work will be in the center of the arena, doing loopys and parts of circles at the walk with shoulder in to reversed shoulder in, and spiralling in and out with shoulder in/reversed shoulder in.
Not aiming for a “test pattern” but noodling around feeling the balance and resistance and getting horse moving away from the leg. You can also do this in hand. Once it gets easy you can move up to a trot.
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my mare is a Gumby. Bendy is her thing. Keeping her straight…well, not very easy.
lol…my poor coach. I feel for her, i really do. I sometimes have to stop, and ask her for another way of telling me what she is asking me to do. Or i’ll just wing-it trying to do something i think she means and ask: Is this what you mean? Very similar to what my horse asks me. Guessing and offering up a position/movement or two to see if she’s doing what i want. My mare and i…we both have a lot of ‘try’. lol
No, this is incorrect. From the USEF Dressage rule book:
Leg-yielding. The horse is almost straight, except for a slight flexion at the poll away from the direction in which the horse moves, so that the rider is just able to see the eyebrow and nostril on the inside.
Good, because that’s what’s correct.
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Yes, that was my point.
Correct on a test doesn’t always equal most useful for schooling.
I’m not sure how much difference there is between #5 leg yielding along wall and and a shoulder in?
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Her trainer wants her to do LY with a bend for its gymnastisizing effect (I can’t spell that). Many of us do variations on the “correct” form of an exercise for specific purposes. As long as she knows to do it straight with slight flexion in a test, so what?
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