Haunches in for the hunter

Have you considered where your weight is? If you are too much on your inside hip perhaps he is trying to follow your weight to the inside

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Then you don’t know what shoulder in is. There is a huge difference. Take a look at where the hind footfalls are. Then look at were the front legs are. And the there is the bend. I hope you can see the difference.

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Your coach can call a shoulder-in on the diagonal a leg yield, but it isn’t. Your coach can fail to find the true leg yield useful, and that’s ok. But calling a shoulder in a leg yield is incorrect

Ok seeing the illustrations side by side makes sense. Not being an American I have never spent time on the USEF documents, so didn’t know what else they had on for comparison.

You can do shoulder in at different angles, too, as an exercise.

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Absolutely.

In LY the front and hind legs cross. In SI the front legs look like they cross but they don’t, and the hind legs don’t. I think it’s one of the things judges look for to tell if there is enough bend in the SI.

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In the above diagrams, the leg yield along the wall would be more like a 4 track shoulder in (versus 3 track) with no bend.

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There is bend in SI. Not so with Leg yield on the wall.

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Lots of discussion here! LOL. Try leg yielding nose to wall and then add bend (but it’s harder than coming up centerline and using a leg yield to get there).

The exercise I was talking about (that made me think of haunches in on the diagonal) is how I teach a young horse to leg yield: you use the turn to yield the horse to the wall, using natural shoulder drift, and the haunches will naturally trail. This is not a classic, straight body leg yield (however, I was told to never do them that way in competition by an FEI judge). I am sure the directives show what is ideal, but many people train a horse by turning up centerline and letting the turn and natural shoulder drift help them teach a yield. The exercise to yield but not straighten on the wall (continue to let haunches trail) was a BNT training exercise. But really, nose to wall leg yield will get you so that the horse brings his haunch in. If horse is really good at shoulder in, then renvers will help to train the correct body bend… After you pass all the steps, then maybe you can do a straight body leg yield and get to the wall and ask the horse to travers. Dressage training comes in steps and not all the steps are diagrammed.

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THIS. FInd a way for the horse to get the general idea of the movement then refine it.
Just like when I see horses in collection on the loose rein - they didnt get there on a loose rein!

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Yes! I see many riders just trying to teach the movement as it appears on the test, without realizing that the movement on the test is designed to check a bunch of other training goals.

Like even the square halt is to see if the horse is balanced enough to stop square. It’s meant to be an outgrowth of other training, not taught to square up like you do a halter horse, or a saddle bred in hand to “park out.”

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I thought that’s what you meant.