How important is geometry?

[Arlomine]

Nope, not indifference, inability

In regards you understanding of exvet’s comment about straightness, I suggest you investigate shoulder fore. You may not have established the prerequisites to practice this, but it’s a fundamental building block for progress, and it’s good to “read ahead”.

In addition To be naturally crooked, Horses shoulders are significantly narrower than their hips. In order for the horse to track “straight”, you actually have to bring the shoulders in from the rail a little bit. That’s shoulder fore.

How to Ride Shoulder-Fore ⋆ How To Dressage

[outerbanks77]

So last weekend I audited part of a Gary Rockwell clinic (big-time judge). One thing he said that stuck out to me, is that if you are not riding a defined line or movement, then there can be no correct bend or positioning. Basically, anything you ride that is not on a specific line is not gymnastically valuable. He chided all of the riders about this when they got sloppy and just got from one place to another in the arena without a defined line and movement. He definitely called them out when (even upper level riders) rode 3-5 strides along the wall when they were supposed to be on a 20 m circle.

The BO where I board teaches kids and beginning dressage riders, and I would say there is some indifference. Many riders just want to be able to go out and show at training level, and don’t know or care about the real reason behind accurate arena patterns. I often set out cones to work on exercises and geometry, and the “gates” are usually widened out to about 6’ when someone else uses them. I’ve been talking to one of the more serious riders (experienced eventer/lifelong rider but new to straight dressage) about the reasons for geometry and I think she is starting to get it, but it’s a process. I can confess that I didn’t really get it for a long time of dabbling in dressage.

[Scribbler]

There’s obviously a huge subset of riders who feel they don’t need to pay much attention to basics, or basics in another slice of the disciplines.

This can range from recreational trail riders who don’t enjoy arena work, to eventers who don’t really see why they need the dressage test, to dressage riders who don’t think they need groundwork skills.

Of course all that can change when the rider runs into a problem, and needs another angle to fix it. The trail rider learns in the arena how to keep their horse from falling on the forehand and taking off, the jumper learns how to keep a horse straight to the jump, the dressage rider learns how to teach a young horse good manners on the ground and how to load in a trailer.

Often beginner riders have their heads full with the anxiety and exhilaration of staying on, and don’t have the feel or coordination to understand more subtle instructions.

But these riders are not posting videos of their at home dressage tests. I think if someone goes to that effort, they are trying to the best they can, and are not indifferent. However without knowing the context it’s impossible to know if they 100 per cent know how they look until after they post a video.

It’s important to critically edit videos in your mind. Anyone of any age can post anything they want. Anyone can download a dressage test and film themselves. I think of all the videos out there of horrible short cut recipes and teens butchering their hair with home bleach jobs and bad fashion advice. 99 % of these videos, the person who makes it genuinely is trying, and may not even realize how big a fail it is to me.

So if you want to educate your eye, curate your videos so you aren’t seeing beginner mistakes.

[Libby2563]

@endlessclimb

Haul your horse off property to an electric show ground, and then try to send that horse straight into a terrifying looking judges stand and see how straight you get.

What you do at home, you’ll get maybe (MAYBE!) 80% of at shows.

I can do pretty darn straight lines and a bang on 20m circle at home, yet I expect it to be less than perfect at my first-for-the-young-horse dressage show this weekend. If it starts to go sideways in the ring, it’s more important for me to 1) give her a good experience at a show and 2) correct it as tactfully as possible… than it is for me to be perfect.

@JenEM

Sometimes you sacrifice geometry for a balanced transition or good connection, because I can fix a 22M egg later as the horse gains the better balance from the good transition.

This and this! Or sometimes there might be footing issues that make deviating from the correct path a good strategy. If there’s a puddle in the corner and your horse is a chicken about water…yeah, work on that at home, but in the test you’ll probably be better off taking a small hit by avoiding the puddle rather than setting yourself up for tension or resistance by going deeper into the corner.

If I’m at a horse trial doing dressage on grass and the footing is horribly rutted from previous rides, I’ll get dinged on geometry rather than forcing my horse to go through that crap just to bump my score up a fraction of a percent. This isn’t the Olympics. He takes care of me jumping cross-country, and I look out for him when I’m making him go around on uneven footing with his nose on the vertical, studs in his shoes, and no leg protection permitted.

At a recent horse trial the comment on my serpentine was “good begin, much too square 2nd 1/2.” That was because the proper path of travel crossed a ridiculous muddy rut so I negotiated around it. I’m okay with getting a 6.5 instead of a 7.0 on one movement to make life easier for my wonderful horse. The collectives said, “Carefully ridden,” so I think the judge recognized what I was trying to do in light of the craptacular footing.

[eightpondfarm]

TY. i always get a lot out of your comments.

@Scribbler

So if you want to educate your eye, curate your videos so you aren’t seeing beginner mistakes.

i tend to be hyper-critical and view with “how would i adjust this if i were up there?”

There are plenty of times in my lessons where my coach will tell me what to do to make such-n-such happen and more oft than not, i’ll pull in and quiz her down… Wanting to know: What was my mare doing/not doing? What would have been the correct positioning i am looking for? How do i feel that/where do i feel that? (suppose a video would help me sort all that out!)

At least for circles and straight lines you get to look back and see your horses footfalls in the sand.

Do you guys find videoing your training rides helpful?

[eightpondfarm]

You can never lose when you are being considerate of your partner!

Since you bring up Serpentines…i’m really confused. My coach told me that the across middle two passes, coming into and going out of the middle hoop are supposed to be straight (ie perpendicular to side rails/parallel to end rails). Something i’m not seeing in the videos…

[Scribbler]

Watch better videos. A serpentine has a straight line in the middle of crossing over, and then a curve like half a circle as you approach and leave the rail. It’s half a circle on and off the rail joined by straight lines. The size of the circle dictates how many serpentine you get and is dependent on level of horse and rider. You can typically do 3 serpentine based on 20 meter circles in a dressage sized arena.

Flaws in serpentine include making the straight line a bit diagonal, or making the line more S shaped.

You have a good coach who is teaching you basics. Listen to this coach. Dont confuse yourself by digging up every crap video online and watching kids who don’t have good coaches or any coach, and wonder why they are doing things differently.

@eightpondfarm I think you are discovering a truth about random online dressage videos, which is that there’s a very high percentage of crappy riders showing off online. Especially teens and young adults.

Right now you are noticing the bad geometry because that’s what you are learning. I bet if I watched them I’d also see things like overbent necks, bad low hands, on the forehand, duck butt forced posting, busy wobbly legs and hands, horse sucked back, etc. You will start seeing these things too as you progress on your dressage journey, and then you can’t ever unsee them.

In other words, whenever you see a discrepancy between what your good coach teaches and what some doofus is doing on an online video, the answer is: your coach is right and the video is wrong.

It is good to train your eye to see errors but it is disheartening to watch too much bad riding. It is especially a problem when you are at a stage where you aren’t 100 per cent sure what you are being taught is correct, and you see crap riders doing things wrong and wonder if that’s the “real” way. It’s not.

Listen to your coach and ask your coach to recommend video channels that will show quality rides at an appropriate level for you to learn from.

Stop surfing the Internet for random lower level dressage videos. You don’t need to watch peoole making egregious errors at this point.

I think it’s sometimes hard for us older folk to realize exactly how democratic current video technology is on YouTube and Tiktok. By which I mean any child teen or young adult can make a fairly smooth edited video, with titles and decent lighting, and create their own video channel for free, and post their videos with no adult oversight or editorial control.

I mean we all know this about social media geberally but in the moment, it’s hard not to attribute a little authority to a cleanly produced video. And if the rider has a white saddle pad and has braided the horses main, and calls the video “Fluffy does an awesome First Level test, I’m so proud of him!” then it can be harder to see that in fact the young person has no clue what they are doing.

There are even incompetent young people trying to make instructional videos and getting views and “likes” from their friends.

In other words there is just a great deal out there that is not worth watching.

And SM being what it is, there is a much higher chance of coming across a clueless self promoting teenager than a solid lower level adult posting videos, because most adults don’t post test videos randomly and are likely more self critical.

[Libby2563]

So, a three-loop serpentine is basically three 20-meter half circles, assuming you’re in a full arena. There will just be a moment of straightness across centerline as you switch bend/direction. In the diagram below the moment of straightness looks a little long, but I like this image because it also shows you how to ride the figure in a small arena, which might happen at schooling shows.

A four-loop serpentine is 15-meter half circles with a longer moment of straightness because the arena is 20 m wide. Your second loop should end (and your third loop begin) when you reach X and are traveling parallel to the short sides of the arena.

You might find it more helpful to google image search these figures rather than relying on people’s videos. You’ll get a bird’s eye view of ideal geometry and learn where your landmarks are in relation to the letters in the arena. Look critically and check your source though because some of the search image results I got do not show correct geometry.

[eightpondfarm]

[quote=“Scribbler, post:47, topic:765063”]
the answer is: your coach is right and the video is wrong.
[/quote]

[Scribbler]

Getting videos of your lesson with the coaches commentary is incredibly useful.

[outerbanks77]

@eightpondfarm

Do you guys find videoing your training rides helpful?

Yes. But I find marking out lines with cones (accurately, I have a laser measure for the job) is more useful for overall geometry. The video helps me more with my position and sorting out issues that I can’t always feel in the saddle (like how much were the legs crossing, how square was the halt, did things generally look the way they felt?).

[SuzieQNutter]

@eightpondfarm

Do you guys find videoing your training rides helpful?

Videoing is helpful. Riding with mirrors is the best. It is immediate and you can see it when you change.

[netg]

Personally, my geometry was bad at my last show because my mare decided she was herdbound at our first show together, and spent all ride each ride trying to escape out the gate to get back to her brothers. Apparently it wasn’t as obvious as it seemed, and while the rides felt like low to mid 50s to me, she’s a very nice horse so we scored high 60s. Gaits as well as the ease and flow with which she moves and transitions between gaits both helped us make up for her resistance at times. (As well as my tipping due to having just injured my back and pulling down due to my inability to fully break that very bad habit.)

[JenEM]

@Libby2563

So, a three-loop serpentine is basically three 20-meter half circles, assuming you’re in a full arena. There will just be a moment of straightness across centerline as you switch bend/direction. In the diagram below the moment of straightness looks a little long, but I like this image because it also shows you how to ride the figure in a small arena, which might happen at schooling shows.

OMG the difference in geometric feel between a large and small arena is crazy too! If you’re not used to riding in a large arena–and a lot of schooling show level riders, or those at not exclusively dressage barns, are only ever riding in a small ring at home–it can be very easy to get lost in a 20M circle because it’s not a neat half the ring the way it is in a small ring. And with my young horse, I’ve been riding in small rings for the first time in years and holy cow do things feel like they come up so much faster with less room to prepare.

Alternatively, riding Intro tests in a large ring gives your 4YO a lot more time to decide that the photographer in the corner between C & H is obviously there waiting to eat them and should be avoided at all costs Nothing’s ever perfect!

[Libby2563]

Yes, it’s definitely different! Personally I prefer a large arena but maybe that’s just due to years of mid- and upper-level dressage showing. In lower-level eventing (small arena) I feel like the movements all come up so fast that you don’t really have time to develop anything in between.

[CanteringCarrot]

I prefer a large arena, and the indoor and one of the outdoors are both large at my barn. The other outdoor is smaller/smaller dressage size. I am pretty adaptable, and so is my horse. He’s ridden in all sorts of spaces at competitions and clinics. Including some odd half oval warm up ring with a tree stump at one end. He’s also a smaller more compact horse, so this possibly makes things a bit easier.

Geometry is super important with us. Since we compete against mostly big moving WB’s (they make up 95% of the class…or sometimes we’re the only non WB and typically the only Iberian) the test has to be correct. He isn’t a huge floaty mover, so we’ve got to make sure we get all of our points where we can. There have been better movers with less correct tests that have scored the same or higher than us in some cases. I could buy a better mover, yes, but btdt and I like this little horse.

I think some riders might naturally have a better knack for geometry and riding a correct test, some may have to focus on it a bit more than others. An acquaintance has a nice horse for dressage, but really doesn’t ride the most accurate tests, so she never really breaks out from the low 60’s or upper 50’s. However, if she’s satisfied with that and the horse, doesn’t really matter I suppose. I am just a stickler for details.

[hoopoe]

The use of small arena is restricted to training level. If a schooling show uses a small arena for other tests , it is likely a show to avoid. A small arena makes the exercises more difficult than written, sometimes impossible. Qualifying classes for training must also use standard arena.

I never worked a rated show where they used small arena. Changing the set up was too time consuming

Figures are defined and illustrated in the rule book.

Faulty geometry typically comes from riders who just don’t have ringcraft skill.

Judges can usually tell when the horse is young and early in training. At training level there is some room for forgiveness of a green lookyloo moment, but if it happens frequently, then points start coming off

[eightpondfarm]

@hoopoe

Judges can usually tell when the horse is young and early in training. At training level there is some room for forgiveness of a green lookyloo moment, but if it happens frequently, then points start coming off

So, if points are coming off, (because the judges recognize a new and green horse not making progress), then do judges also become acquainted with the competitors and will/can rate and reward their progress compared to previous times? Not just scoring to the pages of documents, but i mean scoring to yourself?

[Jojomo]

@eightpondfarm

@hoopoe

Judges can usually tell when the horse is young and early in training. At training level there is some room for forgiveness of a green lookyloo moment, but if it happens frequently, then points start coming off

So, if points are coming off, (because the judges recognize a new and green horse not making progress), then do judges also become acquainted with the competitors and will/can rate and reward their progress compared to previous times? Not just scoring to the pages of documents, but i mean scoring to yourself?

A judge should not score according to “progress” relative to a previous test. They should score as if that was the only test of yours they have ever seen.

For upper level riders, if a judge has seen the pair numerous times and likes the pair, there could be a halo effect, but the judge should try score purely based on the current test.

[eightpondfarm]

i’m aware what judges should do, just wondering what they do do.