I'm too quiet with my hands? I'm confused

[kris0227]

@Scribbler

We have a range of trainers in the area but I don’t think most beginner ammies are in a position to evaluate what they are getting at the start. Until they hit a roadblock with their horses and have to make a change they will stick with whoever they happened to start with. Or stay with the trainer but get a new horse.

I think it is difficult for these riders to see that what they are doing is not optimal when they see videos like the one posted here with an Olympic rider. They learn that’s what dressage is: driving a horse into fixed hands with your seat. I don’t think they have the framework for seeing dressage as subtle or self carriage.

In other words, dressage is understood to be riding from the hands, and the goal is headset from the first ride on a green horse. The rest kind of falls by the wayside. Classical ideas are so foreign to how they ride, it might as well be a different discipline.

One of these trainers also runs a popular schooling show series. So that shapes perception too.

It’s true that more competitive riders evebtually leave our barn, but they might move on in any case to a more focused training barn.

Absolutely this! I think it does fall into a “you don’t know what you don’t know” until something happens to open your eyes. This happened to me as well, I will admit it, but it was many many years ago now.

[Scribbler]

@kris0227

There are a few, but yes, I find it discouraging that there is so much hand-riding locally and I’ve yet to understand, like you, how it remains so common here. Unless it’s about the speed. My mare was schooling intro at the time of the lesson when asked to seesaw. I was trying out different trainers to supplement my normal trainer’s lessons (once per month as he’s 3 hours drive from me), when I described what we’d been working on, she proclaimed “some trainers are just in a hurry” smuggly and proceeded later in the lesson to advise me to seesaw the reins to get her head down. Unfortunately, this trainer wins a lot and so do her students, so she’s rather popular around here. I lost some friends when I told them I would not be taking another lesson with her.

Yes, I think the seesaw and heavy hands can be a shortcut to get a greenish horse and a novice rider into the training or first level show ring with a “frame.” Most of the riders (students and coaches) I watch over time don’t get past first level, and those that do move up the levels with scores in the mid 50s.

You can still bring home ribbons with a score of 56 at 3rd and impress your students.

People are indeed very touchy about any hints they are riding “wrong” and I have seen folks who water-ski on the reins claim their horses are light. So really you can’t do much but look the other way.

[pluvinel]

@Cardboardoux

Can you show a rider with good contact?

Take a look between 2:30 and 3:30…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_QlKdNrzAU

There are 3 riders who come in and out of the picture who are having obvious “conversations” with their horses, using the snaffle rein, with the curb fairly slack.

You can enjoy the rest of the video, but if someone wants to cut to the chase, that one minute…especially the rider coming in at 3:00 doing the 10m circle in trot is lovely.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

@Just1Alter

This makes sense. What are some other “messages” that are conveyed to the horse via the hands, besides half-halts to rebalance? Asking for flexion, relaxation of the jaw & neck? I think this is the second part I get stuck at.

Straightness is the first thing that comes to my mind. Yes you need your leg and seat but also the rein to dictate control of the shoulders and track. It can and should be subtle but it is still communicating.