So have I. So, what makes you the holder of the secret that somehow no one else has learned?
The idea of teaching a dressage horse work in a “slow trot” instead of teaching them to work forward in the lateral work and do transitions within the lateral work tells me all I need to know about what you’re doing.
Learning tricks with cheat codes on to make them easier doesn’t make them proper training.
You know what, I extend the invite. If you’re ever in the northeast, you are 100% welcome to take a spin on my 17h Holsteiner and tell me that it takes no strength at all to stay with him, it’s simply all about balance. I look forward to the demonstration of how to properly ride a haunches in doing a “slow trot.”
Soooo…all that is great foundation but dismissing the “levels” in dressage indicates a fundamental lack of understanding about dressage. The training pyramid exists for a reason. The levels exist for a reason. Moving ahead to each one is entirely dependent on having solidified the requirements at the previous level - all of them.
You say it’s a new language but it’s just speech…that’s like assuming you can understand Russian because you speak French. They are both just languages after all, right?
Think of it as a skill like dance. Most of us can dance - we’ve been doing it in some form of our lives, whether taking ballet as kids or just hitting the dance floor at a wedding or club. Some take classes and even compete, like my 15 year old daughter, who danced 12-15 hours a week. But there’s no comparison between what she does and what a professional ballerina does in training and on stage.
The ballerina is the equivalent of the upper level dressage rider. Sure it’s still dance, but it’s night and day from what a dance student does in lower level classes, and light years away from what we do at a wedding lol.
Almost everything you think you know at one level of dressage changes when you move to the next level. A First Level trot is nothing like a Fourth Level trot. The suppleness, engagement, collection, self-carriage, and impulsion needed for Third barely resembles that needed at Grand Prix. It’s not just about the figures and exercises, but the basic requirements within each gait.
I suggest you look through some of the national tests from Training through Fourth and focus on the little blurb at the top of each test called “purpose.” Read them in order from lower to higher levels and that may give you a better understanding of what some very knowledgeable people have been trying to explain to you here.
The first extended trot I ever sat made me realize how long the diagonal F-X-H actually is. It is very long. It also felt like flying. Absolutely flying. I didn’t know if I’d be able to bring him back. And my hips burned and I was completely out of breath.
That full diagonal is so dang long lol. And I didn’t realize how long the air time between each trot step could feel! The first time I accidentally hit the extended trot button on my old super schoolmaster mare, I literally was almost trotted right out of the tack. I was equal parts hysterical with laughter and terrified that I would never be able to stop her at the end of the diagonal. When her hind end would lower and the shoulders come up in front like a motorboat or airplane taking off, it was the best feeling in the world.
As far as training levels. It’s good to introduce lateral work in hand, at the walk, and at slower trots. You can do this to gymnasticize and build up a green horse. But it doesn’t mean you are “working on second level moves” or whatever.
The items on the tests are meant to evaluate the geberal level of a horse but are not the only thing you do schooling. I see low level trainers who do no lateral work until they start to manhandle the horse into trot shoulder in for a second level test. That’s missing the point.
Playing with bits of lateral is just part of working a green horse. It doesn’t mean you are schooling a higher level.
Good point! I know someone who once signed up for a clinic with a BNT. She registered herself and her horse as Third Level. Her rationale was that she could do a half pass. Could she keep her horse on the bit at walk trot and canter? No. Was she meeting the basic requirements even of First Level? No. But the horse would willingly move sideways away from her leg into the bend so in her mind that was a half pass. Needless to say, her clinic experience did not live up to her expectations, as she was unable to perform most of the exercises or make the corrections the clinician asked if her.
It really is the whole package, and putting it together. Although the levels show progression, it’s also important to understand the purpose of the movements, and use them to improve something. My green bean actually has a pretty good SI and some days I can use some HI as well to get her to engage. I’m using these to get her better aligned so that she’ll canter. Hence, I guess I could say she is “schooling parts of second level” but in reality, she is not even training level because she does not canter obediently (it is more like a hand gallop when we do get there). Coincidentally, she can produce a trot that would probably score better as a medium than what my QH mare, who really is nearly 2nd level ready, can produce. And yes, it’s taken a few years to develop any semblance of a proper collected trot on the QH, but she was born to jog.
Amazing reply from somebody who is a skilled writer…… one little thing…. Riding is not so much about being able to write well but it’s about doing it correctly….
Sitting trot requires the ability to loosen up the right parts of the body and to follow the movement of the horse…. If you are able to do this you are better already than a lot of people….
The point is you can do a beautiful sitting trot on different types of horses without knowing anything about dressage……
Once you are able to adapt to the horse and to feel how it moves without blocking it with your body you can start to work on the suppleness and other things…. But sitting trot has really nothing to do with dressage……
Question. If I’m not mistaken… Training Level has canter in all three tests right? How can someone be doing training when they don’t reliably canter? And how can a horse be not-green after a year and a half of riding?
I just want the secrets I clearly do not hold, that’s all.
Hi Manni, it’s been a long time since you took a dig at me. Nice to see you! Not sure I understand your point.
Sure, sitting trot itself has nothing to do with dressage, but medium and extended trots do. And the impulsion and collection of higher levels do.
Some people are naturals and learning to engage the core while keeping other muscles relaxed comes easily to them. They still will need a significant amount of strength and fitness - not just balance - to sit the trot of an upper level horse though, which is what everyone here is saying.
Riding a horse, any horse/any gait, takes balance. First and foremost. Learn that and you won’t need to grip like your life depended on it. I saw the cantle of Big Mama’s saddle picked up off her horse’s back with every stride and that could change by un-tightening those thighs and sitting with the horse as s/he goes. (ie: balance)
edit:
Maybe I am just evil but I feel a little bit better about myself seeing that even Silva Martin’s butt leaves the tack occasionally in the sitting trot.
Nope. Big Mama did not post a link to her riding. And BigMama is the first to admit that sitting trot on a big moving warmblood is HARD and she struggles with it every day
