Learning Dressage Movements in Order?

[Scribbler]

@blue_heron

Ah, that totally makes sense!

Each horse comes with a different set of natural abilities. Gymnastics involves building on what he does well naturally but also encouraging him to move in the way he doesn’t, naturally. And then this changes over the course of training. Say a horse naturally inverts and falls on the forehand. You put a lot of work into getting him to stretch to the bit and lift the back and withers and step under behind. And then at a certain point you need to progress to collecting, raising the head a bit.

It’s true you wont get really good show piece lateral work before you have some collection, but it’s also true that lateral work is the foundation for collection.

My pet peeve (one of them, I have many) is folks who dont school any lateral at walk and just starting muscling the horse into trot shoulder in when they are “schooling second level” and it’s on the test.

And yes, Iberians come with some things factory installed that your average WB or TB may never really nail!

[wanderinglemon]

Perhaps it would be interesting to list exercises in the order you learned them, or the order you have taught one of your horses.

I know I would be intrigued to see the comparisons! For me it would go:

Free Walk
Working Walk
Working Trot
Working Canter
Stretchy Trot
Leg Yield in Walk
Turn on Haunches (partial)
Leg Yield in Trot
Stretchy Canter

And that’s as far as I have gotten so far!

[mmeqcenter]

@blue_heron

Oh, and another thing: the training pyramid “dictates” that relaxation is developed through rhythm. So riding a horse over/under their natural tempo interrupts the ability to relax the topline and create the swinginess we desire.

This popped a light bulb for me.

I have a TB mare who naturally has a slower pace and is a bit behind leg. Forward is harder for her, especially at the trot. I had a trainer for a while (I’m currently in between trainers) who constantly told me to push her “more forward! more forward!,” which to me just felt like freight-training around as fast as possible. She’s a naturally tense/nervous/spooky type, and I felt like the constant push for “more forward” was blocking her from relaxing through the topline much of the time. For just a working trot this trainer had me pushing for so much forward I guess my mare just doesn’t have the ability for a Medium trot if that’s what Working trot is supposed to be.
Perhaps the next show I manage to get to I’ll let her go around at her preferred pace and see what comments we get in comparison to our well-established history of “tense, needs to relax through back.”

My “order of go” for this mare (my first horse doing full-on dressage; hunter/jumper convert here) has thus far been:
Free walk
Working walk/trot/canter
Turn on forehand
Turn on haunches
Stretchy trot
Leg yield walk
Leg yield trot
Stretchy canter
Leg yield canter
Shoulder-in trot
Shoulder-in canter
Lengthen trot
Lengthen canter
10m circle trot
Counter-canter serpentine + 20m circle
15m circle canter
Lengthen canter
Counter-canter 15m circle
6m volte trot
10m circle canter
Walk-canter
Canter-walk
Simple change
Rein-back

We had just started on these:
Haunches-in walk
Haunches-in trot
Half-pass trot
Half-pass canter
Flying changes
Half steps
Using a Double bridle
Last year, then EPM struck. Now we’re slowly coming back into about First level work.

[Scribbler]

What you learn as a student and what you school as a trainer on a green horse are different things. Or as a student on a green horse figuring things out as you go along with trainer help.

My mare needed a good year or two being asked to stretch to the bit and step up behind before we had a decent working trot and not a sewing machine foxtrot thingy. Or even a really nice free walk. Plus this required a lot of walk shoulder in on straight, circles, spirals, diagonals. I expect I could make this happen faster now.

On the other hand she is super adjustable at the canter, and her canter balance improved over time with trot work.

I did all the walk lateral work in hand, and a bit of trot (it’s much harder for the handler!). Turn on forehand first, then shoulder in circle, then diagonal and straight. A partial turn on hind end is easy and natural for most horses and can be incorporated into square turns early on. But the rest of that family of lateral moves (half pass family) generally come after the shoulder in family.

[Scribbler]

@mmeqcenter

Sounds like you are starting with a wellbroke hunter horse not a greenie, right?

The one thing I see missing in your program that might be useful is a lot of walk lateral work. The horse will learn how to get his hind end under him and build lift and carriage.

[BrendaJane]

Thank you for the wonderful illustration.
We are talking about the same things, and are not on opposing sides of the argument.

One has to apply the principles with an eye to the practical situation.
While a short back collects easier, it comes with its own problems (such as a false collection)

So following the guidelines, but not as if it was a manual for a car.
Horses differ.
To some frequent transitions are a key element to developing strength and skill
To others, it just ramps them up. SO you have to adjust and instead of changing every few strides, you might have to ride a circle.

However
when we have a horse with a certain set of handicaps, we mustn’t forget the elements of training that don’t come easy.

[blue_heron]

@mmeqcenter

I have a TB mare who naturally has a slower pace and is a bit behind leg. Forward is harder for her, especially at the trot. I had a trainer for a while (I’m currently in between trainers) who constantly told me to push her “more forward! more forward!,” which to me just felt like freight-training around as fast as possible. She’s a naturally tense/nervous/spooky type, and I felt like the constant push for “more forward” was blocking her from relaxing through the topline much of the time. For just a working trot this trainer had me pushing for so much forward I guess my mare just doesn’t have the ability for a Medium trot if that’s what Working trot is supposed to be.
Perhaps the next show I manage to get to I’ll let her go around at her preferred pace and see what comments we get in comparison to our well-established history of “tense, needs to relax through back.”

She is probably one that would benefit greatly from the rubber band exercise. Last night my Lusitano gelding (fourth level) and I worked only on leg yields and the rubber band exercise. Forward without tension is hard for him too. The goal is to see how much energy you can bundle on the short sides or a corner to give away on the long side or across the diagonal. I think it works for those up-down tense types because instead of pushing for more forward, the forward becomes the response or the reaction to the bundling instead of rushing into it from the working gait. It’s how I begin to teach the mediums. Last night I worked until I got the passage-y feeling coming into the last corner on the short side, got my big trot, and called it quits for the day.

I can’t list order of movements I trained for all of mine, especially if we consider every size of circle or transitions within gaits. Lots of times we learn something to the point of it being “meh”, put it away, and bring it back later. A good example would be the walk pirouettes for the PRE mare I mentioned before. We did walk pirouettes way back in the beginning when she was just starting to REALLY get the idea of isolating the shoulders, barrel, and hind end. Maybe we did a real walk pirouette twice in each direction. Then we didn’t do a walk pirouette for six months. Well, when we started working in trot halfpass and we were losing the sitting feeling and trying to dump ourselves onto the inside shoulder, the walk pirouette came back out. 5-10 m circle with walk pirouette feeling straight into half pass-- oooh, so that’s my outside hind leg!

[blue_heron]

@Scribbler

What you learn as a student and what you school as a trainer on a green horse are different things. Or as a student on a green horse figuring things out as you go along with trainer help.

this 1000x. Also ideally your trainer helps you to be a trainer for your horse. Learning to ride the movements on a schoolmaster or your horse which is already trained is a totally different game.

[mmeqcenter]

@Scribbler

Sounds like you are starting with a wellbroke hunter horse not a greenie, right?

Yes, we’d previously been doing jumpers, schooling 0.9-1.00m. I moved from Ohio to Florida and decided to try dressage while looking for a new instructor.

[wanderinglemon]

@blue_heron

Lots of times we learn something to the point of it being “meh”, put it away, and bring it back later

Love this!

[Scribbler]

@mmeqcenter

OK. That’s in a lot of ways an advantage! But it also means you might end up glossing over or skipping some foundational stuff because your horse already seems to know that. You can’t get the big extended trot or even a medium in balance until the horse can carry himself and collect a bit.

[mmeqcenter]

@blue_heron

Lots of times we learn something to the point of it being “meh”, put it away, and bring it back later.

Yes, definitely this. My list was more of like a general order of when various new movements were introduced, not necessarily heavily worked on or “mastered.”

[mmeqcenter]

Yep, she was already well-versed in stretchy walk and trot, after years of doing it.

[Scribbler]

@mmeqcenter

That’s a good starting point. But you need to be sure she is lifting through the withers, basculing, and stretching to the bit. Not just going forward on a loose rein.

The stretchy walk and trot in lower level tests is brief and just to show horse can do it on a loose rein. In and of itself, it’s not a super useful gymnastic. You want an active stretch into contact and raising withers which is not a stretchy walk on the tests.

You need to school a lot of things that arent on the test to do the things that are, well. Not all trainers understand this.

[BigMama1]

The basic, foundational movements can be performed at every stage if the training pyramid, so it’s not just the upper levels movements represented at the top of the pyramid.

So take something like a circle, for example. At the lowest levels, you are likely focusing on riding the circle shape while maintaining a rhythmic walk, trot, or canter with a nice relaxed way of going, and a steady, consistent contact. As you progress further in your training, you should be able to ride a circle with all of the above, while also maintaining straightness (which is bend in this case) and the appropriate degree of impulsion and collection for the level.

Obviously as you go up the levels, not only do the expectations for each of the stages in the pyramid increase, but so does the difficulty of the movement itself. The amount of impulsion and collection required at Third is different that what’s required at GP. So while you might be able to maintain a higher level degree of collection, impulsion, etc. on a 20m circle, the challenge lies in doing that while riding a 10m or 8m circle.

Does that make sense? It’s not like rhythm only applies at First Level and collection only applies at Grand Prix.

[Scribbler]

Now with my mare we could not ride a 20 meter trot or canter circle with rhythm and contact until after we had learned bend and reaching for contact and stepping up. Which required a lot of slow lateral work.

[merrygoround]

@BrendaJane

When you achieve collection, the front of the horse will automatically come up.
and you don’t have to create a head set.

Right on!!!

[theresak]

Having started my young horse last summer and going through the early stages of training and movements, I would not put a true dressage free walk as the first step for either a rider or horse - it’s too easy to mess up a walk until the horse is ready to create it himself and the rider can maintain a quiet, independent position.

This is the basic order I’ve gone through in the last year under saddle with my young horse that was not forwardly motivated to start. Also, we work on a lot of these concurrently - one movement is not perfect before I start training the next movement.

• Walk, trot, canter with a very light feel in the bridle on a long rein and neck wherever he wanted
• Working trot
• Working canter
• TOF
• 20 m circles
• W/T, T/C transitions up and down
• W/H transition in and out
• Medium walk
• Trot shallow loop
• Trot serpentine
• Trot LY (if you have a naturally forward horse, could start with walk LY)
• Shoulder fore
• Counter canter shallow loop if there’s enough balance in the canter, maybe start changes here too
• Shoulder in
• T/H in and out
• Etc.

I don’t think you can get a free walk and stretchy trot until you have some connection to the bridle at each gait. That will depend on the horse and how committed they are to reaching to the connection. If they won’t reach when you offer, they aren’t doing a free walk or stretchy trot.

I think for most movements you can follow the order of the dressage tests, but know that some might be “challenge” movements for that level, horse, or rider. I also think that the higher you’ve ridden/trained, the more likely you are to start movements earlier. And you are also more likely to understand how critical the “basic” movements are at the upper levels - the Grand Prix test is really all about transitions and not really the fancy movements.

[cnm161]

@blue_heron

Oh, and another thing: the training pyramid “dictates” that relaxation is developed through rhythm. So riding a horse over/under their natural tempo interrupts the ability to relax the topline and create the swinginess we desire.

Not to be that person, but here I go.

Rhythm and tempo are not interchangeable. Agreed that consistent replicable rhythm (the pattern of footfalls within a gait) is key to relaxation, but in some cases that may mean dialing down the tempo (the frequency of the repetition of the rhythm). Extreme example: those little tiny sewing machine pony trots on Shetlands often come with the nose straight in the air (and, because it’s a Shetland, a whole body full of evil). Slowing the tempo down actually enables some suspension and the development of schwung.

It’s not explicitly delineated in the training pyramid, but installing consistent tempo control even when applying aids is key to getting further up the pyramid. If the horse scoots off every time the leg goes on, the aids aren’t really getting all the way through.

Sorry for the soapbox.

[Feathered_Feet]

@cnm161

Not to be that person, but here I go.

I’m glad somebody went there! The misunderstanding of the difference between rhythm and tempo is, to me, akin to people thinking negative reinforcement and punishment are the same thing. Each are related, but different. If you want to speak technically about a subject, then you have to be precise about the words you use. So, thank you

And I agree that adjusting the tempo (not rhythm… the rhythm of the gaits should be as pure as possible all the way up the scale) is a great way to influence training. As you said, slowing the tempo can give the horse the chance to learn about/add suspension. Quickening the tempo can teach the horse to be quicker in the hind legs.

Assuming the horse has the correct rhythm in each gait, I can’t think of a single example of when you’d want to change it. If they have incorrect rhythm, then you’d have to address it.