(I know I should’ve asked my trainer this at the time, but you know how it is when you’re in a lesson. I will ask next time!)
I’m working on getting leg yields in my young greenie, and my trainer today said to use the whip on the inside to encourage him when his INSIDE hind leg is ON THE GROUND.
I have always used the inside leg when the inside hind leg is in the air to encourage the cross-over; why wouldn’t I also use the whip at this point?
You apply the leg or whip aid when the inside hind is just about to rise. Not when it is fully loaded and not when it is already in the air, though that would be more effective than the former. If you are leg yielding in posting trot and you’re on the correct diagonal, the aid is applied as you begin to rise. If you’re sitting the aid is applied as the outside foreleg (and thus inside hind) begin to rise. Your trainer is mistaken.
One argument I’ve heard is that it’s too late for the horse to change what he’s doing once his foot is in the air. I think the reality is they can change what they’re doing, but they might have to throw themselves off-balance in the process and that’s undesirable.
Another argument is that since you’re just training the horse now, so you want to use the whip to let him know what you want (more crossing) before he starts doing something you don’t want (less crossing).
I think the bottom line is “on the ground” better-coordinates with the leg aids. I hope someone else chimes in with a correction if I’m off-base.
“On the ground” is ambiguous, as you could split that time up into landing, supporting, and departing phases. Your instructor (hopefully) intends for you to use the whip in the “departing” phase, when the horse has started to shift weight off the inside hind leg but before he’s actually lifted it off the ground. This is when your leg aid should be strongest as well.
It’s easier to time this at the walk than at the trot, for obvious reasons.
To clarify, all, this was at the walk.
I know its possible that she was mistaken, but I think it’s unlikely. She’s a Gold Medalist with a horse she brought along herself, and showing/training is her full-time business.
That makes sense to me.
Am I the only one who doesn’t pulse the timing, but rather puts my seat/leg in position, doesn’t really push much at all, and simply allows the horse to move diagonally as my position sets it up to do? I don’t have the coordination to do all this special pulsing each step (though I do at times as for more reaction on a specific step, and that timing is just built up from feel so I can’t articulate/teach it at all, though the hoof about to lift off the ground seems right when I try to think how it feels sitting in my desk chair), and I don’t want my horses to require to much work. My trainer’s recent phrase to me is “You’re 40 now, and you’re not getting any younger. Don’t make it so hard!” I try to overthink and overdo, and it makes everything so much harder. Expecting my horses to respond off positioning and just GO reduces my need to overthink and try so hard, and makes it so much simpler. My horses are also happier because there’s less “noise” and they can respond to tiny little aids instead of constant shouting at them.
You are not the only one! Your post describes my “methods” if you can call them that :winkgrin:
I do that too! Really trying to be a lot more precise though, especially since I’m hoping to do more upper level stuff with this guy and since he doesn’t understand what’s going on yet completely!
But, see, I don’t think you can do all that micromanaging the basic move away from your leg and get to upper level stuff! I want to be able to say “you’re in leg yield, now COLLECT” or “you’re in leg yield, now LENGTHEN!” and get a response. If I’m telling my horse how to move its hoof in the basic movement, I can’t add aids to do the other. I accidentally got my gelding nearly passaging in lateral work - when he doesn’t know passage - by asking for collection as we were moving sideways. If I were micromanaging his hooves, that wouldn’t have been something I could have considered.
I agree with the trainer, but it goes back to why we do LY in the first place (or why I do LY)
The point of this is not to get engagment/step under, per say, it’s to fill the outside line of the horse from poll to hips.
When does this inside hind have the most ability to get the outside rein filled? as it is just leaving the ground as it has max loading
Easy way to help you and your horse understand is to do ToF, LY, and full pass in hand. Tack up in longeing stuff, warm up, and then start playing with turn on the forehand. Your horse will soon tell you that it completely understands what to do when you position your in hand whip (or longe whip with the lash contained) and leave it in position. Same with the leg yield or full pass in hand. IMO, at the stage of learning how to do these basic exercises, it is a detriment to the horse to pulse your aids. Ask the horse and leave it alone to do as you’ve asked. Don’t be asking for more more more every stride. Asking for more from any one particular leg can come more effectively and with more understanding much later in the training. Don’t ask a toddler to understand a university level course 
Now granted I taught mine to leg yield in hand first, but in the learning stage I do feel it is important to time the aids as that sets up the horse for the greatest chance of success.
Pulsing too can help the horse understand that you want him to step sideways again.
It’s like us learning to ride and learning to ask for the canter. In the beginning we have a laundry list of things we have to do in order to canter away on the correct lead successfully. As we progress things disappear from that list, until we reach the point of thinking canter and our body does the right things to signal the horse to canter on this lead.
For the horse learning the leg yield it is very much a one step at a time with the various aids required to help them understand what you want. Once the horse understands that this set of aids means leg yield, we refine the aids and do less and less until it becomes possible to do other things within the leg yield - things like transitions, changing the angle, changing the bend, etc.
The ability of the rider is a factor as well. Someone less practiced may need to think of applying their aid at an earlier point in the stride so that by the split second the horse recognizes the aid it is timed appropriately.
I will say my lateral work improved dramatically after I auditted a Walter Zettl clinic and heard him explain about influencing the leg while it is in the air.
netg, how you do leg yield is how I do it too, but the question wasn’t “how do you ask for leg yield?”, it was “why not use the whip when the hoof is in the air?” which is, in my mind, a separate issue. The first two answers I gave were explanations I’d heard/read/learned somehow and at some point for exactly the latter question. I don’t think they’re quite right though; I think it’s more about coordinating the whip to the leg aid. Across the board, I think the more-or-less right answer to “what is the correct timing for the use of the whip in training” is “when it maximally supports/enforces other aids.” It’s not about micromanaging at all.
It took me a while to formulate the rest of my response, actually, because I, like you, had to think through what the timing of my leg aids is relative to the footfalls, as I don’t think about it while I’m doing it. I probably do start putting my leg on in the loading phase, tbh, and then it just gets stronger through the departing phase. On the horse, it feels more like a whole body exercise (am I straight, are my legs in the right place, am I balanced, is the horse forward enough, etc., and then I shift my weight and we just go), which makes being effective way simpler than worrying about specific timing of various aspects of it separately. So I totally agree with you in that regard. Then again, it does take me at least 3 strides to make any significant changes to whatever I’m doing, so I probably should pay a little more attention to the timing!
I respectfully disagree about pulsing the aids being too confusing. I don’t think there’s an issue at this stage with not pulsing, but I also don’t think there is an issue with pulsing.
We do turns on the forehand under saddle with no problem; he takes a step around with his inside hind each time I squeeze his side. I want to replicate the same thing, just with forward momentum, in the LY. If he doesn’t get it, then we wait for the next opportunity for that leg to be active and ask until he responds.
I want to be absolutely clear about what I want when exactly I want it, and pulsing with the correct timing sets us up for success.
also, adding on to what I said previously, I’m not constantly asking for more and more crossover just because I’m pulsing–I’m asking for the same reaction each time, just being clear about exactly when it should happen. Repetition =/= increasing force or expectations from step to step.
Strangewings, to add to the reasons you gave in your first post, it occurs to me that to really make the connection between turn on the forehand and LY, you would want to keep the aids the same. Since you HAVE to ask for a turn on the forehand when the inside hind is on the ground, I suppose it makes sense to do the same even when foreward motion is in the picture in LYs. You have to ask for the horse to cross over when the foot is on the ground before they already start doing something else (stepping all forward with no crossover). Which is exactly what you said, the turn on the forehand comparison just really cemented it for me.
When I am first teaching LY I don’t use pulsing either. I do work in hand and also work on moving the horse’s shoulder and hind end independently. I need to have control over both ends and the horse needs to know how to move both independently and together. I apply pressure in the LY or whatever movement and keep it there. The horse yields to the pressure, when the movement is done the pressure is off signaling to end the yield. When pressure is applied the horse yields to it. IME this approach has worked for me, but this is during the basic stages of learning.
Dressage is already difficult. Why should we make it complicated too?
When we ask a horse to go forwards, do we ask again every stride? It’s the same for going sideways. Our position and seat are maintained and increased/additional aids are used only when the horse has forgotten to maintain the gait or when we wish to change it. For that, the timing should be correct - in the case of the LY question, when that foot is about to come off the ground.
Going back to ToF in hand or LY in hand, I would challenge a rider to apply a whip aid every dang stride to see how the horse would react. Here’s a clue - not favourably because it is absolutely unfair to keep asking for something the horse has already given and continues to give. Most horses will eventually let you know by becoming irritated or just shutting down to those repeated aids.
NetG-don’t feel bad. I can feel the timing, But as a long past instructor insisted I count out loud, I only lost the timing. :lol:
I suspect that some can feel the timing, and that those who can’t, count. 
OP The timing of the whip if you are using one, is just as the hind leg leaves the ground. However I start my babies with a gentle drift to the side early on, and polish it as they get older, and stronger.
Same with TOF-Sometimes I just want to get to the gate latch-one stride, or closer to the arena door notch. It is more a practical move.
In the learning stage it is important to be specific in what we are asking and provide relief from the ask in order to let the horse know they did what was wanted. In teaching leg yield getting the inside hind leg crossing under the horse is key. Holding the aids on for several steps can be detrimental as the begins to wonder what he’s doing wrong. At the walk there is a relatively long time between key movements of the inside hind leg and releasing the aid as that leg moves sideways tells the horse that is what you wanted.
In later stages, after the horse understands we want sideways movement, we might hold the aid for a couple of steps to try and increase the degree of sideways movement, but even then the release of the aid tells the horse he did the right thing.
Where the horse is in training is going to have a large impact on the timing, strength and duration of our aids. And how demanding we can be about the response we will find acceptable. None of these things are absolutes.
@sascha (it won’t let me quote you)
I did use the whip every single stride when teaching leg yield in hand. Timed well it signals “that” leg swings sideways and removes the pressure as the horse does so. The horse learned that was what I wanted and we could leg yield many steps in a row.
Putting pressure on to move sideways and holding it would similarly have to be trained one step at a time as holding the aid in place until the yield is finished would initially have the horse trying different things to figure out what was wanted as moving sideways did not result in released pressure and must not be the desired response.
Any aids can be used to teach any response if developed gradually and used with good timing. We have a common set of aids that we teach horses in order to allow many people to be capable of riding that horse, but the specifics of teaching the horse is a process that is variable depending on the horse and trainer.
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