A change you switch your legs and seatbones. A leg yield against the lead you don’t switch any of your aids from the normal canter aids except you are pushing them off of your outside leg and half halting with your inside rein since it is acting as your outside rein (diagonal pairs). Your outside leg remains behind the girth to hold the lead and the inside leg remains at the girth for the same reason. See the video in my post above. If you have time to watch the canter work in total (probably 5 minutes of the video) you’ll see us going back and forth between leg yield and half pass.
I’m guessing your horse doesn’t do renvers at the canter, either.
MTA: the difference between the aids for a leg yield and a flying change are also in timing. A flying change aid is quick and at a precise moment in the stride whereas a leg yield aid is slower and not only once- it is every stride or whatever your horse needs to keep moving over
My opinion, you have to stop thinking about the change as moving the body one way or the other at all. You will end up with crooked changed and get nailed for it in the tempis. From the post above and your other posts, my impression is you are too focused on changing the horse’s body or neck position when prepping and asking for the change. Think of the change as a small jump stride straight up and forward on the line of travel.
You have to think of getting the horse totally straight with the shoulders and hips square and the neck straight out of the chest and then ask for the change. I would get away from the counter canter and start doing more short diagonals, quarterline, or small figure 8 towards the rail with 2-3 strides of 100% straightness before the change.
If you have a crooked horse or rider or the horse is leaning into what will become the new inside leg, then you can yield them away from that leg before the change, but not as you ask for the change.
You also can’t be “pushing” with one leg in the change as you’ll likely get a flat change and never be able to get quick enough aids for the tempis if the horse starts counting on a heavy leg aid.
My flying change aid is mostly in my seat-bones and hips, with the legs just grazing alone the sides of the horse to switch my legs. I think of an exaggerated lifting of the new inside seat-bone to allow the new inside hind lots of space to jump through. In the 1s, my legs don’t move after the first change, it’s just up and down with the seat-bones.
But this is what you asked about in the first post - the plie, as many described:
I agree you’re doing too much bending various directions.
If I canter on the right lead and leg yield right, my leg stays back and I am still positioned in my seat for my horse to be bent right as needed for the right lead - nearly straight, but not quite. That is, with the right legs leading. The whole left leg would be used, more than the calf I typically use on a leg yield, because the whole point is getting the shoulders aligned and body straight.
To leg yield left/plie, I would use the inside (right) leg just like any other leg yield.
Often times when my horse is trying to overbend to the inside (because she’s an overachiever and turns herself into a pretzel when she’s trying to help, just like I overdo things), I do a counter flexed working pirouette. It both gets her straighter by not letting her bend her body so much in, and gets her more on her butt. She’s one who has energy aplenty in the canter, so I don’t have to worry that I’ll reduce energy too much - and it’s a way to get her straighter with her thinking she’s still doing a lot. With the first horse I taught changes, it was leg yield right when on the right lead until he was straight and almost not able to hold the lead because he didn’t have that tiny bit of bend needed, then switch seat.
That straightness is the key - to have one side lead, there is a tiny bend. You are straightening until they almost can’t do it, then switch seat/legs, and the change is natural to happen.
So you DO mean a plie. Plie is a very regular action used, as mentioned it’s one of Charles de Kunffy’s favorite exercises. And it is keeping the bend as it should be - I’m not sure how that plays into changing bend to change leads at all. It reinforces the lead the horse is already on.
This video does not belong to me, I don’t know the rider - I just went to youtube and searched ‘leg yield canter’, but it demonstrates leg yielding at the canter into the outside rein, as you were asking about, along with some HP. You can see the horse gets a bit stuck and flat when there is too much bend and loss of forward, but the head-on view should make it easier to see what the legs are doing. Towards the end there is also a HP-flying change-HP.
I would have the rider change their legs - cantering right, left leg slightly back.
In preparation for the leg yield in canter right, left leg at the girth and right leg back.
The amount of ‘receiving’ your right leg does tells him whether or not to change. Allowing with the right leg tells him its OK to move right. Supporting with the right leg tells him to ‘stand up straighter’, pushing with the right leg says change.
In fact, I am training the changes just this way with a student and her new to changes 6 yo.
I think you found the issue. If it works, I can see this resulting in a horse that moves laterally in his changes rather than changing straight. Swinging in the changes can be a real bear to correct later.
The positioning of your legs forward/back and the weight of your seat bones should dictate which lead you are on.
Steffen Peters taught an entire lesson on this today in his symposium with Scott Hassler. The horse was confusing straightening aids and the aids for the change, so the rider couldn’t really ride the horse straight to set up the change. He did lots of leg yield and shoulder fore in canter working on allowing the rider to manipulate all the parts without changing the lead.
The half pass: your horse is on the outside rein bent around your inside leg and seatbone, your weight slightly stepping to move in the direction but I lift my inside hip to help accentuate the shoulder reach. Outside leg back, inside leg at girth, hips moving to show the way.
The Leg yield: I don’t know about the Plie. I’d say -Basically counter-canter aids and little bend in the direction of travel. Relatively steady outside leg and hip pressure - with his gait and his movement, not like a clamp - suggests the leg yield - like trot aids.
The change: People ask differently, some ask with parallel aids, some with diagonal. I think the key is the obvious preparations (half-halts), and the quick change of seat and leg, however your horse knows the cues. I use diagonal aids and ask more with my seat and thigh bones, supported by legs preceded by a change of flexion to say it’s about to come along with the half-halts. Other people train their horses differently.
I think as long as your aids make sense to your horse within the context of his training, he should be good to understand the differences.
A flying change is a canter depart from a canter. Same as walk-canter, or trot-canter, canter-canter. The horse knows how to change leads, or change gaits. You develop a language with the horse and ask for the transition…then you allow it to happen. The “position” of the rider’s body is just the rider positioning so as not to interfere.
I think you have some fundamental misconceptions about the canter and the aids for the canter that should be revisited before you train the horse to fling its haunches in the changes.
Remember a change is just a new canter request - Just like when you ask for canter from walk, in the change, you have to change your pelvis and slightly change leg position - remember outside leg is back in the canter. When you change the new outside (old inside) leg has to be further back, and the “diagonal” aspect of your pelvis shifts from, say, right hip back in L lead canter to L hip back for R lead canter. Everything is so subtle.
I use plie at the canter with HP to keep him from falling onto his “leading leg” shoulder.
As an aside, I was shown a new aid for the change which is working so well for me. My legs are generally more “even” on his side in the canter and the “diagonalness” of my pelvis and the push of outside hip maintain the canter. The change aid is just a small HH on the old outside/to-be-new-inside rein (which slightly straightens /changes his flexion) and turning the new outside leg heel in- just like a canter aid from walk. Every canter request is the same to reinforce the idea. Much easier for me and Bravo understood it right away.
Yes it does, it is just a small arena and I can only get 4 steps or so. I was saying I’m guessing your horse has issues with renvers AT THE CANTER because you are asking a similar question as the leg yield away from the wall/against the lead.
MTA: I just realized we may be talking about different leg yields SMH. I thought you meant the leg yields away from the wall/counter bent position.
Doing leg yields from the centerline to the wall you do the exact same thing - you don’t change your legs. Inside leg at the girth, outside leg back. If you are cantering on the right lead, then you are leg yielding away from your right leg and your legs stay in the same position and you just half halt on the left rein and yield them off your right leg.
Regardless if I am doing a canter leg yield away from the track (counterbent), canter leg yield with same bend away from centerline or QL, or canter head to the wall leg yield, my legs don’t change position.
I think we have some fundatmental concepts that are not quite clear.
TRAVERS - A lateral movement where the horse is bent in the direction of travel. When done diagonally sideways and forward on a straight line it is sometimes called a “Half-Pass”. When done on a circle, it is also called “Haunches-In”…where the haunches come into the arc of the circle…which is different than
RENVER - Also called “Haunches Out”…when done on a circle the haunches are displaced to the outside of the arc of the circle.
LEG YIELD - A lateral movement where the horse moves sideways and forward with little or no bend and the bend is away from direction of sideways travel.
SHOULDER-IN - A lateral movement where the horse travels sideways and forward and is bent opposite to the direction of sideways travel
OP…you seem to be using these terms interchangeably…and they are not.
