[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7238472]
For the record, Buck explains in his 7-dvd set as well as at LEAST once in every clinic I’ve been to, that you do NOT ask for a backup in his ‘position 3’ or heavy in the seat.
You ask for the backup out of position 2, balanced and in the middle.[/QUOTE]
I stand corrected. It’s not from a slightly forward position though, which others advocate, or from rolling your thighs forward to open the “rear door”.
I agree with what you’ve written above, but there’s an element of technique that’s a part of Buck’s way of explaining it that doesn’t set you up for success in the same way Martin’s does.
The issue comes in by initiating the backup from square with the rein. Any brace between the mouth and hind leg will be a resistance in that backup, which will tend to cause the hind leg to hang.
Instead, what Martin was demonstrating was to intentionally restrict the front end slightly and initiate the backup from the hind leg stepping first and then the front end catching up. If you can do that from square, you have better feel than I do! I’ve no doubt Buck can, but most of the rest of us can’t.
If you instead ask for the backup with the rein, you’re pressuring any brace against the hind leg. ANY brace will cause a lag in the hind moving, and will generally result in the horse leading the movement from the forequarters. That’s what I was doing. This might look okay:
http://www.easphotography.com/Tindur/Backup.jpg
…but it will result in a backup with a limitation in final speed.
It doesn’t matter how willing a horse is to add energy if his technique is slightly off. If he’s leading the movement even slightly with the front end, he’s going to be limited in speed. Video is a humbling way to verify this.
[QUOTE=froglander;7238767]
Would I horribly confuse my horse if I try to change?[/QUOTE]
Yes, at first. Anytime you change the rules there will be a period of confusion. If you’re consistent though, he’ll forgive you every time. If you flop back and forth trying this and that, then he’ll get frustrated and stay confused.
You set him up so that the orientation of your body is allowing the turn. If he’s trying to move straight through a “turn” you’ve arranged in your body, he’ll encounter resistance.
As an FYI, this isn’t a “Buck vs dressage” discussion. It’s almost exactly the same as a “Baucheriste haute ecole vs Germanic dressage” discussion. Do you remove brace and then add movement, or do you prioritize energy, support imbalance, and work towards balance?
The notion of outside leg back to turn is predicated on containing the outside hind leg. Likewise, dependance on pressure into the outside rein is containing the drive from the inside hind leg.
aktill, I think you described it previously, but I didn’t quite understand. How does Martin describe asking a horse to back?
Sorry, should I stop asking questions?
[QUOTE=aktill;7238842]
As an FYI, this isn’t a “Buck vs dressage” discussion. It’s almost exactly the same as a “Baucheriste haute ecole vs Germanic dressage” discussion. Do you remove brace and then add movement, or do you prioritize energy, support imbalance, and work towards balance?
The notion of outside leg back to turn is predicated on containing the outside hind leg. Likewise, dependance on pressure into the outside rein is containing the drive from the inside hind leg.[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry, I’m not sure which refers to which from what you just said there. I know there are different “ideas” when it comes to dressage training, but I can never seem to keep them clear in my head.
Always more to learn!
[QUOTE=froglander;7238861]
Sorry, should I stop asking questions?[/QUOTE] Never! The only one to suffer will be you if you do.
Post 6 had some of it, but I probably wasn’t clear enough.
First of all, your horse should have a decent notion of being able to keep each foot in turn firmly planted and to rotate clockwise and counterclockwise around that foot. He can actually do this on a green horse that knows little because he knows how to set it up, but for sake of arguement lets just say that most of us need a bit more clarity in our horse’s minds on the subject. This will require adjustability of the strides of each leg, and quite a bit of freedom to move both the hind and forequarters.
Now, ask your horse to keep his front end on the ground, and start to step his hindquarters to the right. This will only be possible to a point, since he’ll start to pretzel his front legs. Right at the time when he would be wanting to move his front left leg back (his front right being the pivot foot here, moving his body counterclockwise around it), having his hindquarter to the right is creating the greatest possible amount of room for the front left to come back (since horses back in diagonal pairs).
If you then ask for a little more reach from the hind right, the front left will have no choice other than to take a large step back or the horse will fall over.
As you refine this with equal flexibility both ways, the horse learns to initiate the backing movement with his HIND leg and catches up with his front, rather than moving his front foot first.
MOST horses, if hurried, will start to want to rear or fall backwards since the hind can’t get out of the way of the front leg. Martin’s way is designed to prevent them from getting the bad habit of starting with the front leg.
[QUOTE=froglander;7238866]
I’m sorry, I’m not sure which refers to which from what you just said there. I know there are different “ideas” when it comes to dressage training, but I can never seem to keep them clear in my head.
Always more to learn![/QUOTE]
Roughly:
French/Spanish - prioritize straightness and a lack of brace THEN add impulsion
German - prioritize impulsion, and support imbalance until straightness is achieved.
[QUOTE=aktill;7238884]
Roughly:
French/Spanish - prioritize straightness and a lack of brace THEN add impulsion
German - prioritize impulsion, and support imbalance until straightness is achieved.[/QUOTE]
Thank you for the simple version!
Would you say western training along the lines of the ones that have been mentioned here would fall into one of those…classifications then?
Those traditions with a vaquero influence or origin would be a branch of the spanish traditions.
In a nutshell the classical high school of Europe spawned the charro and vaquero traditions in North America when the spanish dons came over. The dons were gentlemen, to whom riding was an art and which both showed their class and was a pursuit in and of itself. Their methods, distilled through the blue collar vaqueros who managed their herds, then evolved slightly differently due to different local availability of materials. The cattle determined which training methods would be most usable.
In Europe the military’s of the world adapted the gentleman’s classical high school to cavalry training to produce war horses. When the world started to need criteria to judge the Olympics (made up initially largely or entirely of calvary officers), THEN dressage was created. Dressage and the classical high school are NOT the same thing. People in the form of judges determine which training methods are most acceptable.
[QUOTE=aktill;7238333]
That said, you don’t need a western saddle (or horn) to use the hack. Just run the get down to your off-side belt. My endurance saddle doesn’t have a horn and I still use my hackamores riding it.[/QUOTE]
Well today I put my western bridle on with my dressage saddle. That bridle really does have better feel to it - I can be so much lighter with my hands. I think Mac doesn’t like the bit I have on there, though, because he yaws his mouth open after I put it in and during ground work and before I even get on. I think I’ll have to change my bit.
With regard to French vs. German style of dressage. Honestly, I just ride my horse. For Mac, he cannot really go forward until he is straight - he just gets stuck in his body and until I get his body parts lined up, he just can’t get forward. I don’t ride and think “this is a French thing to do so I have to get straight first” - I just do what my horse needs at the time. While technically, yes, he can move in a forward fashion if he’s not totally straight - like one leg can move, then the other, and the other and the other - there’s forward and there’s Forward.
[QUOTE=aktill;7238789]
I stand corrected. It’s not from a slightly forward position though, which others advocate, or from rolling your thighs forward to open the “rear door”.[/QUOTE]
I think what I’ve seen, which has confused me (unless I’m either not seeing it correctly or not understanding what I’m seeing) is Buck asking for backing from position 2. And then if the horse doesn’t give it to him in a timely manner, he’ll up the volume of the aids and to me it looks like he’s sitting back more and giving a stronger rein aid - so it looks like he’s closing the back door with his seat while asking the horse to back with his hands. Again, maybe I’m mis-remembering or seeing it wrong, but that was where I was confused. I buy into and understand leaving the back door open for backward movement, for lack of a better explanation, but to shut the back door when upping the ante is what had me puzzled
but to shut the back door when upping the ante is what had me puzzled
Yeah, I’d bet he wasn’t ‘closing the back door’ at all, if you asked his horse. Might well have looked like it, but I would doubt that Buck would not leaving an ‘opening’ for his horse.
Buck also explains getting life up (faster/more responsive) in the backup at about every clinic. He specifically tells people not to do so until the horse is responding properly SLOWLY, releasing a brace, getting light and responsive. He said at my last clinic that most people get in a big hurry to get their horse backing up FAST, and that is a bad deal unless the horse is really light, balanced and without brace.
Lovely photo of Betty Staley, by the way.
The reins look to me like ‘draping reins’, as described by Dr. Deb Bennett.
Betty’s reins are not tight enough to pull the lips back, nor loose enough to sag. In a draping rein, the horse is ‘feeling back to you’ through the reins. This is not ‘in between’ tight reins and loose reins, but ‘other than’. Ive felt a draping rein (with the horse feeling back to me, through the bit and through the reins) all of about four times. It is an extraordinary feeling. Sort of like the first time you feel a horse get really ‘up’ and passage instead of trot. That passage isn’t ‘in between’ a trot and canter, it is ‘other than’ a normal trot or canter, with TONS of life and suspension.
I agree with what you’ve written above, but there’s an element of technique that’s a part of Buck’s way of explaining it that doesn’t set you up for success in the same way Martin’s does.
OK, fair enough.
This gets me thinking about how a horse is supposed to respond FORWARD with a hind foot first, as well. (You’ll hear this from Tom Dorrance, Bill Dorrance, Ray Hunt, etc…not just Buck.)
I’ve known about this for four years now, I think I’m just about getting to the place where I can think about it, and get it working for me.
No idea if I did it “right”, but tonight, when I was done riding and we were kinda just cooling out, I practiced backing by going from a walk to a few steps of a turn on the forehand to then backing. If nothing else he was a lot less stuck than he often will get for the first few steps! After we backed a bit, then I’d ask him to step over with his front feet before walking forward a bit and then repeating the whole process again. Like I said, not sure if I totally misunderstood what was said earlier in the thread, but it felt like what I did was working for us 
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7239057]
This gets me thinking about how a horse is supposed to respond FORWARD with a hind foot first, as well. (You’ll hear this from Tom Dorrance, Bill Dorrance, Ray Hunt, etc…not just Buck.)
I’ve known about this for four years now, I think I’m just about getting to the place where I can think about it, and get it working for me.[/QUOTE]
This is covered in the book that Betty Staley and Ellen Eckstein wrote - Bringing It Together: An approach to a lighter and happier dressage horse (available on Betty’s website). They cover three basic exercises. The first one connects your rein to the hind leg and teaches the horse to go forward starting with the hind end. The second exercise goes backwards and the third works on individual steps. I think this book, Buck’s 7 Clinics DVDs, and some of the French dressage stuff by Philippe Karl go well together.
For those that can’t afford the 7 Clinics DVDs…ask your local library if they will order them. We have them at our library (it helps that the head of the library system here is a horse person) but after watching them I saved up to buy the set.
I have that book but I’ve lost the DVD that came with it 
Hoping to find it so I can watch what I read.
Anyone know of any english reins that would give that same ‘feel’?
[QUOTE=froglander;7239600]
Anyone know of any english reins that would give that same ‘feel’?[/QUOTE]
Your best bet for feel is to make sure there are no “transitions” in the material between your hand and the bit. Plain reins, possibly the kind with stops on them, but nothing more. And good, consistent quality in the leather. Anything with a change in material–web reins with leather fronts, laced reins, etc.–will be one more place that the transmission of feel can get interfered with. This is why a rope halter with a plain rope is better for groundwork than a leather halter with brass fittings, a chain, and a leather lead, for example.
I believe the bigger issue is learning what feel actually feels like, not so much the reins you use. My whole understanding of contact changed when I learned what feel is. I have no trouble riding with feel with simple, consistent, good quality leather reins. But, boy-oh-boy has what I feel and what I do with reins changed!
[QUOTE=monstrpony;7239627]
I believe the bigger issue is learning what feel actually feels like, not so much the reins you use. My whole understanding of contact changed when I learned what feel is. I have no trouble riding with feel with simple, consistent, good quality leather reins. But, boy-oh-boy has what I feel and what I do with reins changed![/QUOTE]
Is that something you can describe or point me in a direction where I can try and learn more? I feel like I am almost there sometimes, but it remains elusive to me
It is elusive. And I don’t think it’s something you can book-learn. I guess the best teacher is your horse–you will know when you get there, from him. It’s when he starts to read your mind, to know what you’re thinking when you’re still thinking it, before you start to “do”. And when you allow yourself to trust that it is real.
Aktill would love to see a video example of Black backing as I am not sure I completely understand what your explaining.
Having watched Bucks tapes. What has helped me with backing my horse with a light hand is backing in circles that Buck uses. Not sure if this is a bit like what you are talking about Black doing? Probably totally confused I am a very visual person.
M
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