Mine uses backing up as an evasion, so I have to be careful.
One of the dressage publications recently had advice from a trainer to think of “back” as a bungee cord pulling the small of your back toward the horse’s rump. I rarely find visual images like this helpful, but it has made a lot of difference in our reinback, such as it is. add steady hands (hah!) and very quiet leg aids, and that’s usually enough.
I find backing through poles really helpful, especially when they are set up as an ell.
[QUOTE=quietann;8752299]
think of “back” as a bungee cord pulling the small of your back toward the horse’s rump. .[/QUOTE]
That’s how I think of it. It’s similar to piaffe.
[QUOTE=alibi_18;8752232]
This is the worst and more than often, people use RB as a forceful punishment, destroying their horse’s mouth, without understanding the real purpose/action of the RB. The same will then complain their horses don’t want to take contact afterward…
RB is not a punishment, it’s a training tool to regroup and collect a horse. It’s a movement that controls the whole body of the horse.
It’s a movement/tool that needs to be trained, not forced.
When ask for a RB, it starts from my seat that blocks the forward movement, the legs aid to “move” (If I want to back up faster, I just have to give more legs) and slight resistance from the reins. I then usually try to give/follow the head forward with my hands so the horse can really stretch its nose out while backing up. (Like I would do in the walk actually) I always got good scores in my RB because I don’t cramp my horse’s nose to chest to back up.
I always start training the backing up from the ground and using voice command. I then do it from the saddle still using the voice command in order to be able to use as minimal rein aid as possible. :)[/QUOTE]
Let me be clear, in case there is a misunderstanding here.
We do NOT use backing up as a punishment. Asking stallions to back up in hand is very commonly used to get their mind off “other things”. My horse is not a stallion, but he was gelded at age 3 and retains some “stallion-y” personality traits - including a very strong sense of fairness. In addition, he has a strong personality and a high opinion of himself, and being asked to back up twice in a row is a little bit too much for very big ego to handle. We are making progress, but it is obvious that he isn’t particularly pleased about the double reinback. He thinks we are being unfair. “You asked me to back-up, and I did. Then you asked me to go forward, and I did. And now you are asking me to back up again. So what kind of reward is that for doing it the first time you asked?”
I’d been taught to deepen the seat, use the seat bones and forward leg into a resisting hand, but it resulted in a lot of tugging . When I lightened my seat it was a lightbulb moment for me and my horse and I’ve done that on every horse since then. The horse shot out from under me with ease.
I’ve seen Western riders use the back-up more or less as a correction, deep seat, lean back, hands up and pulling - the horse goes back all right, with head hollow, moth open and back sinking…so that where I thought something was not right.
I use pressure on the stirrup and close my upper leg. Very little rein pressure and no pressure or aid from the lower leg. I like my horses to be very responsive to leg aid and think horses get confused when you use leg and a restraining aid at the same time. Doing it without lower leg makes ending the rein back and going forward again very clear to the horse. You just have to release the stirrup and close the lower leg. I also use a briefer version of this aid for the half halt, to prepare downward transitions, and to begin piaffe.
[QUOTE=DownYonder;8751867]
Thanks for all your comments. We are training the reinback pretty much as most of you have suggested - a good halt, slight lightening of the seat, using our legs slightly behind the girth to ask for activity behind, but into a “non-allowing” hand. And then moving our legs forward and “allowing” with the hand to signal the horse to step forward again. Both trainer and I ride him, and we use the same aids. As I said, he has gotten fairly good at the initial reinback at home, but the double reinback at 4-3 sort of befuddles him. He seems to think he is being punished - he has a very strong sense of self (he can be a bit stallion-y at times), and he just doesn’t understand why he has to back up twice in a row. It’s just a little too much “submission” for His Nibs - LOL![/QUOTE]
If he “gets it” at home, then you’re on the right path. Now, just do more. Do you regularly rein back more than 3-5 steps? If not, do so. Take a dozen steps back. Expect him to continue to back as long as your seat it lightened (or just your pelvis tipped if he’s nice and sensitive to your aids), and expect him to immediately move forwards when you change your seat to normal sitting. Do it often and without worrying that you’re going to upset him or wreck him or something. You won’t.
For straightness, get off the wall. Work on TOF and TOH step by tiny little step in the middle of the arena. IOW, ask for not even a quarter of a half pirouette. Teach him to listen to little aids and wait for more instruction. Then play again with the rein back taking it step by step and correcting as necessary. It will eventually straighten and you will be able to restore the flow.
If straightness is still tough, build a little backing chute out of ground poles or railway ties. Put a right angle(!) in it and practice backing through it without touching the sides. You’ll teach yourself better feel in the rein back for straightness corrections and you’ll teach your horse to listen and step carefully exactly where you ask him to step.
Ok, now if your horse doesn’t truly “get it” at home, get off and go back to in hand work and put a really strong verbal tag on it. You’ll teach it one thoughtful step at a time. “Back” horse takes one step back and gets a reward. Repeat. When you lead forward out of those steps (and it doesn’t have to be after every step) take just a quiet, thoughtful step or two. Don’t wander off. Keep yourself and the horse on task for the duration of the lesson. Boring as all get out, but it works.
Practice your verbal tag anywhere, anytime. I use it a lot while grooming - low stress, easy as pie, and really helps to install the verbal cue.
Good luck, or rather, Good Practice! 
My young horse used backing as an evasion so I avoided teaching/practicing it under saddle until forward from a halt was so solid I forgot the last time she backed after a halt. She also found it physically (and mentally?!) quite difficult.
Her body worker then said she really needed to do hill work to strengthen her back and hind end. We had one, rather steep hill and we started working in hand backing up that every time we finished riding or came in from the field. Once she found that not so difficult, I started asking under saddle. I ask like others, lighten seat slightly, move lower leg back (but not on), and close hand. Initially, I helped with voice command and dressage whip on shoulder if she really wasn’t getting.
Now we do lots of halt-rein back-trot/walk transitions. We might do several in a row, then no more that ride. Or we might do just a few scattered throughout the ride. Never as punishment, but I will use it if she is getting heavy on the forehand. At first, she definitely wondered why we were doing more than one, now it is just like any other transition. At first we might have only done a step or two, then gradually built up number of steps and number of repetitions. If you can do multiple walk/trot or any other transitions throughout your ride, this just needs to be treated as another one so your horse doesn’t differentiate between them and get offended(!) by multiple backing requests.
As a side note, my mare’s top line, hindquarters, and lower back have shown huge improvement in strength in ~1 month and this was the only significant change we made to our rides.
@DownYounder : I was by no mean implying you used RB as a punishment. I was truly just agreeing with Merrygoround’s post.
Sorry if it wasn’t clear!
As for some exercices to work on :
What you are experiencing right now is your horse anticipating to go forward and go on something else but another RB… He think he knows better!!!
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