I’m starting to think the trail ride picture I shared was from before I’d dropped them a hole awhile back.
Yes, dropping my right stirrup and having that even things out was good. And I could feel that Cody appreciated me sitting up/back and not being tipped forward. It’s just going to take some mindful riding to get that muscle memory up so sitting up/back is “normal” 
Glad you’re feeling better about it!
Your stirrup length from the screen captures looks pretty good. Your seat looks good, too.
PocketPony is right about lengthening your leg over a period of time. As for a long, draping leg… some women just don’t move that way, though- or their stability in the saddle is compromised if they try.
Dr. Deb on female and male pelvises, riding, etc:
http://www.equinestudies.org/whos_built_best_2008/whos_built_best_2008_pdf1.pdf
She talks about dropping your leg as much as possible without hollowing your back. That can take some time to make happen.
And, one other (unasked-for?) comment from the videos:
It looks like you are supporting yourself with ‘contact’ on the reins. In the ‘trot’ screenshot, there is tension in your hand and forearm.
Your horse has responded by dropping the base of his neck, which guarantees that his forehand will be overweighted.
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7451624]
Your stirrup length from the screen captures looks pretty good. Your seat looks good, too.
PocketPony is right about lengthening your leg over a period of time. As for a long, draping leg… some women just don’t move that way, though- or their stability in the saddle is compromised if they try.
Dr. Deb on female and male pelvises, riding, etc:
http://www.equinestudies.org/whos_built_best_2008/whos_built_best_2008_pdf1.pdf
She talks about dropping your leg as much as possible without hollowing your back. That can take some time to make happen.
And, one other (unasked-for?) comment from the videos:
It looks like you are supporting yourself with ‘contact’ on the reins. In the ‘trot’ screenshot, there is tension in your hand and forearm.
Your horse has responded by dropping the base of his neck, which guarantees that his forehand will be overweighted.[/QUOTE]
aktill had linked that same pdf file earlier in this thread I think, is definitely a good read!
I appreciate the comments, thank you
Since that lesson the video screenshot is from I’ve really been working on getting him to soften left and right (my attempt at “twirling” the head, but not entirely sure I’m doing it right) and it has been feeling like things have lightened up a noticeable amount (to me at least). I’ve also really been working on getting him to step his hip over. Now I will add focusing on sitting up/back and continue working on getting out of Cody’s way At my lesson last night, after coming down from a canter to a forward trot we looped around and circled back the opposite direction and really asked him to step up his trot and my instructor commented that she was surprised that his shoulders were able to move that much. So if I can just get out of his way, my little mustang isn’t a half bad mover
We are kind of an odd combo of dressage lessons and what I read from stuff like Dr. Deb and Buck.
I’d first try the head-twirling on the ground, with your horse just wearing a halter.
Look back through Dr. Deb’s drawings, so you are clear about exactly what joint is supposed to be moving.
Watch Buck’s ‘lateral flexion’ video, he puts his hands on his mare’s face and moves the poll joint. At the very start, he moves her head to the right, (not a great example) and then at about 0:04 twirls her head to her left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiTFFei1tTo
It’s of extreme importance to know exactly what joint and muscles you are addressing. If you only ask for the horse to turn it’s head sideways, you can get movement at any number of joints. I’ve seen plenty of horses fling their heads sideways, after a carrot bite or something, when their rider doesn’t know ‘bring the nose around’ from ‘release the muscles at the poll and tuck the jaw, leaving the ears level’.
Anyway, I do this on the ground, often when I just go visit my horses in their pasture. I ask with one hand on the bridge of the horses’s nose, and one hand on his jaw. I ask by pulling on the halter. And I ask with the snaffle. You always want the horse to release into the ‘twirl’, you never pull back and forth.
Keep working on the ‘step the hip over’…that move seems really simple, but there are a thousand ways a horse can do it wrong. It is one of the best ways in the world to get a horse’s mind back to you, and to release a lot of mental angst, so keep it up!
So if I can just get out of his way, my little mustang isn’t a half bad mover
I think your mustang is a DANDY horse. (I also really like Mac.)
Both of these horses, using themselves right, won’t be ‘half bad’ movers, they would be beautiful movers.
[QUOTE=Fillabeana;7451741]
I’d first try the head-twirling on the ground, with your horse just wearing a halter.
Look back through Dr. Deb’s drawings, so you are clear about exactly what joint is supposed to be moving.
Watch Buck’s ‘lateral flexion’ video, he puts his hands on his mare’s face and moves the poll joint. At the very start, he moves her head to the right, (not a great example) and then at about 0:04 twirls her head to her left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiTFFei1tTo
It’s of extreme importance to know exactly what joint and muscles you are addressing. If you only ask for the horse to turn it’s head sideways, you can get movement at any number of joints. I’ve seen plenty of horses fling their heads sideways, after a carrot bite or something, when their rider doesn’t know ‘bring the nose around’ from ‘release the muscles at the poll and tuck the jaw, leaving the ears level’.
Anyway, I do this on the ground, often when I just go visit my horses in their pasture. I ask with one hand on the bridge of the horses’s nose, and one hand on his jaw. I ask by pulling on the halter. And I ask with the snaffle. You always want the horse to release into the ‘twirl’, you never pull back and forth.
Keep working on the ‘step the hip over’…that move seems really simple, but there are a thousand ways a horse can do it wrong. It is one of the best ways in the world to get a horse’s mind back to you, and to release a lot of mental angst, so keep it up!
I think your mustang is a DANDY horse. (I also really like Mac.)
Both of these horses, using themselves right, won’t be ‘half bad’ movers, they would be beautiful movers.[/QUOTE]
Thank you!!
I do practice the “twirling” from the ground in essentially the way you described, with one hand on the bridge of his nose and the other near the back of his cheek to try and show him better that I’m trying to get him to just move his head/tuck his jaw under while keeping his ears level. I’ve looked at the drawings, just wish I could see an example in motion. I’m going to try and video my attempts and maybe I can get some feedback that way?
I’ve been taking weekly dressage lessons for awhile now (at hubby’s insistence) but this last time had something going on on lesson night so I had two weeks in between. Which actually turned out kinda nice because I put less pressure on myself to “practice and be ready for the next lesson” and more practiced the twirling/softening and stepping his hip over and just having fun. I think it paid off because my instructor thought we’d made progress over the two weeks
I will watch the video you linked when I get home, thank you
So is it just how he moves her head in the first few seconds and not when he picks up on the reins that is the correct “twirling”?
If so, then what I was picturing seems about right, but I want to be sure
That wee little bit at 0:04 is all that is needed for ‘correct twirling’ if I am to understand Dr. Deb on the subject. They need to release the muscles there at the poll.
Dr. Deb, if I recall correctly, does not think the horse’s head or neck needs to be turned more than that. (And maybe I don’t understand her quite right.) In order to release a brace, it does not.
But Ray Hunt and Bill Dorrance and Buck and Bryan Neubert and Martin Black go right on to asking the horse to bend their head/neck around farther.
I’ve been thinking on that for a good long time, and my conclusion is that having the horse bend his head farther around is addressing something else; it’s another exercise altogether: that the horse can mentally turn loose of having to look somewhere in particular/focus on the rider.
Again, you see a lot of horses ‘get it over with’ and swing their nose to one stirrup, then the other, in order to go somewhere else. Those horses are focused on leaving, not staying.
If you have Bill Dorrance’s True Horsemanship Through Feel book, look at page 26. There’s a gray mare flexing her head around to the right, nose tipped and ears uneven but looking at the camera with a bit of worry or life in her eye. The caption is
“This mare is going through the motions of following the rider’s feel by turning her head and neck to the right. Someone without much experience wouldn’t know there’s still a spot that needs to be taken care of. From the expression on her face it’s clear her thoughts are someplace else.”
I found a couple of interwebz photos:
https://www.google.com/search?q=horse+lateral+flexion+snaffle+photo&client=firefox-a&hs=ovV&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&imgil=bQVUWoo-8BFCcM%3A%3Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fencrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcQyQA8zFfmOEU4HxqQnrdNnZqm9wufFuGRDA_CbOk2OJZC28Q5REw%3B250%3B375%3BQlkZluplYrjSEM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.infohorse.com%252Fsnafflebit.asp&source=iu&usg=__K4EWoTAh5NUROsRc-N_CzecQbbc%3D&sa=X&ei=HIgOU-TIF9H8yAGivYGoDg&ved=0CC4Q9QEwAQ&biw=1600&bih=744
This horse looks like he’s waiting for it to be over with. His neck is bent around, his ears are unlevel, and he is not flexed laterally at the poll at all.
This horse, on the other hand:
https://www.google.com/search?q=horse+lateral+flexion+snaffle+photo&client=firefox-a&hs=ovV&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&imgil=U0sY1rTT9U0LAM%3A%3Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fencrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcQ233_NJvLXFsyV6lWqZ5ZfqcDMxZD-a7qdlZ959t5TEcdiX43SZw%3B500%3B385%3B8IZHmcYHRGU0fM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fen.wikisource.org%252Fwiki%252FEquitation%252FChapter_12&source=iu&usg=__PnTzfc__Tn57qfeiwnmlb1LYPFw%3D&sa=X&ei=HIgOU-TIF9H8yAGivYGoDg&ved=0CEAQ9QEwCg&biw=1600&bih=744
Looks content to not just twirl his head, but to wait on his rider mentally.
Buck’s mare in the video, is also a nice example of a horse bending its head around, and turning loose of any other ideas, thoughts, or distractions in the arena.
I think you DO want the horse’s head properly twirled to do the ‘all the way turned’ exercise…but I also think it is an addition to twirling the head.
Thank you!! Was hoping you’d reply before I left for the barn, now I have some good visuals in my head to work with
I’ve practiced both types of exercises - minor flexions at the poll both in-hand and under saddle, and the “bend the head farther around” exercise. Sometimes Mac will bend around going through the motions, and other times he’ll follow my feel - there’s definitely a difference, and you know it when you feel it.
I will say that I just in the past week or so had an a-ha moment with the farther bending exercises. Like I said, I practice them under saddle, but what I’ve found in my own experiments (and I’m embarrassed to say it took me so long to get the practical application of it vs. understanding it in theory) was that the deeper bend gets me to the hind feet better. I do/can get the softening in the poll from the more minute movements, but to get to the hind feet (especially Mac’s RH when tracking R), I need a deeper bend.
When I’m riding in my dressage saddle, I carry a dressage whip to use to get to that hind end if I need a bit more reinforcement. But in my western saddle, I don’t always carry a whip. A couple weeks ago I was in my western saddle and didn’t have my whip and Mac was leaning in and I needed to get his haunches out. I’ve often heard my old dressage instructor talk about connecting the rein to the hind leg, but didn’t quite “get it” in execution. Using a deeper bend and waiting for it, feeling it, and releasing immediately when I felt the hind leg reply by lifting and moving over was just a huge breakthrough for me.
I remember in Buck’s clinic last year he talked about flexions to the side and he talked about two ways of doing it - one being in the manner of a one-rein stop to stop the feet from moving, and the other was when the feet are stopped, holding it until the feet started moving. Really, I was confused because I thought “didn’t you just say use it to stop the feet?”
Now I get it.
aktill, Looking at that link you posted, they say lower down the page that you can’t use that formula to measure a finished saddle as it will measure longer than the tree. So that won’t work in this case.
Pocket Pony, have you ever seen the book “Bringing it Together” by Ellen Eckstein and Betty Staley? They start off with an exercise to try and make that connection between rein and hind leg. Betty Staley has a blog post that kind of shows an example of the connection and getting her horse more “through”.
Rode tonight, not sure how good of a job I did at not tipping forward, but it’s hopefully a start. Cody was being a bit of a goof, but we did have some nice, soft backing without sticking for the first few steps by the end of the ride! I was having fun backing, then backing in a half circle and then asking his front end to come around and either backing again or walking off.
I’ve got the video in my Giddyupflix queue. I don’t learn so well by reading, but I do by watching, so I’m excited to see it!
[QUOTE=Aspen1;7452381]
aktill, Looking at that link you posted, they say lower down the page that you can’t use that formula to measure a finished saddle as it will measure longer than the tree. So that won’t work in this case.[/QUOTE]
Very true. I had meant to say to visualize the tree inside the saddle, but forgot to do so. Thanks for the correction!
[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7453141]
I’ve got the video in my Giddyupflix queue. I don’t learn so well by reading, but I do by watching, so I’m excited to see it![/QUOTE]
Bringing it Together? The book came with a DVD but I’ve misplaced it 
It’s gotta be here somewhere, sigh, I want to watch it again 
[QUOTE=Pocket Pony;7453141]
I’ve got the video in my Giddyupflix queue. I don’t learn so well by reading, but I do by watching, so I’m excited to see it![/QUOTE]
Bringing it Together? The book came with a DVD but I’ve misplaced it It’s gotta be here somewhere, sigh, I want to watch it again
I am bringing this thread back to comment on the stirrup length issue and to make a couple of comments on training in general, since you ride with a dressage instructor.
Stirrup length is not a cut and dry issue, not in the European style of instruction at least. Rider’s stirrup length should be adjusted primarily to his/her conformation, their horse’s conformation, the work, and the terrain, the work is to be performed. The saddle should be able to accommodate adjustments (to a point, plus/minus a couple of holes). If it can’t, it might not be the right saddle.
I am a spider with very long legs, yet ride different lengths on different horses to accommodate their conformation (in dressage saddle). I have to ride “shorter” on my round horse btw. Furthermore, I have to adjust to work- flat work- long, cavaletti-shorter, country ride- shorter also.
I had to respect all above even when I owned and rode in western saddle.
If you really want longer (for your situation), stronger, and more stable leg, get seat lessons or at least ride frequently without stirrups under supervision of your instructor (10 minutes within each lesson perhaps).
I encourage you to trust your instructor as far as your stirrup length goes, because she/he can evaluate you better than any of us on COTH. The same goes for the saddle fit (for the rider).
I see, you are learning from all sorts of different sources like most of us.
Since you take weekly lessons with a dressage instructor, I think, you might consider having a talk with your instructor and build some plan together. Do you trust the instruction and follow it? (because they can tell) Do you get homework (you should)?
What school of thought does he/she belongs? Who are the role models for your instructor? Not all dressage people ride with pounds of pressure in their hands, use shortcuts, produce “braced” horses, etc. Flexions, “twirlings” are well known concepts also.
It is OK to put different ingredients into a pot, but we all need a solid base. Progression pyramid has not been put together by dressage theorists for nothing.
Sometimes, too much experimenting hinders the progress, because your trainer might have some development plan and then you play around with different concepts, and horse is getting caught in the middle of it. It can become frustrating for everyone- horse, rider, and instructor.
If I were you, I would stick to a person I could trust, commit to their instruction and riding plan for some time and see what would come out of it.
I would discuss with them any plans for little detours ahead (like getting some idea from a book or from video). Many instructors appreciate a dialogue, but you have to have some common understanding of where you are going.
Whatever you do, enjoy your horse! He is lovely.
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