My favourite advice from my coach is, “just keep showing up.” If you can’t or won’t make the time to ride consistently (a huge issue for me) you won’t progress. If you’re tempted to give it a miss when things haven’t been going well, you won’t progress. If you are a nervous or anxious rider, showing up is sometimes the hardest part. Just keep showing up and trying. It won’t always go well and you won’t always see improvements day to day or week to week. But month over month, year over year, you’ll see the difference.
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Oh my gosh, you guys. I’m so hearing you. I’m a hunter person just cruising on the dressage forum for fun. My horse is always behind my leg. I always hear from my trainer “more leg, more leg, more leg.” In my mind, I’m thinking, WTF? This horse can feel a fly on his side. He doesn’t need 20# of leg pressure to go forward. He needs to respond. Can you tell I’m frustrated? 
Actually thinking about expatriating to a dressage trainer for a while. Horsey needs to learn how to get in front of my leg, and I need to learn how to be more effective.
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You nailed it.
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LOL You have lessons with more leg more legs, more leg until your legs fall off, then one day you turn turn up for your lesson and your horse is finally forward.
Then it is "isn’t it time to stop using your legs for forward? From now on seat only for forward, legs for sideways only.
Then once you have it even your green horses go with your seat instead of your legs.
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“I have time”-Podhasky
You need to have a lot more isometric body control than you ever thought of -personal experience.
To some this comes almost naturally, think Charlotte Dujardin, the rest of us poor fools have to figure it out for ouselves. I have yet to hear an instructor voice this.
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Also, you (me) are more crooked than you think. I usually get compliments on my position, but what looks pretty good from the side view, turns out is really wonky from the front/back view. I’ve spent the last two years trying to root out the causes of my collapsing left side. Every time I think I’ve found it, I uncover another layer of asymmetrical strength or flexibility. The good news is that it’s getting better, but no one else was going to sit me down and tell me I needed to do this.
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Loving this thread!
I teach some W/T/C independent riders at the nearby therapeutic riding center… and for the adults, I tell them that “we always use the F word when things do not seem to be going right or we are stuck”. Lots of raised eyebrows and concerned expressions… and I innocently continue with… "and that is FORWARD. The answer is almost always - FORWARD!" Smiles and laughter ensue - and they never forget… FORWARD!! Newbies to the class are often solemnly told by the other riders that we use the F word All. The. Time. in our class…
One of my instructors in the past: Think Lift UP into the canter with your legs and mind - not just forward. That one comment made all the difference with a couple of horses I was working at the time… so simple, so basic… DUH.
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Dear God yes! Welcome to my struggle. I do have that rare trainer who (a) knows this and (b) voices it frequently, but she can’t do it for us haha.
Which leads me to another pearl of wisdom: when something isn’t working the way you’re doing it, stop doing it that way. Relating the same mistake over and over just perfects the mistake. Change it up. Sometimes all it takes is a different mental image or explanation using different words.
For example, my whole life coaches have told me to “allow” my hips to move with the horse in sitting trot. To me that’s passive and requires a fair bit of relaxation / looseness in the lower back. And that worked just fine until I got to ride a big-moving warmbloods with a bone-jarring trot.
Lightbulb moment when my current coach said sitting the trot is active, not passive. Swing your own hips every stride, like a little abdominal crunch. And keep everything else still. Not wiggly and loose in the tack. Life-changing, truly.
The best coaches have not just a deep toolbox of exercises and training tools, but of descriptions, mental images and instructions. When one explanation doesn’t click they can rephrase instructions in such a way that the lightbulb turns on. IMO this separates coaches who merely parrot what they’ve read or been told from coaches who have done the work themselves of riding less than talented horses and bringing them up the levels.
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Doing work with a Pilates instructor on the reformer has been really eye opening (and not in a good way lol) about just how unequal I am from side to side.
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I’m also from h/j land, trying to sort myself out in a dressage saddle.
So far the most valuable tip for me (and perhaps this is more helpful for those of us used to riding in two-point) is to think of the horse as a yoga ball.
When you sit on a yoga ball, and you lean forward, the ball rolls backward beneath you (i.e. slowing/collection) but when you lean backwards, the yoga ball rolls forwards!! Of course, the muscle memory from years of riding in a forward seat doesn’t just magically disappear overnight, but the visualization helps me coordinate how I need to push the horse forwards with my seat, particularly when I start to feel them sucking back.
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ahhhh…my coach is great. She’s brought up her own horses through the levels into grand prix and i feel she genuinely has a horse’s point of view on things. When she speaks of an exercise in a horse’s perception/physicality it’s easier to understand.
As for form, she will send me pictures via email inbetween classes and describes things in shapes.
But for me, the most important thing is she has personal experience that gives her a knack breaking through that autistic barrier. Maybe being a judge/para-judge helps too, as she is precise enough for me. Not quite as finicky but she gets-it.
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They also have different exercisers for different kinds of horses, not just breed but whether a horse is forward thinking or not, and it does not matter what kind of horse you are riding or what level the horse or rider are at.
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Today I audited a clinic with Deb Dean Smith (Whom I haven’t heard of). I honestly can’t remember her phrase but it was “bend and…(go forward)”
I’ve worked with several German people who were all about going forward (to great success with my horses), but Deb was into challenging foot movement that improved each horse’s topline. She said that forward isn’t always the way but teaching “up” can be. “Up” meaning engagement of the hind end and lowering the croup, lifting the shoulders. But “up” was a good visualization for the riders. “climbing a hill”. But just to complete and exercise.
My current horse might gain alot from her constant exercises to work the brain as much as the body.
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Love love LOVE her.
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After 2 1/2 years, I am looking forward to auditing a Gerd Heuschmann clinic this week… I love these clinics and am so grateful that he is able to come again!
I found some brief notes that I took on my phone at the last clinic…
~ Touch the horse’s mouth the way you touch something you like to touch… softly and gently… with respect.
~ Think into your seat. Mind to butt. Your seat is in your brain.
~ Hug your horse with legs and hands - but have a breathing leg, not just a solid clamp.
~ Respect the single step.
And one I have used with my riders at assorted levels for a few years…
~ I. Have. Time.
As in… take the time to work at something slowly and with understanding.
I was working with a para dressage rider who would get frustrated when he could not get something right instantly… a leg yield, a turn on the fore… and after listening to me repeat that to him, I overheard him whispering as he gave his horse a pat and started an exercise…" I. Have.Time. WE. Have. Time."
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My most recent “aha” moment came from an unusual place - a swing dancing lesson! My fiance and I have been going to swing dance classes so we don’t completely embarrass ourselves at our wedding. We’ve actually really enjoyed it and have started going to dances a couple times a month.
One of the instructors of the class was talking about how the leaders/followers need to maintain a steady connection with each other. He literally used the phrase “keep a steady, elastic contact” and my dressage brain clicked on. For the leaders, it’s all about using your body language/intention to signal to the follow what’s coming next. For the follows, it’s not necessarily about listening so intently to the leader that you tune everything else out, but being in tune with the leader to know what’s coming next. Of course, it’s also very important to maintain an internal rhythm that keeps you in beat with the music. The leader also has to ask for different moves at the right place in the sequence otherwise it’s pretty much impossible for the follow to respond.
Honestly my mind was blown. Pretty much everything I wrote above is something that a dressage instructor has told me somewhere along the line. I know dressage is often compared to a dance between horse and rider but I had no idea how true that was!
I will say that I think my experience being a “follower” in dancing has made me empathetic to my horse in a way that I never really was before. I now explicitly understand why maintaining contact is necessary even when you’re seemingly not doing anything. It’s not about controlling your horse and forcing them to put their head down, it’s about maintaining that communication so it’s not a huge jostle when you ask for something. I understood the concept but it’s entirely different to experience it!
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I love those moments! I had one when my coach described steady contact like waterskiing. You don’t pull against it, because you can’t out pull a boat. But if you drop the contract or let the rope go slack, you will fall. You want to let the boat take you forward while you maintain a steady contact with it via the tow rope at all times.
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Hosted a clinic with my coach a few weeks ago and was working on half-pass. She shared a sequence from Charlotte Dujardin: from centre line ride travers around the corner to half pass towards centre line. Then shoulder in on centre line, then half pirouette if walking or turn off the centre line and repeat. My lightbulb went off when I realized that first travers should feel like pirouette, the shoulders have to come around faster to set up half pass, to weigh down the hind legs and bring the inside shoulder up from the start. I visualize Satchmo’s or Ravel’s sweeping 10/10 trot half-passes. Coach does it in walk as a warm up, then we trotted and I dream of cantering it!
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I really liked her style! She had an exercise for everything, was super positive and explained things well. I think she comes up/down here every 6 or so weeks and I may try to get on the list.
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