I was searching for inspiration (a conscious effort to
battle the winter blahs), so I pulled out my notes from the FEI Trainer’s
Symposium with Steffen Peters and Scott Hassler in January. Looking at them now, a little over a month
later, let me look at how that trip has improved my training arena. To keep
this from becoming another long, dressage-geek diatribe, I am going to discuss
3 areas that I have notes on and how they have improved my rides. Like pretty
much everything in dressage, they all come down to basics.
Positioning the neck for the bend
One of the horses in the clinic was a young horse with
limited road miles. He was a bit overwhelmed by the environment, and showed it
by bracing in his neck and wanting to come too high in the contact. Steffen emphasized that horses need to be
correct in the connection before they can proceed to the work of the day, no
matter what was on that day’s training agenda. He had the rider position the
horse with inside bend, then flex the horse’s neck to the inside, but not take
the neck further than the width of the horse’s chest. Then he had her
straighten the neck. When the horse maintained a soft neck bend without
excessive inside rein, Steffen asked her use the outside rein to put the horse’s
neck whatever height gave her the best feel of the horse’s back and control of
the topline.
Throughout the weekend, the topic of a slightly braced
topline came up. Croup-high gaits and
unauthorized lead changes were attributed to slight bracing in the
connection.
So I went home and checked all of my horses. Were the
toplines soft and easy to position? If I flexed them to the inside, then
straightened them, would they hold the bend from all of my aids, every time? I
changed my warm up plan – when I asked my horses to flex and soften their
topline, if I didn’t get the response I wanted, I replaced my old plan of
lengthening the rein and letting them stretch (which is my go-to when I had
flexion problems, to make sure I’m not getting the neck to short and blocking
the flexion), with repeating the flexion aid again until I got softness from a
response to my aid. I probably wouldn’t have tried this plan in the summer as I
would worry about getting the necks too short, but since it’s winter, I was
months from the judges’ eye and free to experiment.
The experiment worked out. I began warm up focusing on the flexion and
ignoring what I saw in the mirror. When they started to feel soft, then I’d check
the mirror. What I saw was not short
necks, it was softer toplines and more open throat latches as my mounts
stretched more into the connection. Which meant I could then put the neck at
whatever height was best for my mount’s balance in that particular part of the
workout.
Go from a light, pressing leg
Steffen Peters has a couple of themes that have shown up
every time I have watched him teach. One of my favorites (and one I quote regularly,
with attribution, of course) is that the only things we have to communicate
with our horses is our leg, seat, hand and voice. He insists that they respond
calmly to the lightest of aids, particularly the leg aid. He made it very clear that the leg should
stay softly against the horse at all times, and the horse should go forward
from a small press of the calf. Not a kick, not a bump, not a spur or whip, but
a press. Every time, no matter what, without any tension.
So I went home and checked my horses. At the Debbie McDonald
clinic in December, she had focused on getting Secret to slow her steps from my
seat. The order of the aids – increase energy with my leg, slow the tempo with
my seat, ask Secret to follow the bit into a longer topline, then relax my
thigh pressure to allow her to go forward again. Being a good student, I had
done that with pretty much all of my horses.
As a result, I’ve seen longer toplines and more control with my seat.
But I think all of this emphasis on not running through my seat aid had let
them be a touch lackadaisical about a forward response to my leg.
Since I had spent a month on “stay with my seat no matter
what,” when I added “forward energy with every press of my leg,” I found I had
a bit of a hole. Most responded, but not
in the next instant. They went, but a stride or so after I applied the aid.
So for 2 days I kept my leg steady, and without taking it
off, added a gentle press. If I didn’t get an immediate response, I gave a
REALLY strong press-to which, of course, they hurried away from. I’d bring the
tempo back under my control, and apply a gentle press again. Most of them got the
point within a few repetitions. I tried
to be a good student of Steffen and Scott and not use my whip (which Scott
emphasizes is for collection/cadence), or the spur (which Steffen emphasizes is
for engagement).
The result after a couple of days was, of course, my horses
were more responsive to a light aid. In
addition, insisting on an immediate response created a feeling of the withers pushing
the pommel up every time I pressed. This isn’t an unfamiliar feeling to me at
all, but the 95% consistency of it was really nice, especially with so little
effort from me.
So I kept that standard as a tool in my toolbox, and watched
what it did to the other work. Slingshot, who I have been focusing on exercises
to create shoulder freedom for several months now, took that shoulder freedom
upward into his medium trot to create a reliable, rideable medium with very
lifted front legs (I have video proof!).
Three components of pirouette work
Pirouette work always comes up in FEI clinics, because
pirouettes are, frankly, hard. They take a long time to develop. And like most things in dressage, the
pirouette is only as good as the basics. Scott specified the three areas of the
basics that often create problems in pirouette work: compression, suppleness,
and balance. His advice is to figure out which of the three is creating the
limitation, then fix that part, then go back and work the pirouette as a whole.
With his emphasis on simplicity, Steffen addresses both the
canter pirouette and the walk pirouette pretty much the same. They are all
about control. If the horse backs off at
any point in the approach, go forward out of the pirouette. Only stay in the
pirouette as long as the quality is good, if I can’t get out of movement, I’ve
stayed in it too long. Once the horse
understands the compression, balance, suppleness, add the turning aids. Once
the turning aids are understood, polish the approach. If the approach isn’t
controlled, the movement won’t work, so repeat the approach.
So I went home and checked my walk and canter pirouettes. I
tend to start walk pirouettes pretty early in a horse’s education, so they all
do them to some degree. I love walk pirouettes for teaching bend without
swinging the haunches out, lifting of the withers, and shoulder freedom. But
when I added the element of ‘control every part’ and ‘go forward at any moment,’
I also got the benefit of, well, control and forward. That control carried over to the next
exercise, and the next, and the rest of the workouts.
Using Scott’s plan of deciding where the problem was, working
that part, and then putting it back together made a big difference in Secret’s
canter pirouettes. She went into the
winter understanding to rebalance and carry more on her hind legs on a straight
line or a 20 meter circle, but I was having trouble maintaining the quality of
the canter when we started turning. Her compression and balance seemed ok, so I
spent a few days working on improving her suppleness during the
compression. Then I went back to asking
for the turning steps, and boy did it work. I went from the spiral in exercise
to Steffen’s pirouette diamonds to working pirouettes on the centerline, and when
I kept the suppleness in mind, she could make big-girl pirouettes every time.
So even in this hard, long, snow bound winter, with all of
my usual help enjoying the sun in Florida, using the resources I do have, I’ve
managed to keep my guys progressing. I am looking forward to everyone returning
north so I can get familiar eyes on my horses this spring. That, and warmer
spring weather.
