Hey everyone. Hope stuff is going well for everyone as the holidays rapidly approach.
I took a couple weeks off riding (not on purpose) between a bad cold and then once that was over, the weather was crap. But Phoebe and I are still plugging away at stuff.
Lately I've been working on trying to fix the bad/ineffective habits I know of in my position. Phoebe's owner's saddle actually works pretty well for me, so I'm trying to take advantage of that. I am terrible about doing the "hunter perch". I think it's a combination of my hip structure and bad instruction when I was first starting to ride. So now I'm really focusing on pushing my hips forward to get rid of my hollow back and stretching my legs down long while also keeping my knees pointed straight forward instead of letting them roll open somewhat. It's hard to know if I'm getting it right or not without an instructor, but it looks ok in the mirror and Phoebe seems to go better that way, so we'll see.
Our routine now is to spend the first 10-15 minutes getting her to actually move forward off my leg with lots of walk/extended walk or walk/trot transitions. She has a motor on her but she likes to make you do the work if she can get away with it. Once a gentle bump produces a result I focus more on me. Last night we had some problems with our trot/canter transitions. She usually has issues with them which I can't figure out. What seemed to help somewhat was if I kept the aids on longer. I've never had a horse who I had to HOLD the canter aids on though. Most of them I can just bring my outside leg back, hold the inside leg steady, and give a bump with the outside leg and they pick it right up.
I don't suppose any of you out there have any additional suggestions? I'm not letting her run into the transition, so maybe she just doesn't have the hind-end strength right now to step into them in frame? I could just hold off on cantering for a month or two and see if that helps, but I like having the canter as a tool to help her think "forward". I find it hard to believe that she's not strong enough to step into the canter from a trot. I hate having to use the whip to make her go forward, but for the first couple of transitions it's usually the only option I've found that works.
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3 comments:
Trot canter transitions suck! Downward is even worse!
I think a lot of it is in the timing. This is assuming your position is perfect and the horse is strong enough to do a balanced transition, of course. Ha (is this ever really true??).
I like this article (http://www.classicaldressage.co.uk/html/improving_the_canter_depart.html) - esp. the paragraph about thinking about asking the horse to walk (half halt) and then asking for the canter depart. That's sort of what I do to get a better transition...I also ask more from the position of my seat rather than a specific leg aid, otherwise Skate gets cranky.
Then again, we get one nice transition out of a million hollow crappy ones...so I'm probably not the one to give advice!
I am having th same position struggles right now, so I can feel your pain! Taking all of my lessons right now with a H/J trainer probably isn't helping, LOL. She is GREAT, but I do want to get back into some dressage lessons too. I am afraid I am of no real help with the canter transitions either, as mine are downright ugly right now. My cantering confidence is SO much better, but for the most part I am still reaching forward for some mane right now when I ask so that I don't grab Jay as he transitions. It isn't pretty!
Thanks for the website, Gabby. That was helpful. I probably should just hold off on the canter for awhile, but she's got such a nice, comfy one that I want to ride it. I'm not working on asking her to carry herself properly in it yet, just using it as a "go forward" reminder.
Her transitions were a bit better last week, I kept my aids on longer and she would mostly step right into it. Maybe keeping them on prevents me from collapsing or maybe she's just saying "do I have to?".
Christie - I'm typically terrified to canter for the first time on any horse and I don't have many confidence issues in general. There is nothing wrong with grabbing mane! I think you can get good instruction with H/J trainers. I think I just had bad luck with getting quite a few not-so-great ones growing up. I was safe, so that's a big plus, but they weren't the sort that could explain the same thing 5 different ways to find one that made sense to me.
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