JM Landels: Writer, Ritter, Wrangler

A couple of weeks ago I talked about rhythm, the base of the dressage training pyramid.  The second level of the pyramid is suppleness, or looseness (losgelassenheit).  This isn’t merely the ability of the horse to stretch and bend his frame, but also the relaxation with which he moves.

A horse who is supple and relaxed will move with a swinging motion in the spine.  His tail will sway back and forth like a pendulum, and his head will be soft at the poll (the connection between the neck and skull) with no stiffness or bracing along the neck or back.  Other signs of relaxation include mouthing the bit and soft snorting.

Suppleness is required both longitudinally and laterally for a horse to be truly relaxed and responsive.  Longitudinal suppleness allows the horse to coil his hindquarters beneath him for a powerful, balanced stride and to raise his neck from its base for proper contact and later, collection.

Lateral flexion is seen from above in the curve of the horse’s body when he is bending his body along the track of a circle.  His body should curve evenly from head to tail along the path of the circle.  Lateral suppleness is needed for lateral movements such as leg-yielding, shoulder-in, half-pass, etc.

How do lateral movements help the mounted combatant?

The ability to control your horse’s haunches and forehand independantly is vital in the mounted mêlée.  It is the equivalent of the triangle, or compass, step on foot.  It allows you to reorient your horse during or after a strike to improve your line or defend his body.  Aside from being able to stop and turn your horse, independent control of the fore- and hind- quarters is the most useful skill a mounted warrior has.

How to identify suppleness

First, learn by watching.  Search the web for videos of both amateurs and top riders performing dressage tests and see if you can identify horses that are relaxed throughout their whole spine.  The easiest place to spot this is about half-way through most tests when the horse performs the free walk: a walk on a loose rein, with the neck low and stretched.  (Some current top riders to look for are Edward Gal, Anky van Grunsven, Isabell Werth and Ashley Holzer).  When you’ve done that, watch horses in other disciplines online or in person, and see if you can spot tension and relaxation.

When you ride test your horse’s relaxation periodically by giving a loose rein.  The horse should stretch her neck forward and down to meet the bit and may snort or blow softly.

To test lateral suppleness slightly raise one hand, tipping your horse’s nose to the inside so you can just see her nostril and eye.  Support her at the girth with your inside leg, and slide the outside leg back slightly to keep her haunches from swinging away.  Your horse should have an even curve from ears to tail.  Have a friend on the ground (or better yet, on another horse) confirm this for you.

Increasing suppleness

• Walking or trotting over ground poles for longitudinal suppleness
• Circles, serpentines, loops and half circles, using a supporting inside leg and guiding outside leg for lateral bend
• Lateral movements such as leg yield and shoulder-in

Lateral movements help both types of suppleness as the bend around the leg increases lateral flexion, and action of bending while moving forward encourages the horse to place the inside leg farther under the body, increasing longitudinal suppleness, and eventually collection.

There’s a nice little Practical Horseman article video by Nancy Smith here.  The picture at the top of the article shows a beautifully relaxed and supple horse.

Next week: contact.

Originally posted on Academie Duello’s blog in June 2011

Last week I talked about equitation and the fundamentals of rider position.  This week I’m turning to the horse and taking a look at dressage funadamentals.  Although a discipline in itself, dressage is not merely a style of riding but the basis of all riding.  The show-jumper teaching her horse to balance and collect to squeeze an extra stride into an awkward line of jumps; the cowboy training his reining horse to bring the haunches under for sliding stops and rollbacks; and the knight using half-passes to manoeuvre in battle are all practising dressage.

The training pyramid or the German training scale illustrates the sequence of qualities a horse must have in order to progress to the ultimate in equine athleticism.  While the names of the levels sometimes vary, the order never does.  You can’t teach collection to a horse that has no impulsion, and a horse must be supple before he can be truly straight.

At the base of the scale is rhythm.  This refers to the regular cadence of the footfalls in the three main gaits: four beats in the walk; two in the trot; and three with a pause for suspension in the canter (da-da-DUM, da-da-DUM).

Obviously a horse who is lame will not have even gaits, but there are far more causes for lack of rhythm than unsoundness.  A horse who is pokey and not responding to the leg will often fall out of rhythm into a sort of lazy four-beat canter or trot.  A nervous horse will often speed up on the ‘scary’ side of the arena, then slow down on the safe side where her friends are.  A stubborn horse may keep shifting the speed of his gait out of the pace the rider has asked for.

All of these rhythm faults require different training methods to solve, but the first part of the solution is always rider awareness.

What can you do?  Even if you are a beginner rider and it’s not within your skills or mandate to fix a horse’s uneven pace you can be aware of it.  Start by simply noticing the rhythm of footfalls within each gait.  Can you count an even 1-2-3-4 in the walk, or is your horse shuffling or sidling?  In the trot is the 1-2 rhythm clear and crisp or can you hear or feel ‘echoes’ of one foot coming down slightly after the other?  Does your horse speed up or slow down?

Once you’ve noticed the gait, see if you can improve it.  This doesn’t have to be huge.  A little more leg to keep the trot even and forward, or soft half-halts to steady a rushing horse.  Once your horse responds and alters her rhythm for you, even if it’s only for a few strides, reward her immediately by softening your cues.

Congratulations!  You have just advanced your horse’s training.  By focussing on rhythm for a few minutes during warm-up every time you ride you will soon see an improvement in the evenness of your horse’s gaits and in your own awareness of rhythm.

Next week: Suppleness

Originally posted on Academie Duello’s blog in June 2011

No amount of skill with the sword or lance will save the knight who can’t make his horse go where he wants it to.  The training that teaches a horse to respond to its rider’s cues is dressage, and the training that teaches a rider to cue her horse clearly and effectively is equitation.  Without equitation there is no effective communication between horse and rider.  Without communication, the rider becomes a passenger only, subject to the good (or bad, as the case may be) nature of the horse.

Once you have had enough riding lessons to feel comfortable on the back of a horse it’s time to start thinking about your equitation.  The fundamental skill of good riding is an independent seat.  This means you are balanced comfortably in your tack, leaning neither forward nor back, your weight distributed evenly between both seat-bones and both stirrups, not gripping with any part of your body, and, most importantly, your hands are able to freely follow the horse’s mouth without using the reins for balance. 

To develop and improve your seat there is no substitute for hours in the saddle.  While there are many intellectual and physical exercises you may use to envision and replicate your seat, it is ultimately something you must learn to feel.  The good news is there are ways to speed up the learning process.  Here are a few tips:

• Take lessons.  An hour with a good instructor who can see and correct your form is worth ten hours learning by trial and error on your own.
• Have a friend on the ground.  Even if they aren’t riders themselves you can give them things to look out for:  “Are my stirrup leathers perpendicular to the ground?  Do my hands, wrists and elbows form a straight line to the bit?”
• Set up a large unbreakable mirror in the arena (warning: let your horse make friends with it before you try to ride past for the first time!).  You will at least get glimpses of your form as you ride.  You may be surprised at what you see.
• When you can’t find time to ride at least visualize.  Mentally go through the elements of a good seat and try to remember how it feels.  Next time you get on a horse it will come back that much more quickly.
• Constantly consciously self-correct.

I do this last one all the time when I ride.  Even out on the trails I am continually checking my hands, my legs, my posture: are my fingers closed, but not tight? are my wrists straight and thumbs on top? is my inner thigh long and flat against the saddle? are my heels down and directly below my hip?  are my elbows relaxed and following the horse’s motion?  are my shoulders back, my abs engaged, my seat-bones lightly and evenly resting on the saddle?  When we ride past a shop window I check all this visually.  When we have the chance for a glorious gallop I check my new position all over: out of saddle to free my horse’s back, weight evenly in stirrups, hip angle slightly closed, hands still following and giving gentle half-halts when necessary.

Do these self-checks often enough, and it becomes second nature.  I barely have to think about it these days, leaving me plenty of time to enjoy the wind and Winnie’s mane in my face as she eats up the ground in giant racehorse strides.

Next week: fundamentals for the horse

Jennifer Landels, Maestra di Scuderia
Academie Duello Cavaliere Program

A beautiful 2-point position (though the outside rein could have more contact and hand be more vertical, which would bring the elbow in line with the bit).