Dressage Horse Training: Developing Your Seat as a Rider

Hello Everyone,

I have to say that it’s all about me.  Everytime I fix my body, Donzer says “thank you, I’m glad you figured it out finally.”  I really began feeling that my left hip was not as mobile and agile as my right hip.  I’ve always had a problem reliably getting my left lead canter.  When I found the western reining trainer’s flying change exercise a few weeks ago, I played with the exercise.  I’ve now added a few more focus items and made it my dressage hip training exercise.

I am going to recommend you play with overdoing and I know you’ve heard a hundred times in your lessons “Less is more.”  I agree with this statement once you understand what you are asking and your body actually agrees to do it.  Playing with your balance and feel at the walk is not going to destroy your horse and it will help you find the “less is more” spot to be.

I was trying to reconcille the different positions for the different movements.

Half-pass:

For half-pass you need to use your oblique ab muscles to move your body in the direction of the half-pass.  This is awkward because your body wants to fall back to the outside when you’re first learning.

Haunches in:

For haunches in you almost want to pull the horse’s hind end over with your lower ab muscles.  I began this by pushing with my outside seat bones but this would inevitably put my weight to my outside instead of over my inside seat bone.

Flying Changes:

In the moment of the change you shift your weight to your outside seatbone to help “kick the hindleg through” but, you then reshift your weight back to the inside front sits bone.

Leg Yield:

Your weight is even and the motion of your core muscles should move the horse over.

This video shows you have I’ve been playing with the above shifts in my weight.  I can tell you that my right lower back has been talking to me and I am also getting better canter departs.

 

Good riding,

Tara

Author, Out of the Saddle: 9 Steps to Improve Your Horseback Riding

Military Uniform in Equestrian Dressage Competition

Hello everyone,

I came across a forum where the discussion topic was wearing a uniform in equestrian competition.  The guidance is two-fold.  You can visit the United States Equestrian Federation website and look up the rules regarding clothing for competition.  Second, you can google the current uniform regulations for your service.I’ve been getting some questions and hope this helps.  For the Air Force the regulation is:

AIR FORCE INSTRUCTION 36-2903
18 JULY 2011
Personnel
DRESS AND PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF
AIR FORCE PERSONNEL

Air Force people wear white breeches, black boot, black gloves, service dress coat and shirt underneath.  We can wear our service cap or a riding helmet.

Hope this helps,

Tara

Author, Out of the Saddle: 9 Steps to Improve Your Horseback Riding

Dressage Horse Training: Collected Walk

Hello Everyone,

I have been playing with my half-steps when I realized that one of my problems was my collected walk.  Donzer has a huge walk and when I rode for Hilda Gurney last year she kept telling me to get the walk under control.  Since Donzer’s huge walk feels normal and right to me, I am having my husband come be my ground guy and help me find the new more collected walk.  When Kris tells me it is pretty good then I am taking time to feel this new walk and register it in my body.

The challenge with the collected walk from a training stand point is teaching Donzer to take more elevated and active steps.  Donzer’s first response is to slow down.  So it feels like a tennis match where I’m always moving around and trying to activate a hind leg and then half-halt so we don’t run off but still keep a connection to the bit and stop the over bending…

I guess if dressage was easy everyone would do it.

Good riding,

Tara

Author, Out of the Saddle: 9 Steps to Improve Your Horseback Riding

Dressage Horse Training: Managing your body as a rider

Hello everyone,

So today is my third day practicing the flying change at the walk exercise.  I am way overexaggering the movement in my body of leaning back and lifting my inside hip.  I remind everyone, and myself, that I am over exaggering to ingrain the movement in my muscle memory because it is always easy to do less.  And, don’t worry, your instructor in your next lesson will quickly point it out if you’re over doing it.

The cool thing I’m finding is that my canter departs are getting better.  I was having a problem getting the left lead consistently.  Since I’ve been doing this exercise, I’m becoming more physically aware of what my hips are doing and I’m getting my left hip forward for the canter aid.  I know this because Ava and Donzer are telling me.

I’d be interested to hear if anyone else is playing with this and has had any new feels.

Good riding,

Tara

Dressage Horse Training: Working on Piaffe

Hi Everyone,
I found this video of a trainer and rider working on Piaffe together.  I am going to have my husband try helping me out and see how it goes.  Does anyone know of anything we should look out for or be careful of?

 

Good Riding,

Tara

Author, Out of the Saddle: 9 Steps to Improve Your Horseback Riding

War Horse Lessons

Hello Everyone,
I just watched the movie War Horse and found it impacted me on several levels. When I saw how Albert took the time to train his Thoroughbred to pull in a harness, even though this was not what the horse was bred to do, it reminded me of my life’s experiences with my ponies. My horse, Ally, was one of my big horses to learn with. I got her when she was six months old and trained her myself taking many lessons along the way from cowboys and dressage instructors alike. When Ally reached her physical limit with dressage, I was able to find her a great spot with therapeutic riding. Because of her ground manners and work ethic, Ally has continued to win over the humans around her–Just like Joey did in the movie. I am reluctant to train horses to sell because I don’t know where they’ll end up but I do know the best thing I can do to prepare my horses for an uncertain world is to teach them to get along with humans as much as possible.

The movie also struck me about how we send our young off to war and having that experience myself. The fear and uncertainty and adventure all rolled up together. I think this is where the statement that courage is not the absence of fear but moving forward in spite of fear is exemplified. I hope there is some mix like this for horses, too, when the unexpected life changes happen.

Good riding,
Tara Nolan
Author, Out of the Saddle: 9 Steps to Improve Your Horseback Riding

Dressage Horse Training: Creating Your Plan to Learn

Hello Everyone,

I have been working this past month on trying to figure out where my training/riding holes are so I can move forward with my goal to show Prix St George this year.  Based on what I’ve figured out, I am going to be sharing a series of videos/discussions showing you where I am and where I need to go.  I hope this will help you troubleshoot issues in your own riding.  Here is what is coming:

1.  Collected walk

2.  Turn on the Forehand

3.  Developing Half-steps part 1

4.  Developing Half-steps part 2

Unless you are lucky enough to have a school master, you probably find yourself trying to learn along with your horse.  That is what Donzer and I are doing.  I always find that if I can fix something in myself–either my position or clarify an aid, then it helps Donzer catch on to what I want.  Donzer is involved enough that he does keep trying to figure out what I want and when I tell him “Good boy” he knows he’s done something right.

Good Riding,

Tara

Author, Out of the Saddle: 9 Steps to Improve Your Horseback Riding

Dressage Horse Training: Goal Setting for Prix St George

Hello Everyone,

As the new year is rapidly approaching, it is time to start doing my goal-setting for 2012.  My big goal with Donzer is to ride our first Prix St George tests and complete our final 2 scores for the USDF Silver Medal.  The biggest challenge we have to get past are flying changes, specifically 3s and 4s.  One of the things I am doing to prepare is visualizing.  To help me learn the test and get a nice picture in my head I found a video of a Prix St George ride.  As the year progresses I will keep looking for the most perfect rides I can find because that is what I wan to fill my head with.  Here is the video I’m starting with.

 

What are your goals for the year?

Good riding,

Tara

Tara Nolan and a C-130 mission

Hello Everyone,

This post is sharing a beautiful video about the C-130 and the very somber mission we performed.  In Iraq we spend many days hauling mail, food and troops back and forth in theater (and a wide variety of other things).  But, for me, we showed up one day in Iraq and our mission changed.  We were charged with an Angel flight.  My loadmaster, a very young man at the time, was amazingly professional and knew exactly how to prepare the back of the plane.  I think this is one of those flights that sticks with you as a pilot and watching this video immediately brought me back to that day and that flight.  My life is so different now as I am basically a civilian running a business and competing with my horses.  Flying C-130s almost seems like another lifetime. This video reminded me to keep a small part of me thankful for what I have and respectful for my fellow soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Good Riding,

Tara

Dressage Horse Training: Half-steps for Piaffe

Hello Everyone,

As I am in the process of learning to ride FEI, I am sharing my aha moments, things that work and helpful ideas.  This is a clip from my trainer, Sarah Martin, as she reviews my latest half-step work with Donzer.  I hope you glean some good ideas.

“Our focus has been on teaching Tara to get more connected through her seat, and especially with canter work as she has got to be able to “anchor” Donzer  in order to ride correct flying changes. At this stage of training three movements are integrally linked- the canter quality, control and engagement of the pelvis for flying changes; similar ability to influence and control quality and engagement for walk and canter  pirouettes, and the ability to influence quality and engagement of the haunches for half steps. Tara has graciously offered a short video of her work on her own on half steps.

Take a look at it, and my critique follows:

What Tara’s effort reveals the most is the importance of having a mirror or a ground person who can provide feedback instantly. So many of us are in the position of working alone! The other aspect her session underscores is that it is better to try than to wait forever, as you are unlikely to break your horse if you keep sessions short and prioritize that your horse is staying calm and relaxed.

As Tara notes in her review, her hands got much too high, and she was missing that Donzer was sticking behind in his turns on the haunches. This reveals her greatest hole- that she is not feeling the activity of the hind leg and truly feeling/allowing that lifting effort to come over his back and into her hand. She makes the common mistake of raising her hands to amplify the feel, which causes a greater [unintentional, of course!] disconnect in the very area she is trying to help. In addition, for aiding piaffe I like to see the rider’s leg come further back throughout the half steps, and then come clearly back to vertical for walk. Tara’s leg goes from too far forward to on the vertical- so Donzer gets confused and thinks she is asking for regular trot.

Despite the muddled effort, Tara and Donzer do end on a high note, where you can see Donzer start to lower his croup and activate the hind leg on more of a piston, and less of a lever, type action. Donzer is clearly unphased- if Tara is happy, he is happy- and this is an important aspect to remember when you are working with your horse. To a horse, there is no criteria for performance- they are just with us, responding to our energy and intention. They are such sensitive and highly perceptive souls that they respond to our joy and to our frustration- which is why I emphasize over and over that no matter what your feeling is about your performance, you must communicate gratitude to your horse! Tara does this beautifully with Donzer, and you can see at the end of the video that he is clearly pleased with himself. We can shoot a hundred holes in our performance so easily, and that is truly the double edge sword of Dressage training- we strive for perfection, but must allow it to develop.

To improve in her efforts, Tara has done a smart thing in having her husband shoot a short video that she can review. By keeping it short, she avoids frustrating both her horse and her husband- VERY important! [ I had to laugh as the camera wandered- don’t we all have that exact moment on tapes of our own?] The “picture is worth a thousand words” adage is so true- and I bet Tara’s hands are lower when I see her next week! She needs to keep practicing turns on the haunches that are LARGE and ACTIVE, and that are not followed by half steps. My student Trisha  Kerwin, a trainer in Utah, addressed  teaching herself to feel this by buying a couple of inexpensive stand up closet mirrors at Target and mounting them on centerline at A in her arena. As she was progressing into the finer degrees of straight required in FEI work, this just became essential. If you can’t get mirrors OR a videographer, grab ANYBODY and ask them to watch the horses hind legs step 1-2. Ask them if they will just watch for TWO TURNS and tell you if the horse keeps stepping  or if the hind leg stops moving. It’s not rocket science, and for short moments most people don’t mind- and some even get interested enough to watch a little longer!”

Good Riding,

Tara