All haunches, all the time

We had another lesson over the weekend with one of my trainer's trainers, who we should probably give a name, so we'll call her LB. Of course, I wanted to utilize her on the dreaded R-L change and she delivered big time - without us ever touching on the changes, and really doing the majority of our work in the walk. 

Because there are SO MANY AIDS in dressage, and eventually you are expected to use ALL OF THEM AT ONCE. Even if the aid is, "don't do anything" YOU HAVE TO USE THAT DON'T DO ANYTHING AID. 

Ugh, riding is so fucking hard.

I asked if I could go first in the rider rotation this time so I could give Opie his Opie warmup without the eyes of others on us as that is a guarantee to erase everything out of my mind that works and start making senseless shit up (directly correlating to shows, it's a whole thing). Of course, when I went out to get the horse from his field he was in the middle of running laps. His two friends quit when I walked into the field, but Opie was still busy doing Thoroughbred things.

"it's called lightness bitches, look it up!"

the fields had been mostly ice up to this point so
zoomies have been limited.

Sooo my warm up time was spent washing the mud out of his tail and off his chest and stomach and legs and face, and then LB showed up early, so nevermind. 

I ended up sticking to my guns this time though, and LB let me do my thing. She even remarked that he was moving much more freely and more forward in the trot right off the bat (thanks, saddle reflock), and that in the canter I was doing a good job of thinking "lift the saddle, lift the back" and that the canter was really good. 

Quick warm up concluded, we moved on the real work. She asked if we ever tried haunches-in at the canter to help with the changes, which we have not, so that was the first order of business. 

She started us off leg yielding out on a circle, really pushing him out to activate the inside hind and getting him loose laterally. From there we moved in the HI in a straight line. She said we could start by cheating if we needed to and ride the second track and put the shoulders on the rail.

The goal was to get the left hind jumping off of my left leg as this is the leg that's always getting left behind in the change. Then we switched directions and repeated the exercise this way, although she said the counter canter would probably be a more effective exercise for him tracking right (which we do do a lot of). But the leg yielding out tracking right stretches his left side and he really needs the lateral suppleness. HI shows how much he lacks bend, and the HI is the best way to train the bend.

Then she had us trotting on a circle in HI. Yeahhh, we could not do this. 

at all.

It kept being more Head Out than Haunches In, and the front end refused to stay on the circle. She had me thinking of his front end as a cannon - his shoulders are the wheels and the cannon is his neck, and the neck can't move unless the shoulders steer it. But again, this really highlighted how stuck he is in the lateral work, and that will lead directly to weakness in the changes.

Eventually we mercifully abandoned this and switched to square turns in the walk and then the trot. This started off well and then she asked me to "do it the other way" which I took as the other direction. Nah. The other way as in, I was riding them off his haunches and now she wanted them off his forehand. WHO KNEW THERE WAS EVEN A DIFFERENCE WHY ARE THERE SO MANY WAYS TO MAKE A TURN.

We did get a "That was quite well ridden" which from LB is basically saying I'm a genius LOL and were released into the canter. Same at the canter, starting off riding a pirouette type canter off the haunches and then changing to the forehand.

Ooh, his canter got so pretty!!

A little walk break, and then ANOTHER EXERCISE THANK GOD FOR VIDEO SO I COULD GO BACK AND TAKE NOTES IT WAS SO MUCH INFORMATION THIS SHIT IS SO HARD.

Even though my drawing is very clearly labeled and there's no reason you shouldn't understand it flawlessly, I will explain it for you anyway. 

1. Ride a square, splitting the ring in half.

2. Leg yield in towards the square you just rode.

3. HI the opposite direction of the leg yield you just did. 

4. Turn towards the direction of your haunches. 

5. Another square.

6. Leg yield in.

7. Change bend of the haunches.

8. Turn left. 

This starts in the walk, then the trot, then you pick up the canter when you start the HI in and come back to the trot or walk when you get to the next HI to change the bend, and then the end goal is to canter the whole shebang and that change of bend between haunches becomes your change. 

Hopefully that makes sense. We only did the walk because the indoor is too small and quite frankly Opie and I were very confused, but I'm super excited to try this once the outdoor thaws. The principle of it reminded me of a lesson MB took with her other trainer on Opie this fall where she had them leg yielding in at the canter down the long side and then leg yielding out on a 20m circle. Basically, the horse needs to get better about bouncing from leg to leg. 

AND FINALLY! We learned how to.....actually ride a haunches in. Ha, whoopsies. Turns out as we kept breaking down these exercises it was revealed I've not been riding these correctly ever either. Shocking, I know.

In short, simple terms: the ankle asks forward, leg says bend, hips or shoulders control angle of HI or SI, spine controls line of travel. Easy peasy!

being followed around the ring as we went from HI to SI because
it was not, surprisingly, easy peasy for either of us.

She wrapped things up by saying he's athletic enough to do all the work, which again, from LB basically gave us her blessing to aim for GP. But maybe first we try to just get a clean fucking R-L change.