5 out of 5

now there's so many ways to interpret that isn't there ?! Did we score 5 out of 5 ? Sadly no. Instead we were 5th out of 5 - not so good.

But I'd better begin at the beginning...

Monday last week was a local holiday where I work, so I had booked a lesson at a local yard that has a coverall arena. They are running monthly low key dressage events but before entering I wanted to take Rosie up to the arena and see how she reacted. I know her fitness is not great yet so I had agreed with the instructor who works there that we would do a mixed (flat and maybe a bit of jumping) lesson to keep Rosie interested and motivated. Plus the recent video of our first course of jumps was mortifyingly embarassing :s

In the end the instructor was off ill so we just went up and used the arena. Rosie worked for a good 50 mins flat work, with a pause half way through. In the second half of the session we ran through Intro A (walk and trot). Right at the end we popped over a cross pole to up the interest level but she was pretty bushed so we didn't do too much.

Fi and Dudley had an easy time of it as both look slightly sore in one way or another. Duds subsequenly developed a loose shoe. I long-reined Fi out in the field yesterday and she looked miles better.

But on Saturday I took Rosie to an outside dressage comp - same place we went for her first Walk and Trot, but without a pal with us this time. She was warming up ok, although a little "eyes on stalks" as there are now small x-country fences in the field they use for warm up. The morning had been drizzly but cool - but by the afternoon it was clear but humid and hot :( We went in to the arena and madam pretty much ground to a halt. Where she did not break to trot, we were getting 6's. But the other marks were 4's and as a result we got 46% overall and were last out of the 5 in that class.

So - onwards and upwards. Plan is to try and get to the next dressage event at the yard with the covered arena, and keep the work up, and keep insisting she does what she's told. We'll get there eventually...

Mark Rashid, Sheffield, 2008 (draft)

This is a working draft and will be updated as I make sense of my notes

Softness

Muscles can either contract or relax. To lengthen they need to relax.
There is one ligament running all the way along the back - splitting down each hind leg to attach by the hock.

To "collect" a horse needs to let all the topline muscles lengthen, and engage those along the underneath.

To be able to relax the horse need to soften the neck (poll).

Mark has talked before about softness vs lightness. This time he commented that a light horse will look good when everything is going ok, but will fall apart when its not.

Speed/direction/destination

The rider needs to supply these or the horse will fill in the gaps.

More than one of the riders was working on impulsion. But often they were not asking for a forward moving horse i.e. the horse was giving them something and they were not asking for more. "If you want a faster trot, just ask for it"

Mark used a phrase "waiting for the magic to happen" - i.e. the rider gives an aid and then sits back and waits for something to happen. Instead they need to be engaged/involved in what has been asked for (e.g. a transition).

Mark got the rider to use an escalation where she first "moved air" with her whip, then tapped her own leg (increasing intensity e.g. 1 to 4) and then tapped the horse (starting at intensity 1, and increasing again). As soon as the horse responds, you can stop asking.


consistency
leads to
dependability
leads to
trust
leads to
peace of mind
leads to
softness

contact

contact is not the same as pulling. The rider can apply a certain amount of pressure via the rein (regardles of the length of rein) and can also give it direction.

Many riders seems to associated a short rein with a heavy contact and/or pulling. But the short rein is linked to the length of neck (and the 'frame' the horse is working in) rather than the pressure or direction of pressure.

A big release (e.g. dropping the rein) can be less comforting than a small one where the connection is maintained. (Mark demonstrated this by taking the rider's arm in his hand, and giving a small release, or dropping the arm completely.)

energy

any time there is trauma, whether real or percieved, energy gets stored in the body. That energy needs to be released some how.

At the clinic one of the horses had very high energy levels and could not stand still, and zipped about the whole time. The "perceived" trauma was with his rider, anticipating it all going horribly wrong.

Mark talked about a balance point of energy. Say the balance point is "10" and the rider contributes 5, and the horse 5. Then if the horse's energy spikes upwards to 6 or 7, to maintain the overall balance the rider has to decrease their energy to keep the total at 10.

(Breathing helped to reduce the rider energy level.)

There is also a balance point within the rider (or horse) - where they balance physical and emotional energy. With a horse - if the emotional energy goes up (or down) the physical energy will follow. With people we can sometimes "hide" the physical energy spike and distinguish between the way they feel and the way they act.

With the horse at the clinic who started at very high energy levels, Mark only suggested very small adjustments at each stage. He commented that the horse was only becoming ready for these small adjustments as he calmed down, slowed up. He advised that the rider carry on making only small adjustments.

He had also started the rider using a pattern where she rode along a side but turned half way along it. If the horse sped up, she turned him (quite tightly) til he slowed and then "finished the line". Mark commented it was important to finish the line as it was all about giving the horse a job to do. This was also about setting the "direction" (with speed and destination being adjusted along the way).

One example was that he asked the rider to "tap" the big toe of each foot, inside the boot, in turn. (An alternative would be to move the little finger on each hand - but it is important the horse does not interpret this movement as an "aid"). The toe-tapping resulted in a distinct calming and slowing of the horse. But the toe-tapping was only added in to the mix after the rider had already worked on lwoering her energy level, and on slowing her rate of breathing (from less than 6 steps per inhale/exhale to more than 6).

footfall/transitions

Mark has talked before about "all the paces being available in each pace". This time he connected that idea in to footfall. So the footfall goes

walk is 1-2-3-4
trot is 1-2 1-2 1-2
canter is 1-2-3 1-2-3

now 1 and 2 are present in every pace, so they are the best ones used for making the transition from one pace to another.