Today I rode for the first time in almost 2 weeks.
Yesterday I did ground work only because it was pouring rain and the arena was frozen solid.
Again I started the session with ground work and I'm frustrated that we're not progressing at all with the turn on the forehand or sidepass down the fenceline. She just doesn't cross over her hinds and I don't know how to request it. Waving a dressage whip at her hind end gets her moving more quickly, but still not crossing over. Actually tapping her hock frustrates her.
I need to mention that Herr S was (for the first time) working IN the arena at the time, putting up new electric wire because apparently a horse had gone through the arena fence recently. As he pulled on the wire, it kind of hissed through all the posts. And his electric fence kit was lying there, and the plastic sack the new wire came in, a bunch of mossy old wire tape, and the paper label..... But Mara simply looked once and then ignored him. I was ready to be annoyed if she spooked at electric fence work, because the last two times I worked on my temporary electric fencing, she thought it was a wonderful game to spring over the wire on the ground and try to predict what area she would be forbidden from, so she could be on that side. The other day all I did was move a fence a little and she rejoiced, galloping the field perimeter like mad and snorting playfully, oh boy, a fence is moving again!
I tried out my new wrongly-made custom saddle pad and if I scoot it very far forward, the saddle does not touch the horse anywhere, but almost. The velcro girth strap goes over the actual saddle flap, not the girth, and that's no good. It's just too high up because the pad is almost exactly the size of the saddle. I might keep it as an emergency back up, I'm not sure.
It felt very nice when I mounted, I could feel the wool cushion between the horse and me. The Kimberwick, however, felt odd. I don't know how to explain it but I didn't have the connection I have with the French link. I'll have KT check us out on Thursday when she comes for our lesson.
After some lateral work I turned on my iPod and found that silly Enya song that matches Mara's jogtrot perfectly. It was fun to trot to it, we trotted the entire song. Near the end I dropped the reins and let her try to stretch to the ground, which she did but she sure isn't offering to stretch or bend on contact. Perhaps I'm being too conservative - I noticed my reins were longer than normal today.
Mara paid attention to me the entire time, or, when her attention drifted, I was able to bring her back quickly. We did a few pivots and leg yields and backing and I was very pleased. She was incredibly willing and responsive. I would just think about the rhythm of the trot and she'd trot.
As to my goal of dressage twice per week and ground driving in the woods twice per week, we're back on track...I hope!
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Finally a neighbor complained about our Christmas lights. Our friends who sent me home with a bag of homemade Christmas cookies had to take the opportunitiy to tell me they don't like looking out their window and "seeing America" out there. They said the colors are too much, and there are simply too many. I told them it's nothing compared to what my grandparents had, and if I could find a life-size illuminated nativity scene, I'd have that in my yard too. I also mentioned athat every single light string was purchased in Germany.
They said that in a neighboring city (Seifen?) it is actually illegal to have more than two light-decorations - this means if you have a Christmas star in your window, as well as a candle-arch thingy, that's all you're allowed, by law, to have. To find out that they think my relatively subtle lights are inappropriate was surprising. I don't have a single Santa Claus, no animatronic reindeer, no inflated snowman - just light strings that do not flash. OK I don't need any more color, probably just more white in years to come, but I'm not giving up my blue and green!
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8 comments:
Mara is a strange horse. I'd forgotten that story of her jumping the electric fencing when you were trying to change it on your property. It's both hilarious and wonderful to think of her having fun with a potentially scary thing. I'm glad she didn't spook at Herr S fixing his fence!
I'm not the best at the in-hand stuff, but I got Lily to cross her hind legs in a sort of side pass by tipping her neck and head towards me and encouraging her to step away from me with the whip. It ends up looking like a leg yield from the ground. Maybe Mara needs more time to practice it? It's harder for some individuals than others. Will she let you do stretches with her? I'm glad she's recovered from her lameness! It sounds like you had a great ride on her.
On the lights...Germans are so strange too! Why do they have a problem with colored lights? I love your holiday lights!
Interesting about the lights. I had to laugh at the way you used colorful text to report on the incident. We've always been too busy or lazy to put up lights, and I love to see my neighbors decorations. I especially enjoy the blues and violets. Although, no one has anything around here that flashes. I could see how flashing might come through someone's windows and keep them up at night. My horse trainer says he hates the lawn decorations because he's got to ride all these green horses past them.
You may need to do some close-in in-hand work, and slow things down to moving just one foot at a time, so that she understands what you want. You need to be really precise and only leave the exact opening for her to move into that you want - otherwise the horse usually just moves all over since they're not really clear on exactly what you want. Tight turns in hand are a good way to work on hind leg crossovers. Be sure to give releases and praise any time she makes even the slightest progress towards what you want.
Saiph, tipping the head toward me is necessary so she pivots on a front leg and doesn't walk around. Funnily in my dorky horse magazine this month, they said "Teaching a turn on the forehand is simple as pie" and I thought, "Right, with a horse that is not mine." I'm glad you liked my lights: )
NM, well your horse trainer would not have that problem in Germany - they think Americans are nuts the way they waste so much electricity for vanity.
Kate, I'm using a fence now to block forward movement, but I cannot get her to cross over - she just shuffles her hind legs over and anytime it comes close to overlapping, I stop and praise her, but she doesn't know what she did. You're right I need to slow it down even more, but I'm at a loss about how. She clearly gets that the whip waving toward her hocks means step aside. I need a new idea, because repeating what I'm doing isn't working. Strangely, she can pivot on her hind end perfectly (180 degrees). She keeps that inside hind planted and crosses her front legs around. My trainer thinks the solution is to use the fenceline to ask for a sidepass, but she doesn't do that any better. She just shuffles over, front end, then hind, then front..never crossing her legs.
Don't remember if you've said what tack you use to do in hand work with?
I ask, because if she can give you the cross over when ridden, it sounds like more of a lost in translation issue, rather than an complete huh?/ don't wanna / ouch issue.
My first guess might be that you're losing her shoulder, so you get a sideways movement instead of the pivot. I have an exercise to try if so.
I'm going to use moving her towards her right as an example, but obviously, pick whichever direction you think will be easier.
Have her in a bridle, or a halter with two ropes, whichever she prefers. You can do this perfectly well with just your hand on her halter, but it doesn't give you the degree of granular control that the two reins do.
Find somewhere that you are both comfortable using that has a corner - stable, arena, doesn't matter. It needs to be a comfortable zone because corners can make horses feel trapped sometimes and the tension doesn't help the learning process.
Stand her facing into the corner, with you at her shoulder, facing her tail. As all you want to start is a step or two, I like the start position to be on a 45 degree angle, halfway through the corner, so if she bulges back toward you while resisting, you aren't so close to the wall as to get accidentally squashed.
Your left hand will be above her wither, in about the position used for mounting.
You want a light contact on the reins, possibly with a slightly shorter left rein. You may need to experiment until you can get an arrangement of the reins that allows you to to tighten/slacken the reins by tilting your hand, so that you can respond. It may take a little while until you/she have reached a detente and she is comfortably accepting the contact and waiting for you to do something. That is when you move on.
Next, you want to give her whatever command you use, (I use a generic 'over' and adjust where I want the horse to be using a gentle physical direction, graduating to a gesture/look as the horse and I get more in tune), and simultaneously, press gently on her barrel, as far as you can comfortably reach towards her hip. If you can reach her hip, and comfortably keep that left hand where it maintains that gentle contact, great. For some horses, a whip used as an extension of an arm, so you can tap, tap, tap is helpful, but not if it makes them tense.
Breaking this into two, too long...
Cont...
At this point, some gentle experimentation comes in. You need to catch the moment she starts to shift her weight at the front to shuffle away from you instead of pivoting. This is where your contact comes into play - gently use the right rein to say no, the shoulder stays here.
She may well toss her head a little, Gah! well, what do you WANT!? but ignore it, and gently try again. You don't want to have too much head tilt to the left, it makes it harder to control the shoulder. The contact and 'holding' you are looking for is in essence, the same as you use to prevent her falling out/in through her shoulder on a circle.
Many horses will run through a list of options at this point. Forward, backward, bulge right shoulder, left shoulder, head toss, paw... this is all normal. Just keep quietly coming back to the start point, of 'I'm going to ask you for something', with your live, waiting contact.
Sooner or later she will shift her weight, onto her right hind to step under with her left, or alternately onto her left hind to step out with her right.
When that happens, verbally praise her, and this is the point where you will have to decide in the moment, either continue asking for the sideways with your right hand, or wait because she's going to do it. I say this because with a very sensitive horse, sometimes a repetition of a command when the horse is already in the process of 'complying' can make the horse think that no, that is not the right answer. Equally, sometimes that gentle nudge can act as reassurance, yes, this is what you are supposed to do, keep going. A judgement call. Once she steps, verbally praise her, let her get her balance, go back to your 'waiting' then ask for another step.
Because this seems to be a difficult concept for her, don't expect the clear pivot and cross over. As long as the front feet don't move forward or back, that is good, you can work your way up.
An experienced horse will engage the abdominal muscles and keeping the body straight, will lift the left leg up and under the body, but horses who are new to this movement, will often disengage the hip to swing round, in a slight banana shape. This is not correct, but when learning the idea, it is permissible. Once the horse has the pivot, straightness then becomes something you can ask for, and bigger, smoother steps.
This is something of a long comment, I'm sorry to be so wordy, and please, I am not being prescriptive, not 'this is what you must do', just trying to describe, in as much detail as possible, how I might go about trying to break this little mental block.
FD, thanks for your helpful comment. I was thinking I need to change something, and the only thing I think that I could change would be the place on her body where I apply pressure to move over. Because she can stand still, pivoting on one front foot, but she simply doesn't cross, nor has she ever made a single crossing step behind. We already use the fence or a corner to help her think about the exercise as something unique. I'm starting to think the only reason she can do it undersaddle is because it's a forward walking movement, not standing still. I'll have to ask someone if she's able to cross while I'm on her back asking. I doubt it but that's important to know. So I'll try putting my hand at her side instead of waving a whip at her hock. I usually do this with a rope halter but I'll try the bridle too.
If you do this http://lbl-equestriancenter.com/nh_docs/THE_WRAP_AROUND.pdf where you wrap the rope around her hindquarters so she has to do a tight spin on the forehand can she cross over in the rear? I've definitely seen a horse that will shuffle, in fact Chrome did it when he was first learning, but I've never seen a horse that never crossed over at all. I know this wrap around method isn't your end goal, but maybe it would show if she is actually capable of crossing over? If she absolutely can't even with this exercise maybe she needs a chiro? That just seems odd to me. I wish I could help with how to teach her but I have no idea. I taught Chrome using clicker training. I just turned his head toward me and pushed his haunches over and if he crossed I clicked. If he didn't, I didn't click. He was a little baby though so it was easy to push him off balance to make him cross. Once he learned to cross I started barely touching his hip to ask him to step over because I didn't want him to rely on being knocked off balance. I wanted him to do it on his own so he would build the correct muscles. It worked. He now does it easily with a really light touch. Now I need to work on it under saddle! I must quit being lazy lol. Good luck with Mara!!
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