The Art of Natural Dressage

You all inspired me to have a go at this today. To be honest I wasn't sure where I was going to start, so I asked for a back up and rewarded just for the weight shift before he stepped back and for bend in the back legs. I will be interested to see where this goes as at one point he was playing with lifting the front legs up and looked like he was about to do a low rear mmmmmm........
There really is some lovely work just in this thread....so thanks Romy for starting it and everyone else for taking the challenge

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Annette O'Sullivan

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. - John Lennon

@ Jocelyn, your welcome

@ Romy, I do not know yet. He always places his right leg away from him when backing or asking him to put the weight behind. He also does not like to do travers on the left lead because then he has to weight his right leg and he does not like the Shoulder in on the right etc etc. This has always been a problem but it is becoming less en less with careful training.

Now, I intend to next week, fully read this post and watch all your videos and try again with Owen and also start a little with my new horse Porthos Thanks everyone !

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www.equusuniversalis.com

Great, Marina, it looks like Bear is putting some weight on the hindlegs already.

We have not done anything with the school halts over the weekend because Stephan (my foster brother) was visiting and we went for walks instead of doing child-unfriendly groundwork. Today I trained with Pia again, but I feel a bit stuck. This is because she is doing it so well now and also can hold it for a long time, but somehow it seems that in this way we are not getting any further.

She pushes herself back with the frontleg that is resting on the ground, and then pushes and pushes, but nothing is happening in her body. Of course she gets irritated, because she does not know what I am waiting for and what she could do better, and I also don't know so I cannot really help her. Well, I know that she still relies on that one frontleg (perhaps more to push than to carry, but still) and it seems that despite the bend in her hindlegs they are not really carrying a lot of weight. But I don't really know how we can change that. Apparently not by simply doing more of what she is doing already.

Luckily, when I am stuck I know that sooner or later Pia will come up with a solution, so unless someone of you has a suggestion for us, I think we will simply do a little maintenance for now and wait until the next step happens.

With Summy it is working really well and he is getting better at not rearing and also bending the hindlegs a little already. With him I am finding the same thing as I did with Pia: it only works well if they step forwards with a hindleg first. If they don't, they can still lean back, but we won't get the crouching. Therefore, if Summy does not set a hindleg forwards all by himself before he starts the weight shifts, I ask him for one or two steps towards GOTM. Not before every single weight shift, but every now and then during our training.

Romy, you achieved a lot in a short time with Pia. I'm sure it's a good point to let it sink in for a while. Maybe you see some quality of movement in some other exercise one day that you want to combine with the School Halt and then you can continue. Or Pia just sleeps over it a few days and then present you something? I wouldn't be surprised if she did

Of course if you want to work on it further, the question is what's the next goal? Should it be more Levade-like? Or maybe you could try to get the halt more even sided and try to make her lift the other foot for a change. Surely that would strengthen her hindlegs more. Maybe she's compensating some muscle group she needs for more hindlegs engagement by turning her head to the right? If you can strengthen her other side I'm sure she would lift a lot easier...
You could also try if you can get her to do the weight shifts with a bit more Ramener head position? I believe that for a perfect Levade for example a horse needs very strong abdominal muscles. Right now it seems that Pia relies a lot on constricting the top line to get weight off the forehand. I imagine that an equal strength of top-line and bottom-line will be needed to hold the body in balance.

Now that's all just what comes to my mind as I review the last of Pia's videos. Don't get me wrong - Pia is doing fantastic!

BTW: I found another really good video of the School Halt, where you can see it in slow motion as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a07ZQOfaWo

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, Volker. You are absolutely right in that there is lots of room for improvement in Pia's weight shifts. However, with one of my main goals being that we both enjoy the process, I am a bit restricted in the way we train. That means, we have to work on things that she perceives as having some sort of purpose and only include corrections in a sparse way. So whereas I agree that working on ramener or lifting the other leg or bending to the other side could be beneficial, I am a bit concerned that this might not be very much fun for her. Or perhaps it's just me who finds it boring and is more delighted when Pia is experimenting with different ways of using her body, such as doing the weight shifts in a way that resembles sitting back/down on her hindlegs. This does not mean that I do not want to work on these improvements. I just want to include them bit by bit into a training with a more interesting performance goal.

This morning we trained a little more and she also included some weight shifts that looked like there was less weight on her frontleg. It somehow looked less stable and a bit shaky. This happened more often when her hindlegs were closer to her frontlegs before she started the weight shifts. I am simply rewarding this a lot and we will see where it leads us.



Yes, a levade is something I definitely want to work on, but not yet. For now my goal is to have her take as much weight away from her frontleg as would be necessary to enable her to lift it off the ground without this changing her posture a lot - similarly to the way Titum lets his frontleg slip back during his low rears.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Oh wow this is soooo cool! About a month or so ago I had decided that I wanted to teach Crescent to work on leaning back in preparation for hopefully levade if he can do it, but also just to strengthen his already getting muscley hindquarters(the boy LOVES backing up), but I had no idea there was a name for it I think this is so cool and Romy, I've been watching your videos with Pia, too cute! I love how she seems to be getting it a little more each time (: This thread is awesome! I absolutely love it and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's progress and learning more about this movement!

Glad that you are enjoying the thread, Nikita. And of course I hope to see some pictures or videos of your work on the weight shifts with your lovely Crescent as well.

I have no news from Pia, but Summy is doing really well (and is ever so eager to work on weight shifts at the moment). However, the greatest news is that for two days now Titum has agreed to do some of them as well. With him it is much more difficult to get a school halt than I had imagined. This is because he only knows the weight shifts from his low rears. Therefore, I can either simply let him do the rear, or, if I reward before he had the time to lift his second front leg, he stumbles backwards (not like in actually falling, but more like a very fast backing up). So we have to find a way of explaining to him that (1) he can hold the weight-shifted posture for longer without his legs leaving the ground and (2) he can get out of a weight shift by simply shifting the weight forwards again instead of aligning his whole body with the new center of gravity.

I just recently began working on this with my horse as well. He has always had trouble with locking stifles and this summer he had quite a bit of time off due to heat and terrible fires in our area (terrible smoke!) so this fall I wanted to get him conditioned nicely before I began asking him for too much effort in his hind end and thought this would be a good way. We have started very gradual and have built up to this so far. At this point I haven’t rewarded head shape at all, only his hind end, but you can see how he is instinctively starting to work that out on his own. At the beginning he had to throw his head way up in the air to get a little rock back and could only do 10 crunches or so before he was disenchanted with the exercise. As he is building strength he can stick with it much longer and he no longer tosses his head way back for momentum. I have seen a large improvement in his riding work since I began adding this exercise in during our ground sessions!
To start I lined him up so a fence was behind him and gradually shifted my weight back until he matched me. He is a very good backer so at first it was hard to capture the lean without the steps but the fence was a huge help. What I ended up figuring out though was that he was essentially targeting the fence with his hindquarter and that was what was helping him to lean rather than take a step. Once I made this obvious realization (doh!) I switched to using a target as a frame of reference for him and he got it very quickly.
Here’s a video from about a week ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJGCxQO6SRg

He is doing great already! Such a good idea to do it with a target, I did not even think of this possibility. I also do nothing about the head position per se, but it's the same for my horses: they improve their posture all by themselves as soon as they become strong enough.

This evening Titum was is a very levade-like mood, so I decided that with him I will try not to capture the leaning back before he has a chance to lift his front hooves off the ground, but instead try to get the rears as low as possible. Perhaps at one point he will barely leave the ground anymore? I have no idea if this will work and lead to anything like a school halt, but we will just try for a while and see what we will get.

Very nice video, clickrgirl! Using the target was a clever idea. I'm currently experimenting with body targets a lot and I find it very useful for all kinds of exercises...

I have tried a few times to advance towards School Halt with Mucki. So far we got only to shifting weight back a bit, often with a step backward - so nothing to show off yet .
But yesterday Anna wanted to try shifting weight on the hindlegs with Lily and I did a little video of them. Lily was very excited, as there was things going in the paddock, but still she worked nicely on bending the haunches and shifting weight back. Of course not without the occasional rearing then and there

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

So nice to see how Lily is getting the idea, and I think she is doing really great already. If she will not start doing this by herself anyhow, it might help to ask her for a step forwards with the hindlegs before you ask for the weight shift itself. Or at least for Summy and Pia it seems to be much harder to put weight on the hindlegs when they are further back behind the body (for Titum that does not seem to matter because he shifts his whole body backwards first before putting his weight on the hindlegs).

Only today I discovered the "School Halt" from Bent Branderup's site and in my enthusiasm posted a bunch of videos on facebook. Then coming here (and thank you Jocelyn!) I see you have all been very busy working on this!

I will try to post all of my progress with this as well.

Tam and I have a head start on the movement which began with microshaping, which he guessed to lean back. We started that two, maybe three years ago? Likely at least three years.

At the time, I was aiming to teach Tam rearing. You can see way back in 2009, he had the idea to lean back a teeny bit and lift the leg. That was his choice at the time.

http://youtu.be/fM3FkwCt4yE?t=2m30s

Over time, I have tried to develop the leaning back separate from the rearing, and have worked to keep him more collected and in ramener, rather than throwing his head up. So there are times that I get a really nice leaning back and can reward him before he actually tries to rear.

Also, because I worked with Tam to sit him on a hay bale, that also helped him in leaning back and bending the hind legs.

The reason I wish to school him in this now, is to help strengthen his hind legs for levade. He does occasionally do a nice little levade, but he is not able to maintain it and I'm not sure it's time to ask him to try. With the School Halt though, I can ask him to hold his weight on the hind legs longer without having him put ALL his weight there.

I love the videos you have posted (SOOOOO nice to see the lovely Pia again!!!!) and so happy that so many of you are working on this. YAY.

Thank you all for starting this thread!!!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Josepha, you have a NEW horse? Porthos? I want to know more!!!

Interestingly enough, our stable owner just recently purchased an andalusian/hanoverian cross named Aramis. Seems to me we have two of the four musketeers...LOL.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Just watched your video Karen and I am completely amazed at what I saw. You definitely are both in love!!

Here are two shorts videos of Magik and I. I am trying to ask Magik to sit on some hay bales. I thought that maybe this would help him understand that I would like him to bend at the hocks. But so far, he's trying to stand on the bales. I'm wondering if I should continue doing this or should I change my way of thinking.

By doing this, I'm not sure I will get a school halt as a result??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVcN0w4w ... ZLRjTohseQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nNAhuAH ... ZLRjTohseQ

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Jocelyne
[Hug your animals everyday. You never know!

Oh Jocelyn, thank you!

Your videos were quite dark, so I couldn't see if Magik was "thinking" to bend the hindlegs? You would see this thought manifest as a tightening of his abdominal muscles near the flank, or flickers of tension in the haunches. You are so paitent though, and I think that is all you really need. Lots of patience. Here is another video of the school halt taken over the course of six months. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mf2bfdCXYc

This video must be "approved" because it was posted on (one of) Bent Branderup's site(s), http://knighthoodoftheacademicartofridi ... #more-2322

I really think your patience will win out.

A necessary component of the bending of the haunches is a relaxation of the topline of the horse. If you can do a slight lateral flexion with Magic as you ask him to lean back, it might help. The bending of the haunches is neither an upward or a downward move of the head, but depending on the horse, slightly upward or downward adjustments may need to be made. If you prefer to do this without headgear, then you can first establish body language cues through the clicker training to communicate to the horse that he should raise or lower his head (or do a little lateral flexion of the poll) so that you might help him to realize the goal of lowering the haunch.

You will work through, patiently, all his guesses of backing up or his desire to step sideways out of the situation (which you already do) ensure he is relaxed and simply aid him to find the answer you want him to find.

So all the focus is on the haunch and the job they must do, with less focus on the head/neck (only for small adjustments) and none at all on the forelegs. The foreleg will do what it will do as the haunches sink lower, OR you can ask for the action of the foreleg directly once the haunches are already bending.

If the horse seems relatively incapable of bending the haunches, then work in hand on lateral movement such as shoulder in, that promote the lowering and bending of the haunch will help with the over all project.

The last point I add, is that in shoulder in, in hand, you are careful that the lateral flexion comes from the poll and not the base of the neck, and that there is a gentle curve/bend through the whole body of the horse. The shoulder in improves through practice, so it too, is a process.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"