A Lesson in More Bend, More Forward

Izzy and I have been peeling back the layers of the dressage onion for way more years than I'd like to admit, especially since we're not nearly as far along as I think we should be. With Speedy looking at retirement, I have finally been forced to start working the big brown horse in earnest. It's not like we've been doing nothing the past six years, but now I am motivated like never before.

We're going to a USDF show at the end of October whether we're "ready" or not. We've done a couple of schooling shows and a couple of CDS shows, and while those have tremendous value, they don't count in the eyes of the dressage world. It is at USDF shows where you really get to put your money where your mouth is. So when I scheduled a mid-week lesson with Chemaine Hurtado, owner at trainer at Symphony Dressage Stables, we put Izzy to work with an eye to actually showing him off at a show rather than merely surviving a show. 

What he looked like at the end of the lesson. What's not to love?

While watching the video that Pivo recorded, I think I heard the words more and bend and forward at least 5,000 times. Sometimes they were used seperately, but usually they were strung together, more bend ... more, more, more, MORE BEND! MORE FORWARD! Poor Chemaine. She either thinks me deaf or dumb or possibly both. As a side note, if you are thinking about getting a Pivo, if you don't have a barn full of friends willing to record, if you ride alone, GET THIS GADGET, it really is that cool.

More forward!

Like I always do, I told Chemaine what I wanted to work on - Izzy's just so flat. I need him to have more bounce. Oh, you mean he needs more swing. Well okay, that sounds good, too! When Chemaine asked me how I thought we would get more swing, I immediately said we need more forward because that seems to be the solution to everything. I was half-way right. What Izzy needs is more sideways with forward. According to her, moving him laterally with get him more supple in the hind end which will allow him to step more deeply which will create more swing. Okay, roger that.

We did the cavaletti at every. single. corner.

Chemaine walked over to two of my corners and rearranged the poles to create a fan of three cavaletti poles. And then she put Izzy and me through five different exercises using the cavaletti poles to either start an exercise or to finish it.

• Leg yield across the whole diagonal, get him soft and supple right before the corner, cross the cavaletti to encourage him to pick up his feet, change the bend, and repeat the leg yield. Repeat it a lot! And while you're repeating it, make it steeper so that you get to the rail at R, S, V, or P, The more he crosses his legs the more supple he will become. And while you're at it, get him a lot more forward with both legs.

Getting more hind end activity.

• Next do a shoulder-in across the diagonal, without letting him get lazy behind. PUSH him to the bit WITH BOTH LEGS. Finish the diagonal by crossing through the cavaletti as you set up for the next diagonal, also in shoulder-in. Repeat, repeat, repeat until he thinks about softening. Each time you approach the cavaletti get him soft and supple so that he can more effectively use his neck and back to bounce through them.

There was a lot of ugly at first, but he quickly started to figure out the cavaletti.

• When Izzy still wasn't really giving through his neck and poll, Chemaine added another exercise - down the long side, shoulder-in to haunches-in, do the caveltti, cross the diagonal, do the next cavaletti, and repeat the shoulder-in to haunches-in down the other long side. All the while, keep pushing him to the bit with BOTH LEGS.   

Those cavaletti felt like they were EVERYWHERE!

• Then we moved on to the half pass. And just like in the other exercises, the point was to move him as steeply laterally as I could while also pushing him more forward to the bit. And like in the leg yield, we half passed to R, S, V, or P to make it steeper. We started in the corners with no cavaletti, finishing with the cavaletti poles right in front of us which required me to get Izzy soft and supple or we whacked the poles as we stumbled through them.

• In the final exercise, we started with the cavaletti and then tried to get a trot lengthening out of the next corner. The trick was that Izzy had to be absolutely straight before he was allowed to go bigger. Since tracking up with both hind legs is hard, he fishtailed all across the diagonal with me half halting while adding a ton of leg. He wants to just tip toe his way across the diagonal without developing any of the thrust that he needs to do it well.  I insisted that no matter what his hind end was doing, it was going to do it with power. We never got a great lengthening of stride, but we got a few strides of a good lengthening.

It wasn't much, but there was a bit of thrust to it.

By the end of the lesson, Izzy was snorting and swinging. Those two things seem to go together. At least they do when he's doing them. Of course, we also did some canter, and that was just a bunch of flex in, flex out, go down if he'll take it. We did it on the circle, around the entire dressage court, on smaller circles, and on the serpentine. That's something that I need to do every single ride. He wants to be so tight in his back and neck at the canter, but it's because he doesn't quite believe me that relaxing feels so much better. He's getting there though.

I love how deeply he is stretching over his neck and back. It took a while, but he finally agreed to doit.

The Pivo gave me access to so much more information. It's tough for a trainer to teach well and capture great video. By being able to rewatch the entire lesson, I got a clearer sense of where Izzy started, and where he ended up. I was able to see the exact moment that he gave or the exact moment when he got something. An hour of video takes a long time to watch, but it's like getting a second lesson for free. 

The video also showed me that we're not as far "behind" as I think we are. We definitely have more nice moments than bad. And in another month, I am excited to see where we'll be.