Maia; basic dressage on loose reins and in lightness; 6-2-11

Although I have hopped on Maia here and there for the past year or two, I've only been riding her consistently for the past week or two. You can see a lot of good things happening as she learns to take care of her own balance and rhythm, our two main focuses right now. Her rhythm tends to be very fast and her balance all over the place, as you would expect for a young horse.

To help that, I try to ask for large turns, but not micromanage where she's going -- if she feels she needs to enlarge or shrink the circle or even go straight a bit, I don't worry, I just keep on thinking and asking for a turn and let her work it out. I tend to hold and micromanage, so am working on really letting go.

Sometimes to help I do a large swing of her head and shoulders to the inside with my inside rein and ask with my inside seatbone for her inside hind to really drive under her and carry her.

Her rhythm has a tendency to be extremely quick and rushing, so I just really work on matching my body up with her feet and bringing her back again and again, trying not to let her get too far into the "ball wildly rolling down a hill" feeling. ;)

We're going to keep working on rhythm and balance. As she gets those, I have been seeing some suspension start to come and change the little, flat horse you see here into one much more powerful and actually engaging her back!

Read more about our journey to lightness and, ultimately, bridleless dressage at www.cambriahorsemanship.com!

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• horse
• horses
• riding
• dressage
• classical
• lightness
• loose
• reins
• French
• Andalusian
• PRE
• Iberian
• Introductory
• horsemanship
• training
• Cambria
• Horsemanship
• Maia
• english
• equestrian

[CambriaHorsemanship]

Thank you so much, Marja! Can you explain a bit more about what you mean? Do you mean, use the outside rein more against her neck, a bit like a neckrope?

Thank you!

Hannah

[Gydjulind]

What a lovely and light-footed horse Maia is :-)! You're a nice team together.

I'm also working on things like in-hand shoulder in and find it very helpful to not only use the inside rein but use both reins as if they were a 'lasso' around the horse's neck and head. The outside rein has the indirect effect of leading the shoulder in and prevents the horse from twisting at the shoulder at the same time, and the inside rein maintains the bend.

Cheers, Marja