 could work a circle and he bends like a train track along a circle and I sort of use the circle to help him bend. What if I kept the circle the bend on the circle but I moved him in a straight line. Very interesting. So now as I work my horse we're gonna focus on the lower back the seat and the weight and what I would like to do is just work on a few turns on the forehand or offsetting the hunch and what I'm doing is I'm right now bending left and I'm using my left rein and my left leg but my thighs are very important for this job. You know what a tuning fork is for like music? A tuning fork it's like my torso is the straight piece and then the U piece is my legs so if I want to move his hindquarters to my left well I could squeeze the right rein and I could get his right ear back see and I could use my right leg a little bit where I could swing and soften my leg I could I could almost like squeeze release or swing and soften but my right thigh comes back now my left thigh is gonna come back now my right thigh comes back see and that could be done on a longer rein so my right thigh could come back and I would get a horse very clear on this and if you do they coil so they start to really kind of slowly get under themselves so you could play with this it's almost like I'm pushing a wheelbarrow and so his front legs is the front would be the wheel so if I bring my right leg back I'm bringing his right leg back and it's almost like I'm just turning my wheelbarrow and then I'm pushing it forward the whip I'll show you this pretend that my whip is so long and my right leg is so long that I could bring it back and I could stretch it like I'm gonna do it I'll drop my stirrup I'm gonna pretend my right leg is touching his right hind leg you see that so my heel and maybe my whip I'm gonna pretend that I can get down and I can touch his right hind leg ready left hind leg so I preach I think about lengthening my left hind leg now you don't see me leaning but I do think about lengthening that leg see that now it takes a little bit of work and at first you might not get it to that level I worked at it with this horse a little bit so but pretty soon he gets soft and then all of that energy he had all that frisky fresh energy that you think darn it I can't have this much energy with all these people watching me and all the sudden it's like hey it's available the life is there I just have to be able to direct the life but the time quarters very much when we begin people tend to use what we call lateral aids and you'll see people you can do this you can bend with one rain and then the second phase is people start to kind of bring their hand up towards their center and they might use a right rain right leg and does this look familiar do you kind of do this already and that's not wrong this is what we do in the beginning and if my horse were rearing up I would want to bend him I would want to bend him and bending is through their whole body when we bend they typically put weight on their front legs watch his front legs so bending puts weight on the horse's front legs I'm using left drain left leg and I'm using one side of my body and that's what we call lateral aiding but it's interesting because it does weight the horse down but it's what you start with as time goes on we need to use both sides of our body more and this is something when I work with people I notice I'm like they only know how to use their left side or their right side it's easier but to use both sides of your body it it needs to be something that's more natural and you work at more but how many of you have heard in dressage inside leg to outside rain you've heard this right well that's using diagonal aids both sides of your body I will show you a turn on the forehand with diagonal aids here we go I'll lift my left hand up just to demonstrate that I'm using my I'm sort of supporting or blocking with my left rain but I'll bring my right leg back I pretend the whip is touching his hind leg but I'm squeezing and releasing on my left rain and so pretty soon do you see how I'm get straighter when they get straighter they sit back and it becomes more what we call flexion bending is more of the whole body of the horse so bending is the whole body flexion happens more up here at the first cervical vertebrae not the pole have you ever heard a horse breaks at the pole no the pole is the highest point of their head that's why it's called the pole they break at the first cervical vertebrae but we do say that as trainers and instructors will say the horse needs to break it's the first cervical vertebrae here's the deal with this if I can use maybe start with a left bend and I can move his hind but now I start to squeeze and release my right rain my inside leg to outside rain pretty soon I can straighten them up and I get a turn on the forehand where my horse is more straight and it's you go whoa it's easier because when he flexes they elevate the front end flexion elevates the forehand bending tends to bring the forehand back down so this is pretty fun and what we do is I start to get good with getting straight turns on the forehand and then I start to tip him left as I take his hind quarters left and that takes a little bit of practice but now my horse is starting to bend in the direction he's going so if he can bend in the direction he's going well that allows for a lot more lateral to come through you know what I mean so if he starts to wait the front end these things can be hard so if I can get good at that I could work a circle and he bends like a train track along a circle and I sort of use the circle to help him bend what if I kept the circle the bend on the circle but I moved him in a straight line you see what I'll do it again at any time I can fall back to a circle and don't get heavy because your horse will just have to counterbalance that and fight that so I circle and then I say I'm going to go straight from the circle you see what I'm doing and then back to the circle dressage is a moving circle let's change range change direction change bend my left leg comes forward a little bit I work this right rain and maybe I'll walk him give him a little break and I'm circling and if I take this part of the circle and I ride a straight line this is that exercise I did with the turn on forehand only now I'm walking forward you see and at any time back to my circle now if I'm riding straight towards you but then I start to turn left a little bit and I freeze and then I go straight I ride the shoulders inward I'll do this this other direction so if I were to sort of ride straight towards you and now I start the beginning of a circle ready so I'm turning left a little bit beginning of a circle but now inside rain inside leg outside rain now I work towards you it's a it's really a circle it takes a little bit of time to get this now riding the haunches in is also a circle and it's actually a 10 meter circle but don't overthink it so the bend of a 10 meter circle if I think about this part of the circle but then I ride straight the haunch stays in and now I'll straighten and now I'm gonna turn and circle right and if I were to ride straight towards like the announcer stand from here riding the haunch in but don't get wrapped up on that start with your turns on the forehand first where you know that you could get your horse to stop and you could get your horse to do this or you could get your horse to do this and when they're really soft and you're giving them a break make them earn their stand and their rest and I don't mean it like make them as and be mean I'll show you what I mean if my horse if I know he's getting ready to halt what I'll do is I'll say just bring your rump to the left a little bit and I'll bring your rump to the right a little bit and bring your rump to the left a little bit and now stand