Yesterday and today I audited Cesar's dressage clinic at my instructor's barn - Sharon Myer's Chimney Hill Farm. As always, he was very informative, interesting and amusing! Cesar comes up with great anecdotes to prove points he's making.
Here are some of the things he is keen on/exercises he uses:
1. Bend inwards - exaggerate this while warming up the horse.
2. Work very long and low at the beginning to stretch the horse. This may initially be a little painful, as for people, but the horse works through the pain barrier and becomes looser and freer.
3. When walking after the first warm up phase, keep the horse on a reasonable contact. He's not worked hard enough to be really listening to the rider, and is still easily distracted. Also, keep him busy, even now. Bend him left and right, walk in circles, left and right, to keep his mind on the job.
4. Concentrate on one higher level movement per riding session (unless you have a show that weekend and need to put it all together) so the horse remains fresh and not mentally overloaded.
5. The horse can't stay up and round for long periods of time (another reason for 4. above) so don't spend too long in that frame. Give the horse frequent breaks.
6. When working on a tougher movement, do it three times then let it go! Tomorrow is another day.
7. If the horse misbehaves, GO FORWARD. Don't stop and regroup, go forward and regroup. Also, use the inside leg to get the horse's attention while bending him inwards if he's being difficult (threatening to buck, etc.) and if you get the poll up he cannot buck. Be quick to forgive and relax again as soon as the horse submits.
8.GREAT EXERCISE TO INTRODUCE TROT HALF-PASS:
Trot across the diagonal, come away from the long side in leg yield exaggerating the outside bend like crazy. From the short side go up the center line, still bent (now it's the inside) and push the horse over in half-pass.
Same works for canter half-pass.
9. Cesar addressed the issue of a horse not wanting to work harder once the long and low phase is over. He says none of us wants to work harder, but we need to in order to attain our goals. Also this is a reason not to overdo the tough stuff in any given session.
10. Emphasizes value of prayer and singlemindedness in achieving goals.
Let's see if I can reproduce that at home by myself!
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Thank you so much for posting a wonderful clinic report! It is so nice to see specific insights to what went on at the clinc, instead of just, "yeah, went to a clinic with so-and-so, and it was just great!" Or worse--"went to a clinic and didn't learn a thing and the clinician didn't know what they were talking about, yada yada yada"(but giving no specific references to back it up).
ReplyDeleteI do have one question...I don't understand #8. Do you mean (for instance) to ride onto the diagonal at H in legyield (horse would be bent left through the corner, then change flexion as he comes away from the long side at H into the legyield diagonally towards X (and if Cesar is advocating a big bend it would not be a technical legyield, at that, since legyield usually has not "bend"-only flexion away from the direction of travel), then legyield all the way to F (the whole diagonal would be a LONG way), then come onto the centerline at A in true bend and keep this bend into the halfpass(the rest makes sense to me at trot--but in canter half-pass at some point you would have to change leads before the half-pass attempt). Am I totally confused? Thanks!
First of all, thank you for the positive feedback!
ReplyDeleteRegarding #8 the introduction to trot half-pass: trot on the diagonal from, say, F across X to H, then along the short side, and as you start the next long side at M, change the bend. (And, yes, you're right, this should be just 'flexing' to the outside for a true legyield, but this exercise uses exaggeration for training purposes.)
The horse is now bent to the left i.e. outside bend.
Complete the legyield to the other long side. Then, keeping that left bend, come round the first corner (from K to A),turn up the center line and ask the horse to trot in half-pass back towards H.
I think the idea is that the horse is flowing in trot (later also in canter) in a given bend, and finds the transition from legyield to half-pass fairly easy. Certainly the horses in the clinic seemed to get the hang of it fast.
Hope that's clearer for you.