Dr. Cesar Parra's Dressage Clinic

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!