DefinitelyDressage.com

kande50

I had an instructor in college, and old cowboy no less, who taught all his students to practice everything from both sides. We learned how to mount from the ground and practiced it from both sides, we led from both sides, bridled from both sides, etc..., and luckily, it stayed with me so I had plent...

kande50

Sue B wrote:Since then, I have not allowed ANYONE to dictate my level of confidence in myself and my abilities.

Hear! Hear! We are who we are, and they are who they are, and if we don't mix well then, bye, bye.

kande50

demi wrote:I also really get riding with a trainer who doesn’t really understand your horse. I got lucky and found one who does.

You are lucky, because I think we get fussier about what we want as we gain experience, because we've already figured out what doesn't work for us.

kande50

Crappy video, but I'll get another one with a better camera and lighting next time. Looking at it from this angle (I usually put the camera up higher so I can get more area) it looks like he's hopping more than hovering. It's in about the middle of the first pass when we start to turn to go around t...

kande50

I think it would be helpful to take lessons from any good, repeat:GOOD trainer, just to get on a confidence builder. Of course, working with a dressage trainer is the best, but they dont always have the right school horse. I got lucky. I would like to hear of others experiences. My problem was less...

kande50

Kathy J, my instructor is always telling me to rest my chin on her poll...and believe me I try...I just have so many bad habits. I could have some arthritis in my neck, probably do from years of pruning Christmas trees and looking up...but I think it is mostly habit...sometimes my neck gets very ri...

kande50

it should not actually slow down. The tempo of a (GOOD) piaffe should be the same as the tempo of a (GOOD) passage, should be the same as a (GOOD) extension, should be the same as a (GOOD) collected trot. The energy level should increase because of the shorter, higher arc. I'm glad I asked, because...

kande50

As long as they don't mess with the tractor. I had to start taking the key out of mine because they just had to go down and poke at it, and they turned the key on one time and drained the battery.

kande50

I'd be uncomfortable with wearing pac boots in a stirrup. The big lugs can and will catch on a stirrup iron. We don't use them with irons because we've never been able to find irons wide enough. I don't ride in the boots with the lug soles, either. Sorel, and probably others, make boots with what's...

kande50

Backyarder wrote:Worked on canter today...no where near perfect but we're trying...I'm trying hard to be a soft but effective rider . I have a lot to work on.

Haha, don't we all.

One nice, or sometimes not so nice thing about Morgans, is that I've never had one who was shy about taking a contact.

kande50

So, lateral work by nature tends to suck some of the forward out. Also, if you happen to have a horse that likes to hover a bit in the trot, they can't hover and stiffen in the back when bending is introduced, so I find that those horses like to slow more than others. Mine lifts his entire body and...

kande50

What a change. I went from CO when I was in college, to California for a few years, and now I'm back in MA again, but I have an indoor so can't use winter as an excuse if I don't want to ride in the winter. AFA the lateral work, I've been trying to do a few steps of lateral work, and then going righ...

kande50

For an old horse (I have one of those too - she is picky, and 29), I get hay pellets - alfalfa timothy mix, and soak them with beet pulp... It is more expensive - except there is NO waste. I feed one of mine a pelleted complete feed, and while I haven't figured out exactly how much it costs, I don'...

kande50

Unfortunately, if I were riding, (which doesn't happen in the fall/winter for me much, see -40 note above lol), I would have to take them off to girth up. As long as the rest of me is well enough insulated so that I'm warm, then I can take my gloves off for long enough to get stuff like that done. ...

kande50

fallingwaters wrote:I figured it out and am here too. I missed this crew like crazy!

Yay!

kande50

AIn the winter I usually ride with a larger stirrup to allow for the extra width of winter boots. Same here. I wear arctic pac boots with the felt liners, and they need to be a bigger size than I normally wear so there's enough extra air space. I have some extra wide stirrups I think I ordered from...

kande50

They did the same... Adopted an older bitch (approx 5yo) who did not fit in with the breeders' other dogs, and went on waiting list for puppy. The older dog was an absolute delight and fit in to their house really well. They collected 3mo puppy then found out only days later that the bitch had a la...

kande50

You made it! Welcome back, and I hope the others who expressed interest will be here soon, too.

kande50

Horses already know how to learn, as does every organism.

Didn't watch the vids, but just guessing from the title, what he may be demonstrating is how to teach patterns (behavior chains) that the horse can learn to recognize?

kande50

They are away for 2 weeks in the USA and have a 5mo Airedale terrier. My sister got a ~3 month old Airedale pup to go with the one she got from the same breeder two years ago, and I just got an 8 year old ChihuahuaX for my mother. So it must be all kinds of fun and games on the days my sister is th...

kande50

I think there is a ton of sexism in barns. If z mare does anything at all, she is marsh, bitchy, a slut. Or whatever insulting gender related term. Not such thing with geldings. I'd a gelding pins his ears, oh he is unhappy. If a mare pins her ears, shes a bitch. I've seen it hundreds of times. Thi...

kande50

With the seamsright, I bought the Lite Box Quilt. I loved it. I have one still unused that I saved for showing. LOL, showing that will never happen again so I may as well use it. I just starting using my white pads for everyday too, and if a miracle happens and I decide to go to a show again then I...

kande50

Kande that's what it feels like at times, when he comes up more in front. It is a big effort for him though! That's what I'm discovering, too. I thought my horse was naturally well balanced for dressage because he rears easily, so I thought collection might be easy enough for him. But now I'm not s...

kande50

Beorn wrote:
.. and complain bitterly.

I don't complain about the cold because I want to save it all for summer because I hate the heat so much.

kande50

I am no expert but I agree the trot looks a touch slow but it may be the video. I have struggled with telling the difference not between slow and collected but between small and collected. I guessed wrong often. Sometimes I'm not even convinced that some of the trots I see are collected, as the hor...

kande50

I'll have to be good because my ring is so small the movement changes come up quickly...fingers crossed! My indoor is small too, which I think has been a good thing because it forces us to make a lot of turns, and that has helped us develop better balance. But you're right that it does make it quit...

kande50

Xanthoria wrote:
You live in a magical, wonderful dream place...

Haha, except for the long, cold, snowy, winters. But, that's probably the only reason that so much of New England is still rural, so we build indoors, learn how to dress for the cold, and do our best to power on through it.

kande50

Our Halflinger and her mule kids are the culprits here. They're either banging on the gates, or lying down to eat under the fences, or just generally being destructive and obnoxious. They''ll destroy anything that isn't protected by hot wire.

kande50

Good idea backyarder, to try to ride some tests at home. Demi, it also sounds like you have a good plan in mind for you and Rocky and Emma. I've just been trying to maintain as best I could all summer, but then this fall I met someone who likes to ride in the ring so we started riding together, and ...

kande50

Depends on your weather: Here in the west we get no rain March to October, and feeding a hard keeper on no grass is hell. Especially as a boarder - driving out to give extra feeds, hanging around for hours, huge feed bills... ugh! True. We have lots of grass from May through Nov, and we like haying...

kande50

Hard keeper I prefer hard keepers, because they can be turned out on grass all summer and eat free choice hay all winter. I think easy keepers are a lot more work because I need to feed them often enough so they don't develop ulcers, but at the same time limit their feed so they don't get too fat.

kande50

Maybe the trigger they mention is some tick illness. Someone should look at the demographics wrt Lyme areas. Agree, because Lyme may be a risk factor for all sorts of things, although testing positive in a high Lyme area may mean little, because even if they don't test positive on the PPE they prob...

kande50

Speaking of clipping, I have only ever clipped my horse that had Cushings. He grew a coat that came off like a fur blanket, ugh......I took his coat down all the way... Is there a way to clip lightly? And not get all the way down to the hide? As in leave just a shorter coat? I used a #10 wide blade...

kande50

And even if the saddle doesn't actually help anyone stay on, if believing that it might help gives them enough confidence so that they continue to ride, then it helps.

kande50

The deep seat, big knee roll saddles are helpful for typical riding and especially sitting big gaits. However, I do not think any saddle is helpful when a horse spooks sideways and swings around. Centrifugal force will get you off in any saddle. Depends on the size of the spooks, as I've survived s...

kande50

I will do my best to keep updating and commenting on this thread. I will also try to figure out the photo posting as I have tons of photos!!!!! Just when we think we're aware of every possible thing that could ever go wrong, we find out there are new and different ones. What rotten luck to get hook...

kande50

And it sounds like the big knee rolls do help. I haven't put much thought into thigh blocks. Thigh blocks are in back of the leg right? . I've been calling the ones in front of my thighs "thigh blocks" because they aren't just knee rolls because they extend higher, although my knees do co...

kande50

I'm riding in a Wintec Contourbloc now, for the same reasons you feel like you're ready for more saddle now. Two of the horses I ride are spooky, and I felt like I'd already had enough close calls in my flatter saddles that it made sense to get a saddle that could help me more *before* I came off, r...

kande50

Last winter, when I finally realized that if I wasn't going to ride I needed to start an exercise program, I started using two heavy walking sticks whenever I walked anywhere. I was doing it partly for my posture and partly because lifting them worked my abs, and kept switching to bigger ones as I a...

kande50

I hear you on the challenge of "sitting chilly" in the lateral work and calling the horse to it. I'm becoming convinced that anytime my body isn't within a fairly small range of motion (similar to hands staying in a relatively small box of space), I'm probably doing something funky. I usu...

kande50

My mini has gotten in with each of the 3 boys at least once, and while I don't know whether there were any close calls she was fine when I found her. She's so small though, and the boys are so big and aggressive that I've tried to keep them separated, but maybe because they already knew each other t...

kande50

Kande50 - That's how I saw it done on a Warrick Shiller video - reward good behavior by taking away the hose/water. Funny you start at the bottom and I start at the top....LOL....whatever works.... I'll start at the top with the ones who aren't going to hurt themselves trying to get away, but some ...

kande50

When I first started taking my horse to shows he spent more time with his head up staring than he did moving. His biggest problem though, was when someone unloaded a grey horse from a trailer and he thought it was his grey mare at home. That was the most forward (and most lopsided) test I ever rode ...

kande50

The aisle spigot has hot water, so I will start with that. Of course, it all depends on her mood. Chestnut mare. I start at the bottom and work my way up. If they start moving I don't take the spray away until they stand still again--at least for a second or two. I am careful not to work my way up ...

kande50

]No, its the opposite. I had no true impulsion, I had rushing. they feel very different to me. If you think of them both as excess energy then yes, you are right. Impulsion is a positive push, but rushing to me is mismanaged high energy. I had to remove that completely for a time. I don't think of ...

kande50

My point was do you lift the sternum to find balance (@ halt walk etc) or do you use leg to engage to get a secondary result of the sternum lifting? I'm guessing that the secondary result of using the leg may be related to keeping the horse forward? The lesson of the leg is an important part of the...

kande50

I imagine this is climate-dependent as well. I live in the hot and humid and sticky part of Texas, where sweat is a way of life. The horses sweat in turnout, under saddle, and sometimes in the stalls. No amount of cool-out unless under fans is going to stop the sweat. So true. If I lived somewhere ...

kande50

Tsavo wrote:This is a faux debate. As faux as creationism versus evolution.

Maybe because I'm talking about "classical" dressage in which the horses actually collect, and you're talking about competitive dressage in which they stay on the forehand?

kande50

I asked a GP trainer knowledgeable in this issue and as I recall he said everyone is doing balance in movement including the BBM crowd after the first little bit whether they realize it or not because nobody is constantly coming back to halt the entire training career. There is no debate and no div...

kande50

Nobody is doing BBM after the first few weeks and some never screw around with it and get up the levels. BBM is not a thing that warrants discussion because nobody who knows what they are doing is doing it for any time except the first few weeks. EVERYONE is doing BIM 99.999999% of the training tim...

Search found 1782 matches