Notes from recent JJ Tate clinic

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piedmontfields
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Notes from recent JJ Tate clinic

Postby piedmontfields » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:12 pm

[Note: While many of these notes are very close to the language JJ uses, please do not treat them as a transcript! I've ordered the notes according to themes, rather than around specific horse-rider pairs. I am happy to clarify as I can. I think I am beginning to understand just how profound it is to be attentive to "lining up and stacking up" my horse all the time---in all movements, as often as it takes.]

Notes from JJ Tate Clinic

Line up and stack up your horse


Notice if your horse is tending to drift or swing out at any point. As we demand more collection (ex. 3rd level horse), horses will often drift to avoid rotating the pelvis. Keep the outside hind in line and carrying weight. Most horses want to pull on the left rein and swing the haunches right. You will need a lot of right leg to address this when you first start.

More on lining up or stacking up your horse: Line up the shoulders and hind legs. When the horse is misaligned, the hind leg has too far to travel.

With piaffe work, be very attentive to escapes out the hind (and avoidance of weighting).

Developing Collection

All energy first goes to roundness over the topline.

For collected canter, find the feeling of rein back within the canter. You might access this by make your aids more rein back-like (lighten seat, legs further back). This will help you get to a “standing canter” where the rider is sitting/standing up and we are not covering ground.

Step by step, teach your horse to surrender his pelvis. Have the horse do his squats and take weight onto the hind. Think “stack him up and sit him down” as you do this. You might need to do this every other stride! A favorite exercise for the 2nd level+ horse is to do “horsey squats”: shoulder in, shoulder out, renvers and travers on a 20 m circle.

With a horse with a higher set neck, make sure he is bowing up over his withers. Consider using a neck strap to help, so that you can allow the neck to move out away from you.

Don’t do a training level movement and expect 4th level results. Use appropriate movements to assist your training. It’s better to match a 3rd level movement with a 3rd level horse and a 3rd level exercise. It is very hard to do higher level movements out of training level movements.

Being an effective trainer

In training, there is a point where being patient become accommodating. JJ noted that if she stopped one of her horses every time the horse got strong, she would never get anywhere. Your job as a coach to the horse is to amplify his gait. You have to push and go there to do this. You may have to rise above the white noise that your horse offers. Think of the big picture, like “we’re half-passing.” Do it---and then do it again! (JJ often says, you have to sketch out the movement for your horse. You will fill it in over time.) Think of the conviction some people have who are going after their silver or gold medal. Bring that conviction to your riding.

With a very sensitive, reactive horse: JJ suggested being “coldly stubborn.” Don’t do tit for tat. Think of being a stoic German male rider.

With a very supple horse, they can be kind of “undefined.” You have to provide clarity.

Make sure your whip accompanies your aids. It does not replace your aids.

If you have a problem with canter-walk, you need to identify the elements that are hard (ex. tucking the pelvis) and work on exercises that help this develop.

Different horses need different warm-ups and warm-up time. She noted that she has a horse who is a “17 minute wonder” but that is not typical for a warm-up. Also many horses do better working more than once a day, or at least with a long walking warm up.

Canter and Flying Changes

When a horse’s canter improves when you counterbend the horse, it is usually a sign that the horse is challenged in the pelvis. For some horses, it can be helpful to do a weird canter half pass, where you counterbend in canter and go sideways in the half pass movement while maintaining the counterbend.

Requirements for the changes are canter quality, acceptance of the aids, and timing/reactivity to the aids. This is why a spur can be useful (if you don’t normally wear them).

Exercise: Use serpentines with a walk transition over the center line to the new lead. Use counter canter on a 20 m circle. You will do tons of walk-canter-walk transitions. It takes basically 4th level strength to do canter-walk on a 20 m circle.

On a 20 m counter canter circle, keep the counter canter shoulder aids when you ask for the change in order to keep the front legs from getting ahead of the hind legs.

Another way of thinking about it is that each shoulder blade controls a hip/hind leg. For changes, you can think stack up, sit down, canter UP and CHANGE.

Bend is like the outside hock to the inside nostril. It is over that long distance that the horse’s back wraps around your inside sitbone.

Contact and Connection

Pay attention to the 4 channels of thoroughness: right hind to right rein, left hind to left rein, inside hind to outside rein and outside hind to inside rein. For example, you want to feel your horse’s right hind leg in your right ring finger.

Remember that the tongue is the last muscle of the topline.

Remember that your reins cannot be the 5th leg for the horse. You need to create some air in the reins.

Recognize what your horse is not being complete about. In one case, JJ noticed that a horse needed to finish his half halt. In another, the horse needed to finish her roundness.

Often playing with the opposite rein helps chewing on the other rein.

Remember, you want the horse to bow up! Think of putting the horse’s head in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow/the horse’s bowed up topline. (JJ often uses the image of how bright the rainbow is from left hind to left nostril/right to right. Many horses have "faded" parts in their topline rainbow, or their rainbow may come and go.) Always attend to more unlocking and more letting go as you do this. With contact, ride the corners of your horse’s mouth but don’t turn the horse unless you are changing bend.

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musical comedy
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Re: Notes from recent JJ Tate clinic

Postby musical comedy » Wed Jul 12, 2017 9:44 pm

Thanks much. Great notes as always.

Don’t do a training level movement and expect 4th level results. Use appropriate movements to assist your training. It’s better to match a 3rd level movement with a 3rd level horse and a 3rd level exercise. It is very hard to do higher level movements out of training level movements.

Maybe unclear. Could the term "training level balance" be substituted for "training level movements". What I think she could be saying is not to be bopping around in a long training/first level frame and then try to do a shoulder-in or half pass.

piedmontfields
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Re: Notes from recent JJ Tate clinic

Postby piedmontfields » Thu Jul 13, 2017 12:45 am

Musical Comedy--you're welcome. Yes, that is generally what JJ meant. Don't be doing 20 meter trot circles to prepare for your half pass work, for example.

piedmontfields
Bringing Life to the DDBB
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Location: E Tennessee USA

Re: Notes from recent JJ Tate clinic

Postby piedmontfields » Thu Jul 13, 2017 6:24 pm

Another fun comment from JJ: It's easy to do a great 2nd level test with a PSG horse. :-)

(She often elects to skip 2nd level showing---although there is no skipping the training that is involved in developing a horse through the levels.)


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