Advanced Dressage

Ok so first of all, not at all theory, but if you have competed in any dressage ever you should seriously consider reading Dressage for the Rest of Us. This was put together on COTH when I still had time to lurk there (yeah I *might've* contributed to the list; not that I'd ever admit that of course :). Funniest dressage thing ever. COTH is one of the better Equine BBs out there. Worth a read.

The things I could write in this section could (and has!) filled many books. I've decided that for today we limit discussion to some of the basic lateral movements, but it'll be more of a "what is" than a how-to. Honestly, for the how-to, my advice is simple: find a qualified coach. I'm adamantly against arm-chair riding lessons. These are not things to be learned off the Internet. No matter how many horrendous videos are out there. The what, however, can be :)

Lateral movements are ones that require sideways movement in some way, shape or form. They encourage flexibility, obedience, and coordination (of both horse and rider :)

Shoulder-in: in shoulder-in the horse's front legs come to the inside, so that the outside front is directly in front of the inside hind. The horse is flexed and bent to the inside (approx the same degree as for a 10m circle). The inside hock is engaged and carries the most weight. The horse travels forward on a straight line maintaining the inside bend to create the lateral movement. In this situation the horse is moving away from the direction of the bend. The most common fault when schooling shoulder-in is to overbend the head and neck; this causes the horse to lean on the outside shoulder and thoroughly defeat the purpose.






Traverse: in traverse the haunches come in instead of the shoulders -- the outside hind moves just slightly inside of the inside fore. The horse moves in the same direction as the bend. As with shoulder in, the most common fault in traverse is to overbend the neck, this is compounded by bringing the quarters in too much so the horse is at too steep an angle.






Renverse: is a combination of the above two. The shoulders come in off the track as in shoulder-in, but the horse is bent in the direction of travel as in traverse. The legs also move on four tracks, as in traverse (think haunches out rather than haunches in). Wanna guess the main fault in renverse? You got it, overbending the neck. This leads to the horse having to step just sideways instead of forward and sideways. Loss of rhythm and activity are also very common in this movement. This movement is rarely asked for in dressage tests, but is an excellent training exercise.






Half-Pass: my favourite :) Half-pass is essentially traverse on a diagonal. The horse moves forward and sideways on a diagonal line, bent and flexed in the direction of the movement.






So there are more of course -- pirouettes, tempis, and not to mention all the longitudinal movements! hahaha see how many of them you can pick out in this example (one of the few tests I've ever watched multiple times; could do without the commentary but as it's appropriate to this Theory Thursday I figured it'd be a good one to use):