Active Stretch or Neck Down a Lightbulb Moment

Last week I read something that gave me a big lightbulb moment.  I follow a bunch of Dressage pages on FB, so I can’t find the article, but the gist of it was that an active stretch is very different from neck/head down.  In neck down, the horse willingly puts his head and neck down, but there is no requirement for energy from the hind feet, through the back, and up to the contact.  In an active stretch the horse is reaching to the contact BECAUSE the energy goes through in a circle from the hindquarters, over the back, and to the contact.  I read this and thought ding ding ding, this is what Jet and I are missing and why we struggle with energy and correct contact especially in the stretch.

Even though changing my posture has improved his posture tremendously, I still felt like something was missing about the energy and contact.  By stacking my blocks and subsequently not pushing him on the forehand things were much better.  The working gaits felt and looked pretty good but the stretches felt flat and were still a touch behind the vertical.  The stretch happened when I put spaces between my vertebrae while staying stacked, but it felt soggy and not active like the working gaits.  

After reading the article I did a search on the Dressage Naturally Video Classroom and bingo the lightbulb really went on.  We’ve been closer to correct during the working gaits, especially after fixing (mostly!) my posture, but we’ve been missing all the benefits of a true active stretch.  By having decent energy in the working gaits and then just letting him drop his head and neck with the energy fizzling out, we’ve been missing out on all the back lifting, neck stretching, through-ness inducing goodness of an active stretch.  

I’ve been playing with this concept the past couple of rides and WOW has it made a difference to the volume of his gaits, how easy it is to sit everything, and the quality of the stretch in the mirrors.  Thinking connection,, alignment/balance, then energy while staying stacked firmly in my vertebrae helped my working gaits.   However, keeping all of this and adding spaces between my vertebrae to actively stretch instead of just going neck down has opened up all sorts of new possibilities.  How did I not know this?