Half Out Half In

 

I feel like this picture encapsulates where we are in our dressage journey.  Halfway between riding and training in the more German style with heavier contact/aids and transitioning over to the school of lightness, Legerete.  It’s quite a change.  Anyway, things are going great, I think we’re on weekly lesson 5 or 6, but even though we’re doing a lot of the same things, it’s in a slightly different way.  Hence the half in half out.  

We usually start out lunging BUT in the Legerete way, which means in a cavesson, with a light contact in the line at all times, and a lot of parallel work down the long sides.  The biggest challenge for me has been not moving closer to get something and instead using in order, INTENTION, ENERGY, VOICE AID, REINFORCEMENT(like a whip wave/tap or shake of the line), and VOCAL PRAISE.  By following these steps Cruise is already so much more tuned to my cues, focused on me, and improving in his response every session.  It’s amazing to me how being much more picky about what you accept and reinforce makes such a big difference so quickly.  Also, I’ve learned from LM that my reinforcement can be much bigger, used a couple of times, and then he gets the message and we are done, instead of endlessly picking at him.

Then we do the flexions in the bridle and a little in-hand work.  This has mostly been the same but again, with more nuance, always starting from lightness, and being picky about what I release on.  We’ve also changed him to a mullen mouth straight bar egg butt snaffle which he seems to really like.  His right flexion is getting better, he is less chompy and giving more tongue releases, and his neck extension is getting pretty good.  The in-hand work is also improving, helped a lot, I think, by getting him much more tuned to my intention energy etc. while lunging.  He’s feeling much lighter to any cue at all, if that makes sense.

We’ve only gotten to under saddle in a couple of lessons but we’ve had some lightbulb moments.  LM wants me to ride much looser-as she calls it “LOOSIE GOOSIE”.  Also, she wants me to pull my shoulder blades down and ride with my hands a touch higher, giving forward instead of slightly down to follow the motion of his head.  And BOOM I have a forward horse.  Add in a slight lift of the hands for a second or two when he gets unbalanced or hurried, followed by going back to home base, and I finally, finally have Cruise forward AND off the forehand.

I’m really liking how in the system of Legerete everything leads to and reinforces everything else.  Without fine tuning the lunging and flexions, getting the easy response in the riding would have been much harder.  I literally worked on fine tuning the lunging and flexions/in-hand for a month without really changing anything in my riding.  Then when we added under saddle in our lessons all it took was a few small tweaks on my part to effect a large change in under five minutes.   LM says Legerete is a system that teaches the horses a language so that everything builds on everything else and the horse always understands what you are asking for.  

So far, Cruise loves this approach and so do I.