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Re: [RC] [RC] dressage instruction for endurance riders - Laurie Durgin

I took both dressage and hunter lessons.Hunter is useful to teach you 2pt. and balance. Dressage is good for teaching arm position, sitting straight and balanced and more refined movements. How to use your seatbones, leg cues, and how to sit deep. Now all said and done I didn't use it all in my trail training. I dont' ride with hardly any contact. R. hates it and is really light. I don't drive with my seat, him anyway, as he is light on leg cues and is fast eough. It has helped with Honey though, as she is acting like a plug in the ring. It helped to teach him leg yields and shoulder fores. I use on trail sometimes to get his attention or to get around stuff and it helps with their flexiblity. 2 pt .from Hunters helps me on h ills and jumping some stuff and with confidence.
And sitting deep has helped me stay in saddle with those sideways spooks and occasional spins.
I found the book "Cross train your Horse" by Jane Savioe to be really detailed and self explanatory.
Not all trainers are equal though. You may have one who is "one track minded" and won't help you acheive what is useful , you may need to talk to her or get another .I learned with my trainer to just learn what she taught and modify it or throw out what didn't work for us. laurie /


From: "Glenda R. Snodgrass" <grs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Ridecamp <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [RC]   dressage instruction for endurance riders
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 10:29:55 -0500 (CDT)

I would like some opinions on dressage instruction for endurance riders.

Hoping to get back into riding endurance, after a bit over 2 years of not
riding at all, I recently started weekly dressage lessons.  After four
lessons, I'm getting my legs back and my body is remembering how to ride
again, so on that front I'm pleased.  However, the lessons are not exactly
what I expected, which is where I would like some input from experienced
endurance riders who have also taken (or given) lessons.  I'm not sure
whether I need a different class (I'm doing group lessons), a different
instructor, or a different set of expectations and understanding of what I
am doing.

Most of the things the instructor tells me to do (full contact on the bit,
sit deep in the saddle and drive with my seat, squeeze tight with my lower
legs) are things I consider to be contrary to what I should be doing on a
distance ride (which is really the only thing I care about <g>).  I have
always tried to ride with most of my weight on knees and inner thighs with
my seat lightly floating above the saddle seat to stay off the horse's
back and out of his way, with my knees acting like a hinge/shock absorber
constantly balancing my body in this floating position.  This is an easy
thing for me to do, whereas setting deep, driving with my seat, is very
difficult and feels unnatural to me, which means I'll have to put forth a
lot of time and effort to learn it, and I'm not certain this is what I
should be spending my time and effort on.  I ultimately want to learn
better balance off the horse's back, not long-legged and deep-seated while
driving with my seatbones and squeezing with my lower legs.  I want to
learn to signal turns better with my body, but what I learned from reading
is to turn by facing the direction I want to go with my head, then my
upper body, and the horse would turn in the direction I'm facing. That's
definitely not what we do in dressage class, tho, my instructor has never
mentioned that concept at all.

I have the impression that my instructor is focused on teaching dressage
for dressage tests, which is not something I'm interested in (although the
rest of the class probably is), rather than teaching basic principles of
dressage which could be applied to distance riding.

So my question is this: do I need to learn this deep-seat riding style
that she is teaching before I can progress to other things that will be
useful to me in distance riding?  Is that a necessary component of riding
skill that I have missed out on?  Or am I in the wrong class?  Would I
perhaps be better off with a jump instructor learning hunt-seat
equitation, or simply a dressage instructor with a different method?

I'd really like to know what the rest of you do.

--
Glenda R. Snodgrass

Before you begin, consider ... The Net Effect
http://www.theneteffect.com
(251) 433-0196



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