Playing with Shoulder In

I thought I would write alittle this morning about something I have been experimenting with lately with Diego: the Shoulder In.

As you may know we come from a Dressage background so related movements are familiar to us both. I have neglected most movements though for the past 6 months in an attempt to spend more time focusing on exploration, experimentation and my own learning through feel instead of head knowledge. As time goes by it is clear though that it’s time to start working these movements into our workouts and regular fun time: Diego needs the physical benefits such exercises provide. The building of the ab, hip and haunch muscles, the extending of the hind legs & careful weight loading, balance practice etc

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In the world of dressage often as my old trainer used to say we complicate movements by studying each individual aid instead of the movement as a whole. I can say personally this was true for me and tends to “freeze” me as a rider… I stop riding because my brain and body can’t keep up/communicate. Then Diego stops because I froze… uhg.  One of the first people to help me unravel these dressage movements was Art of Natural Dressage founder, Josepha Guillaume  (www.josepha.info/ ) 

I believe her first comment was to not over-think things… just feel.  Feel what the horse does and try experiments with your body to see how he reacts. Secondly she says to simply make your body do what you wish the horses body to do: for instance turn your shoulders inwards for Shoulder In, keep your hips straight since that’s the goal of the movement.  This made absolute sense, by mirroring body movements I could eliminate the noise in my brain about “Do this do that”. 

The last week I was reading JP Giacomini’s blog (www.equus-academy.com) and found an entry on the “Aids for Shoulder In”. I would quote the specifics if I could remember them, but basically I came away with the idea to try weight experiments using my stirrups. So when riding Diego at the walk I attempted Shoulder In as usual, my shoulder turned in alittle, my inside leg swinging freely with his barrel and pressing lightly as the barrel swung towards the outside (that times your leg with his legs properly). This time I very carefully stepped into the outside stirrup a bit. I don’t normally keep weight in my stirrups much at the walk… it’s just how I ride, for better or worse, but this stepping into the stirrup made a HUGE difference! Diego fairly glided sideways suddenly!  O.O  3 steps in a row, body bent, crossing his legs over – and I could FEEL it. I am finally learning to feel the difference in his body when he walks like that!

This really made me realize just how important proper weight signals are. Diego had been waiting all along for me to give him a signal that made sense, apparently that shift of weight was exactly what he needed. 

   Yesterday I experimented a bit more with weight aids while riding. We had a brief trot around the arena to burn off some energy (we’ve had a COLD snap here! Brrrrr) and then a lap or 2 of canter both directions. I found the weight thing most helpful at the canter around curves. D is quite weak and unbalanced at the canter right now and leans terribly (for him atleast). No amount of lifting and releasing the inside rein gets him off his inside shoulder. I found it helped him significantly if I made sure my weight as very slightly to the outside stirrup (but not so much that my body was crooked!) and my inside leg rested firmly against his ribs as an aid to support him.

Definitely something I will continue to play with.