Dressage Clinic with Bird

[which_chick]

 Went out and dressage clinic’d with Bird today.  He’s my four year old, started under saddle this spring, and he doesn’t have a whole lot of skills.  Mostly I took him out because my pony lady needed more warm bodies at her clinic thing and it doesn’t hurt him to Go Out and Do Things.  I didn’t expect much because he’s a baby but I ponied up my sixty-five dollars and drug my four year old out to the dressage clinic.  My instructor was enthusiastic about me going to this damn clinic because she allowed as how it would be Very Good for my riding.

Now, Bird isn’t an untouched lump.  He has basic skills.  He trailer loads and stands for saddling and bridling.  He knows how to work a mounting block.  He walks, trots, and canters without a whole ration of bullshit. He’s getting the idea of leads.  He leg-yields and backs up and sidepasses and turns on the forehand and hq.  These things could be better but he totally does them without drama or misunderstanding.  I mean, shit, he’s a four year old.  Big goals for a horse’s four year old year are to have three forward gaits and be steady and regular in them. The fact that he can also go out in public and not be an ass is also nice.

So we’re there.  Clinician is like “What do you do with him?”  Not much, yet. Eventually, he will do all the things.  I’m only middle-aged on the outside, still a horse-crazy twelve on the inside.  Clinician says he’d make a great endurance horse. Eh.  He’s an Arab and that’s what Arabs are for.  I’m not against that, but he doesn’t have a real job yet BECAUSE HE IS FOUR.  This is like asking me what my fourteen year old kid’s career is.  

Whatever.  We clinic.  We walk.  Bird has a nice walk out of the box and he does his nice walk.  Good boy, Bird!  I don’t feel like I get a lot of instruction on his walk but I’m OK with that because it’s regular and cadenced and he steps well under himself and really, that’s pretty OK for a walk.  

We talk a bit about what exact skills Bird has (not many) and what he can do. We walk some more and then she has us turn on the quarter line and leg-yield to the rail.  Bird can do this.  Not only can he do it, he can do it nicely. She compliments his leg-yielding.  We do that a couple of times (going off my right leg, his less-good direction) and she has us pick up a trot.  She says I need to post smaller, closer to the horse, to give him some rein, and to let him slow down and get his legs under him without flailing.  (He is an arab.  Left to his own devices, he flails about upside-down.  Even I know this is not correct.) She also says I need to keep my hands even and together and “related” whatever the hell that means.

By now Bird has shut down into a very small jog.  The forward is completely gone and he’s not covering any ground.  I do not feel that this is a worthwhile trot but right before I go to shove him forward the clinician says, “Yes, that’s it!  Right like that.”

Me in my head:  My word, that’s a very small jog.  It feels like he is not going forward at all. His head drops to level, but jeez, he’s not moving forward.  All his forward is gone.  

This is the trot she likes?  It is a more-correct trot, she says.  (There’s no forward. Why do I have no forward?  Seriously, there is no freaking forward here.  Is my horse defective that we can’t have forward?  WTH?  How can this be more correct when it lacks CRITERIA #1 which is GO FORWARD?!  I mean seriously, until you have GO FORWARD, you can’t work with anything else.)  He feels like he’s going to fall out of this trot all the time.  I am not allowed to post bigger to move Bird more forward so I have to keep nudging him with my legs to keep him going in this not-a-forward-trot thing because if I leave him alone for four strides, he walks again.  

I thought endless leg-nagging was wrong.  It’s certainly leg-nag annoying.  It’s wrong leg-nagat my regular lesson leg-nag on Nani-horse, but clinician is leg-nag TELLING me to leg-nag my horse leg-nag for this shitty jog. I feel leg-nag like Bird is a reasonably clever leg-nag and enthusiastic horse.  Why leg-nag does she want me to leg-nag at him the whole time while posting leg-nag tiny in this not very forward jog leg-nag effort?  I don’t get it.  (Seriously, that’s about how much leg-nagging was going on to keep Bird in the shitty jog.)

I continue tiny, tiny posting while letting Bird slop along in the aforementioned shitty jog that I leg-nag him into maintaining every third stride or so.  Ugh.  We make some 20-meter circle-ish things.  They are trotted and very, very slow. They are pretty much round.  You can tell they’re supposed to be circles and failing.  Clinician feels I need to look between his ears and magically convince him to bend and turn without dragging on the rein or englishing him around. This only partially works, hence the ‘failing’.  We do two “circles” and Bird is tired.

We reverse and walk the other way a bit.  We leg-yield at the walk to the rail and pick up a jog, as previously.  Again the clinician gives us leg-yielding compliments.  I can leg yield at the walk.  Noted.  Leg-yielding at the walk is apparently the only damn thing I can do.  (Also, regular pony lady says I do it wrong.  Argh.)  

I generate The Jog again, that very non-forward jog that requires regular Bird-nudging to keep him moving onward.  We get compliments from the clinician on this horrific and nonforward jog.  My god, it sucks.  I do not want the kind of life where I have to nudge my horse every third stride to keep him going. Clinician suggests that probably I should even engage in pre-emptive nudging to keep him on the right track vis a vis this jog.  I hear: Your horse, whom you thought was reasonably clever and enthusiastic, cannot be trusted to keep trotting on his own.  You must micromanage him because he’s Just That Dumb. We do some big circle-ish efforts going this way, too.  Again, they are trotted, very slow, and kind of round. Bird is now very tired, indeed.

I’m like “He does canter” and clinician allows as how I can try that if I want. Subtext I probably should have paid attention to but didn’t:  You idiotic mouth-breathing redneck, your horse can barely trot and he’s exhausted.  There is no way he can canter at this juncture.  I give it a whirl, but he’s way too tired.  Boy is whipped and hasn’t got anything to offer.  My horse is too pathetic to make it through a forty-five minute lesson.  Kindly packer horses with fat middle-aged ladies (I should clarify:  OTHER fat middle-aged ladies who are not me) aboard can canter but my horse?  Nope.  No canter.  

I throw in the towel on that after one humiliating and useless effort at cantering and then actually get complimented on realizing my horse is beat.  Yay? (Y’know, if the only thing you can find to compliment about my riding is that I manage to grasp that my horse is whupped after you’ve done told me he is, after Lala (spectating) has done told me he is, and after I’ve asked him to canter anyway in spite of the two previous pieces of information and he can’t bloody well manage it, then I feel like you’re really illustrating the phrase damn with faint praise.  “Good job observing reality after you’ve been hit in the face with it about three times!  I told you he was whupped, Lala told you he was whupped, and HE told you he was whupped and then you finally listened. You’re sharp as a tack and super-quick on the uptake.  Nothing gets by you!”)

So, at that point we’re just wandering around the ring in circles at the walk with no life left in the horse (he’s beat – beat enough that it’s even clear to me), and since I still have more time (time that I keep thinking could have been bags of feed) left, I ask the clinician what else I should be doing with this horse, like where do I go from here.  I mean, clearly I am not accomplishing shit with him because he can’t even trot decently.  So, can I get a road map for where to go from here?  

Clinician suggests letting him plateau at this level of incompetent uselessness for several months.  She is not willing to give me any other suggestions to work on because “Young horses need to feel confident that they can do their jobs.  It’s bad for horses when nothing they do is ever good enough.”  I hear:  I shouldn’t attempt to do anything with him besides this remedial jog where I have to nudge him every few steps.  Also I am a nasty cruel bitch who has already destroyed this horse’s confidence.

I should just shoot him now.  He’s a shitty little parrot-mouthed backyard gelding with no athletic ability.  Five months under saddle and he can’t even trot acceptably.  

I can’t feel how this very small trot is supposed to be better than the other.  I have no idea why it’s better.  It doesn’t go anywhere.  If he’s tracking up or whatever, I can’t feel that.  I can readily make him do whatever it is that he’s supposed to be doing by mini-posting and letting him have a shit-ton of rein while he slops along in the slowest possible thing that can be classified as a trot while leg-nagging his ass every couple of strides to keep him from dropping out of it, but that is the extent of my understanding.  If I wanted a life where I mini-posted and let my horse have a shit-ton of rein to slop along in the slowest possible trot while leg-nagging his ass every couple of strides, I would show western pleasure.

Argh.  Clinician said repeatedly that he was a lovely boy and doing very nicely and giving a solid honest effort but I have no idea what the hell she was talking about because from where I’m sitting, it damn sure looks like he can’t even fucking trot.  Maybe he’s pleasant?

So, sixty-five dollars (four hundred pounds of feed, which is two weeks’ worth) later, we have learned that I post too big, look too much toward the center of the circle instead of between the horse’s ears, and don’t keep my hands together and unified.  I need to relax my shoulders and arms and have softer hands.  (At everyday lesson I get told to hold the stupid reins and to not be all open with my fingers.  I do not understand reins.)  I also learned that my horse can’t trot worth a damn and needs to spend the next forever doing Remedial Jogging.

This has really inspired me to go home and… not ride. 

FML.

Comments

[isaacsapphire]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Did you get anybody to video tape you, at the clinic or previously?

Because it's hard to tell if she's full of shit or has a point without video. "Doing it right" can feel wrong, if you're used to doing it wrong, but if this was supposed to be dressage and she didn't go into if that was supposed to be a collected or medium or extended trot (and it doesn't sound like it was any of those) I have some doubts about if the clinician knew much of use for you.

[which_chick]

I have some video from when he was four, but basically she was dead on. She typically is, even though I whine like an overtired toddler every time I clinic with her. *sigh*

In fall of 2015, under saddle, Bird looked about like this. This is him doing his remedial jogging efforts following the DLB clinic.

This is not a horse on the bit. This is not a horse with a subtle understanding of the aids. This is a horse just beginning to carry a rider in a non-inverted frame. He is not ready to play collected/medium/extended because he barely has the strength to trot with a decent rhythm. You gotta walk before you can run, remedial jog before you can medium trot.

Before there can be any fun dressage stuff, your n00b horse who has just started his under saddle career has to learn to carry a rider forward in a nice, rhythmic trot with his head level, his abs engaged to lift his back, and his hind legs stepping up well underneath him. But this is super hard work for him and he doesn't have the muscles to do it yet.

One of the ways to help a baby horse do a "better" (more mechanically-correct in the eyes of the dressage world) trot is to slow down the speed of the trot. Slowing it down reduces the effort needed and makes it within-his-capabilities-to-do. Nudging him with your lower leg helps him remember to engage his abs and lift his back. Allowing him to "slop along on a loose rein" gives him the freedom and confidence (because he likely doesn't understand rein aids well yet) to put his head down and find a better balance point than throwing his head up in the air and being all hollow. Remedial jogging, though I hate the living shit out of it, is the slowed-down but still mechanically-correct form of trotting that young horses need to do in order to develop the abdominal strength to perform a decent dressage-style trot that can be shaped into collected, medium, or extended (once you also get contact on-line and some idea of seat cues and so forth). Ideally, said trot should have horse being, well, round over his back, and stepping well under himself and pushing with his hinds.

Bird after two years of remedial jogging efforts, note rounded outline, better acceptance of the bit:



Unfortunately I don't have video of him, but we are seriously coming along.

[which_chick]

One of my primary objections to/about DLB is that she is like "Okay, like that! Do you feel that?" and I'm "Er, lolNOPE" 100% of the time. It is hard for me to isolate the "feeling" she means from the gazillion other feelings.

She doesn't use words so much. Like, I just explained above (in the reply) about remedial jogging (purpose, etc.) in a way that is now very clear to me. But she didn't do the explain-y parts. She never does. The explain-y parts are left as an exercise for the student. I would like DLB a lot better with explain-y parts, but her stuff does work even without them. *sigh*

[isaacsapphire]

Yeeeah, I see it now.

Probably what you really need to do is get Bird's muscle tone up, if you have the time.

He looks like he really wants to do right, even if he doesn't know quite what to do yet.

I figure you've probably improved since the video, but your hands aren't quite... Following his mouth.