Thursday, July 12, 2012

Bringing the hind feet closer to the front feet....

Laura put us to work again Monday with more canter half pass but this time we practiced flying changes!  I'm really getting a sense of the collection from the visualization that Laura provides of "bring the hind feet closer to the front feet."

As I may have mentioned previously, Tilly is such a light moving horse that I frequently rely on Laura to tell me if her haunches are in the right place or avoiding an increase in work load.  I'm now realizing that I also couldn't quite feel the placement of her haunches because they were pretty far out behind.  This week I actually felt the hind feet stepping right underneath my seat! 

Tilly also has a tendency of leaning into the forward motion with her chest, thereby dropping her withers.  So I attempt to conjure the image in my head of a line connected to Tilly's hind feet reaching up to the sky, through her chest.
 
My goal is to increase the slope of the line by lifting my spine and seat up and away no matter what exercise we are currently executing.  Hopefully, if I lift correctly, Tilly will lift her chest like the example horse.

 This helps sooo much and we are correctly positioned for much longer periods of time. 

-------------------------------------------------
The exercise that helped me really feel the collection was similar to my simple change on a figure 8 (previous blog).   The size of the 8 decreased significantly and the walk portion was eliminated.



Exercise:

Begin schooling Canter half pass by turning down center line.

Gradually decrease size of the turn to introduce working pirouette and 1/4 pirouette. 

The horse shifts balance to haunches in 1/4 turn.

Use the balance to flow over into a short half pass.

Maintain collection (dont't buck!!) and ask for change when entering the red circle zone.

Immediately regroup and begin asking for working pirouette in new direction.  Proceed to half pass and flying change.

This is a work in progress for us because Tilly continues to BUCK really hard in the flying changes. 
Interestingly enough, she does fly the change behind first, so we aren't far off from correct.  I just have to keep doing the exercise and asking her to step under and not buck up.  Wish us luck and if anyone has some advice - I'm open to suggestions!!!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment