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Logical Progression… but why?
This is the sort of thing I could probably have an answer to if I’d just use Google. Or if I would buy a book or two about dressage. But I’m feeling anti-search engine at the moment, so consider this a note-to-self until I can go find out the official reasons.
Or, if you know, feel free to enlighten me. Seriously. Why is the leg yield before the half pass on the training scale?
They’re basically the same movement, except that in the leg yield the horse is bent away from the direction of travel and in the half pass the horse is bent in the direction of travel. I “know” the leg yield gets taught first—and is taught, usually, before other lateral movements like shoulders in/out and haunches in/out (don’t ask for the fancy French terms. I forget). And after all those basics are there, the half pass is taught. But why—what is so significant about the change in bend relative to the direction of movement?
All I can think is what I’ve seen happen when riders are first taught leg yield—they’re usually at a point where they are still working on riding from the leg into the hand and not from the hand into… nothing, really. So an inside “bend” means holding the inside rein a little more—because they’re still more focused on the front end of the horse and haven’t quite zoned in on the back end, much less really figured out how to influence it.
Which is, frankly, one of the benefits I see from the leg yield—it helps break up the horse’s body for the rider so they can figure out how to influence the hind quarters.
So: such a rider going right, on the quarterline, leg yielding to the left and out to the rail. They hold the right rein to maintain the “bend” and most instructors I’ve seen will have the riders ask for one step sideways (push the hind end) and one step forward (make sure the outside leg is still active and asking for forward movement). And most of the time, the horse will blow through the outside aids and zip on a diagnol line to the rail. So the exercise repeats, and repeats, while the rider figures out how to coordinate all four aids: inside (right) rein asking for the “bend”, outside (left) rein insuring the shoulders keep pace with the hind quarters, inside leg asking for sideways movement, outside leg asking for forward movement.
And from this realization (figuring out how the aids can influence the horse—front and back—I can see where you can then progress to shoulder in/out and haunches in/out. And as the rider “gets” the exaggerated, lateral movements, they can refine and start working on actual bend—the sort of bend that goes through the horse’s entire body and isn’t a head/neck set. So the leg yield comes early because the movement itself encourages the rider to sort out the aids and figure out how they influence the horse (front and back). Am I wrong on this logic?
Then half pass. So we’re back on the quarterline, going right, preparing to half pass back to the rail. Except this time the horse is going to be bent left… ah. In the leg yield, the inside (right) hand is keeping the horse’s nose tipped right while the outside (left) hand is slowing the shoulder… but in a half pass, I would assume the risk is that, with too much left rein, the horse will blow through the bend AND move the shoulders too quickly—and if the rider doesn’t have a true understanding of how to ride from the leg into the hand, nothing they do will fix it. They’ll just add more rein and rubber-neck the horse, but it isn’t going to fix the problem—because the fix has to come from the inside (now left) leg holding the shoulder on its line while the outside leg pushes the haunches over. And I would bet that in the half pass, as in the shoulder-in, when the aids are correct you can completely give the inside rein and the horse will still maintain the correct bend—because the inside rein isn’t what should be getting the movement at all. But if the rider doesn’t understand how to break up their aids or how to influence the horse’s movement and hind end with the leg… there’s never going to be any actual “passing” in the half pass. Just a lot of bee-lining for the rail. In the leg yield, at least you can help the rider understand that each aid is doing something different—that’s not as intuitive in the way the half pass sets up.
That makes sense to me. It’ll be interesting to see how correct that logic is, whenever I look this up.
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Comments
You’re probably right about the overanalyzing—I’m good at doing that. You’re making more sense here than I am, I think!
On Feb 15, 2007, Patricia Barlow-Irick said:
It seems you might be over analyzing this… don’t you think the leg yield is just the more instinctive bend as the animal moves away from pressure on it’s midsection, while the half pass requires control of the neck and head.
Hey, but what do I know about dressage…. nada. Zip. Zilch.