Blog
February 2007
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.
Update, Update, Update
Ah ha! The secret HorseBlogs announcement at last!
So, my little server move last week did have a purpose, but it’s not one that’s really relevant to anyone reading this blog except for two things.
One: you can now access this blog by going to haltnearx.com. That’s for anyone who hates the dashes in the URL.
Two: I’ve moved HorseBlogs to its own domain. The reasons are many, and complicated… yeah, ok. Not so much. I could, so I did.
In the long run, I think it’ll be healthier for the database this way. For instance: suppose someone liked the idea of the database but thought that I was a raving lunatic? This way, unless they actually read the About pages and follow the links (and who does that?!), they’ll never, ever know I had anything to do with it. Sneaky, right?
Also, this makes it easier to credit/give fair weight to anyone else working on the database—there’s more neutrality this way. (And suddenly I crave Swiss chocolate…)
Now, I’ll admit it’s not quite done. The design is a bit rough, and I haven’t even looked at it in Internet Explorer, but I can think of at least three layout errors it’ll have off the top of my head. (So why didn’t I fix them? Good question. Because I loathe Internet Explorer with the fire of a thousand gas grills and I refuse to put in the hacks to fix all IE’s problems until the very end.) So you’ll have to excuse the rough edges until I get some sleep and can add those hacks in.
Also, you’ll notice that not all the new features are up and not all the blogs have been moved over. All my excuses sound like whining, so I’ll just point out that what is there, works. That’s something, isn’t it?
So, without further rambling—the new site: http://HorseBloggers.com
Oooh, I love site launches. Even half-complete site launches. They make me feel all fuzzy.
Blog Carnivals
Back in January, Horse Approved organized a Blog Carnival for all of us horse bloggers (and readers!).
The concept behind the Blog Carnival is fairly simple: a theme is set and any horse blogger is welcome to submit posts from their blog—new posts, posts from the archives, posts written especially for the Carnival. If you don’t have a post that meets the Carnival’s theme, you can always submit one for the “General” category (as long as it’s horse related, of course).
A different blog is hosting each carnival—they list all the submitted posts and sometimes the blog owner adds a brief comment or two as well. The end result is a list of links to blogs that have posted on the topic. So it’s a great way to discover new blogs or to find old posts in blogs you already read that you might have forgotten about.
The first carnival was hosted at Horse Approved, and people submitted their favorite blog posts. There were twelve posts submitted from ten blogs. Find the links here.
The second carnival was hosted at Bridlepath, and the theme was Barbaro. Twelve submissions from twelve blogs (I think I counted correctly). Find the links here.
And the third carnival will be hosted by Hoofbeats with the theme “A Love for Horses.” The carnival will appear on February 14, so you should submit your posts before then! (Plus, you can submit two posts! Now I don’t have to choose between Super Saint and Project Pony! Wheee!)
Everyone is welcome to submit—whether you read and comment on any of the host blogs regularly or just happen to come across the Blog Carnival randomly. You can submit your blog posts here—it’s an easy-to-use form that takes thirty seconds.
You call that cold?
Suddenly everyone seems to be complaining of the cold.
This is the perfect chance for me to scoff and point out that it’s so cold here we can’t even put ice on the streets, because the ice doesn’t work (it just freezes anyway). This would be the perfect chance to point out that the temperatures hit twenty degrees and the horses started shedding out like it was spring (true).
But I’ll grant you a few things:
When you’re acclimated to warmer temperatures, realtive cold comes into play. Twenty degrees is a heat wave to us, but then, so is eighty degrees. And I can’t laugh at anyone for thinking twenty degrees is bitterly cold when I know perfectly well that, come summer, if the temperature hits eighty, I’m going to whine about melting… and the rest of the world is going to go “Eighty!? Eighty?! Try a hundred degrees on for size!”
So. Relative temperatures, right? You’re allowed to think twenty degrees is cold if I can think eighty degrees is too hot to tolerate.
Also, since the snow shows up and stays around for eight months, we sort of know how to deal with it. When you’re not used to snow at all, or are only used to it for a day or two at a time, it probably is very chaotic. Our snowplows are pretty much always on the road. Yours probably have to be dusted off. Assuming the drivers can remember where they left their keys. By the pool, perhaps?
I’m not entirely unsympathetic, you know. I once lived in a town where school was cancelled because it might snow the next day. They let everyone out early, so parents could pick them up and then make it to the grocery store to buy supplies. I wish I were kidding. It didn’t snow, in the end, but I think they let everyone stay out of school anyway. Just in case.
But here, we have laws about snow removal. For instance: you cannot shovel snow into the street. This is an actual law. Because that’s how much snow we get, and that snow doesn’t melt. Until May. Ok, April. But May sounds more dramatic, doesn’t it?
Hmm. I seem to have lost the point of this post. It’s just that everyone else is commenting on how cold it is, so I thought I should join in. Except that, it’s twenty degrees this week and that’s not cold. It’s a heat wave. I did mention the horses are shedding, right? I come out of the barn looking like I just got caught in the middle of a fur tornado.
Very weird. Maybe they know something we don’t know.
Meanwhile, any time you start feeling cold, just do what I do. Think of the places really far North, where there are electrical outlets at every parking space—because if you don’t plug your engine when you aren’t running it, you can’t get it started again. And (so I’ve heard) they leave their engines running when they fill up for gas.
Suddenly, your tempearture feels all warm and toasty again, doesn’t it?
All Ahead Full
The server move is done, so comments are back on. I am going to put the HorseBlogs submission form back right after I post this, as well, so that should be working too.
I will eventually get around to making a non-techy post. Really.