Upon reflection of Jazzy's and my ongoing dressage training this past year, the following principles continued to emerge from our training with Andrea Attard, Conrad Schumacher, and Lyndon Rife, and are worth reviewing:
This is how to increase reliability: if the horse does something you don't like, just keep going, riding correctly, and make an improvement a little later in motion. Always ride with the outside leg, so that the connexion will be correct. Use the rider's outside leg to hold the horse round in the connexion; have the outside leg in a guarding position. It is very important that when you are riding the inside leg to the outside rein, you are also riding the outside leg which is guarding, as well as you can say a guarding outside rein. The principle is you bring the horse to the outside, not that you're holding the outside tight, rather bring the horse to the outside rein in a soft way. And when you have brought the horse to the outside, then the neck gets stable and gets soft and stays round.
Be very fussy about riding very accurate geometry, such as in circles. Understand the arena and know exactly where each size circle should be ridden according to the letters and your position in the arena.
Timing is everything. Strong position is everything. Correct contact and connexion is everything.
If you get a not-perfect walk to canter transition, freshen the canter and make it better first, then go back and improve the walk to canter transition. Otherwise if you immediately go back to walk, the horse learns that he was still a bit slow to the leg in the transition; instead make the canter better first, then go back to the transition.
The idea of training movements for a particular level is not worth much without the overarching idea of developing the horse correctly right now and to build on for the future. The idea of developing the horse by teaching him to carry and be in self-carriage is of utmost importance. Always examine and challenge the straightness, the bending, the connexion, and the lightness of the aids. In a moment of crisis, first establish that the horse is carrying itself (you are not holding it up nor pulling it down on the forehand with the reins), then establish that the horse is in alignment (the horse is not falling over the outside shoulder with neck in, but rather the horse is established into a good outside rein connexion and the rider's inside [and outside] leg is being used to keep the ribcage out in correct bend), and then make the contact good by suppling the horse within this already established correct balance and alignment. Developing the horse for the future by teaching it to move correctly in the way of a dressage horse is the most difficult thing, but the most important thing.
It's been a good year for learning, and I'm grateful to all my teachers including this four-legged one:
