Notes from Kyra

  • Sit in with weight in your hips and even weight always
  • Elbow back – tighten tummy that’s your strength
  • Only outside leg asks in canter forward and only if needed
  • Don’t squeeze with leg, leg needs to be loose so you can give aid faster
  • Don’t hold horse’s head up
  • Horse is a river flowing freely between your legs – if you squeeze it’s like toothpaste
  • Don’t try to push with seat – does not work (let them try in halt)
  • Imagine knee as arrowhead – point towards head of horse and where you want to go
  • Pull in tummy and push intestines against front of belly
  • Keep elbow back with tummy strength
  • Loose fingers, loose leg – imaging leg moving within boot, so you can hold in tummy but not jam down with seat
  • Sit a little bouncy
  • If a horse collects he tightens his tummy muscles and gets shorter on bottom and longer on top, also means if collection right he gets fatter between my legs
  • Arrowhead knee points to mouth
  • You decide the frame of horse – i.e. more rectangular for younger horse, more square for trained horse – so frame is how long the horse is, not where the head is
  • Shorter frame = energy is up more than out
  • Stay equal on both hip joints and keep always parallel to horse (your hip to his)
  • If you want higher step you need to time when his leg is on the ground and ready to leave not set aid when in the air because then you push him down
  • Horse needs to be str on circle – too many are too bent to inside
  • He needs to carry me, not I carry him
  • Feel your feet moving in boot
  • Horse needs to balance with his own neck
  • Seat bones bump within you
  • Carry knee with muscles of your upper thigh, let back of upper thigh drop down
  • Fell that you can put his front leg in front of his hind leg
  • In a normal canter I should not work so hard
  • Slow down canter without leg aid, then set impulse when he slows down not before
  • How light can I be before he stops
  • Ride withers towards his mouth
  • Withers come up in collection
  • Point withers where I want to go not the head
  • Never get stuck in one speed within gate, you can always make more collected or more forward
  • To change something in your body and re-learn you first have to take it back out of sub-conscious and bring back to conscious so you can change it
  • Sometimes you can transfer for your clients from s.th. else they already know (champagne glasses)
  • You can do mental training if you have felt it, you can re-create in your mind
  • Lot of problems originate in seat, so check that first, rather than correcting leg, arm, hand etc
  • If you look to outside, hips come to inside
  • Hips can steer the withers
  • Sit relaxed in bum, just let the seat bones bounce
  • You always turn withers not head
  • Weight is similar to skiing in middle of body not upper body
  • Don’t’ ride the saddle ride the back
  • Reins go around the chest and you keep the chest close to you
  • Imagine reins as a ring around chest, if your contact is not even, you only spin the ring
  • Use leg independent from seat and arm, but you can use at same time
  • Chest comes back to me
  • You can’t force a horse to relax, you just have to wait
  • Wait for the horse to start its gait in back before you follow it
  • Make the horse wait for me in corner, then I turn him
  • Need 100k reps to put something into my subc
  • Use whip on outside in canter just like the leg
  • Vertebrae in neck more flexible than in back, bend comes from horse rotating muscle not really bending in back => tense horse cannot bend
  • Collect w/o leg = don’t squeeze to collect
  • If a horse does not wait for me to turn him, they fall in in corner and riders push them out = wrong, make him wait for you and then you get to turn him
  • Shoulder in means withers of track, once you get that you can make it pretty – not neck in, bum out
  • Small quick impulses with leg, not squeeze
  • Feel the back, it starts to trot or canter and then you follow
  • No compromise, always ask for 100%
  • In leg yield same weight in both hips, ask to move over with leg, not hand, seat etc – it is called leg yield!
  • Shoulder in – don’t use leg to push butt out, same weight in hips, don’t stop horse on inside rein
  • Gelding you tell, stallion you ask, mare needs three applications
  • Horse needs to stay light in base of neck
  • Quicker steps w/o chest running away, don’t overbend on circle
  • Use your leg until horse changes, don’t let horse change you!
  • If horse gets behind me, shorter, quicker steps
  • 3+1 reins good way to create tunnel
  • Keep curb on bottom, that way you can lift horse with snaffle
  • Canter impulse on outside and when he is coming back up
  • In flying change make horse str with outside rein instead of flexing to new inside
  • Don’t put leg to far back, brings haunches over and leg is not effective further back
  • Keep leg by girth you ride the back not the haunches
  • Don’t carry your horse
  • Quick steps rather than collection
  • Sit there with no leg until he carries me
  • When I have more horse in front of me, I can use leg again
  • Once they understand I need to back off with aids and let them do more and more on their own
  • Using whip on inside in canter often makes them drop inside leg
  • Balance horse as if he is a bicycle if you hang off to one side = fall over
  • Needs to shorten underneck = lengthen topline
  • You can use whip on outside shoulder to turn
  • You can teach timing for leg through posting where you use leg when sitting down
  • In posting trot you cannot lift him with leg so he has to do it himself = do passage posting
  • Elbows at waist keep steady contact, but shoulders are soft to follow movement
  • Needs steadiness, if he resists siderein you don’t make it 10 holes longer, so why put hand forward when he resists?
  • For extension your ride the hindlegs forward
  • Your hips parallel to horses
  • The further your leg goes back the weaker it gets
  • Hips are more your center because they are more forward than your seatbones, hip is a joint and can follow movement
  • Lower back neither round nor hollow
  • If I can let contact go and he stays still with me = correct
  • In travers my inside leg is for bend, my outside leg is for go over
  • Don’t get upset if they don’t do it right away, give them time to think
  • Curb pulls down, so not crossing is better
  • Head weighs 10% of total weight, so I should give it only 10% of my attention
  • Between hands and legs you can springload horse, if too much explode, if too little fall apart (remember dirt ball) – and remember even left and right contact
  • Watch young horse – run free, should do fly changes both directions easily
  • Most horses not late behind, but early in front
  • If a horse leans to outside in canter, difficult to change in that direction because I normally want to unbalance him a little into that direction to get him to change – so use outside leg more and keep forward
  • Focus 90% of your thinking on his back
  • Lift knee so you can freely use lower leg
  • If horse pushes to one side, use quick impulses on that side and turn him away from it (outside leg turns him)
  • 3+1 keeps curb steady and I can use snaffle to lift him, 3 in outside hand
  • Passage needs to be in the trot before I ask for it
  • Stay solid in tummy and lower back and don’t follow horse to much
  • He needs to do it first, then I follow
  • Improve fly changes by improving canter
  • Make horse shorter in halt by stepping up, then RB, step up again, then let neck out w/o him walking off
  • Once you have that more compact feeling recreate in all gaits
  • Same weight in both hands and hips
  • Sit still in Piaffe, use leg on way down
  • Use leg when hips are on their way down
  • When he gives it to you relax, but don’t stop working
  • For tempi changes – move legs like climbing steps not move whole body like drunk
  • Keep my head straight and move eyes only
  • My head aligned with withers
  • Different exercises require diff muscles, so work all of it on diff days – 2 hard days, one easy
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