Riding corners

From: Adele

Dear Jessica, I love your writing and your philosophy. I hope someday to ride in one of your clinics. Until then I want to thank you for your books and for HORSE-SENSE! THANK YOU!

I have been riding in all the clinics I can get to, and the last one I went to upset me quite a lot. I don't have a local instructor (I know you always say to find a good local instructor but there isn't one here so I just get lessons when a good clinician comes to the area). The clinician last month was a well-known trainer with a good reputation, and I think he is also a friend of yours, but I don't want to use his name here because I was very unhappy with my lesson and with something he said. I want you to tell me if I am right to be upset or if I misunderstood something! I know you will be honest. Here is the situation. My horse is a 12 year old TB and we have been working for about a year on the USDF First Level tests. I don't show but I care very much about doing dressage, and I always ride as well as I can at every clinic. According to the clinicians I rode with a couple of years ago, we did good Training Level work. After a year of hard work, I thought I was doing good First Level work. But apparently not. That's why I am so upset.

I rode with this man and at the end of the lesson I asked him when he thought we would be ready to move up to Second Level. He said, and I think I am getting this quote right, because I asked two people who were standing next to him: "You won't be ready for Second Level until you learn how to ride corners." Then it was time for the next lesson, and the rider was already in the ring, so I couldn't ask him to explain that. My feelings were very hurt. I had ridden my best and I thought I was riding well and my horse was doing well. Why would he say something so unkind? And what do you think he meant by that? Was he just trying to make me feel bad (in that case, it worked) or did he truly think that I was such a horrible rider that I couldn't even ride around a corner? I wish I had a local instructor I could have talked to about this but I don't, so I thought I would write to you and get some advice or even an explanation. He didn't seem like the kind of clinician who enjoys making all the riders feel terrible, but I don't know what happened after my lesson because I was so upset I had to leave. Maybe he made other riders feel terrible too. I know this isn't fair because you have never seen me ride, but I just want to know if you think he said such a cruel thing on purpose to hurt me, or if he thinks my riding is really so horrible?

Please answer this. I am having trouble sleeping because I am so upset. Dressage means so much to me, and I feel that I am hopeless because I obviously can't even do something as elementary as ride around a corner. Maybe I should just give up.

Despondently yours,

Adele

Hi Adele! Relax, get some sleep, you're probably doing just fine. I don't know who the clinician was, but I don't need to know him or even to see you ride to tell you that what he said was right. Think about it. He may not have said it in a kind and loving way, and it's very possible that he wasn't speaking nicely when he said it, but he was right. Your quote was:

"You won't be ready for Second Level until you learn how to ride corners."

I can't argue with that. Try to take it less personally -- make the "you" into "A rider", and change the sentence to "A rider won't be ready for Second Level until s/he learns how to ride corners." Make the RIDING, not your personal self, the subject of the sentence.

Now that you've done that, think about the phrase "how to ride corners".

It's not "riding around a corner" -- all of us do that even on our first pony ride, if the ride happens to incorporate a corner. The horse goes to the end of the wall, turns when it runs out of wall, and goes down the next wall. We stay on, we don't fall off the pony... does that mean that we rode a corner? NO. NOT AT ALL. It means that the pony meandered around a corner, and we went with it -- and that's ALL it means.

"Riding a corner" means quite a lot. It's not something that beginner riders can do, because it takes too many skills and too much knowledge and far too much coordination! A correct corner isn't trivial. To ride one, you'll need to:

- keep your horse moving forward evenly, with no change of pace through the turn (no speeding up, no slowing down)

- keep your horse bent correctly, which means that you'll have your horse in position going toward the corner, flexed and bent going into the corner, flexed and bent and turning smoothly and evenly through the corner -- and then --

- you'll reverse the process as you leave the corner and the turn becomes "just" a bend, and the bend then becomes "just" position.

And what will YOU be doing whilst your horse is stepping forward evenly and rhythmically, whilst moving from position to bend to turn to bend to position?

YOU will be riding every step, very quietly adjusting your own position, shifting the position of your hips and shoulders to parallel the positions of your horse's hips and shoulders, looking around your turn, feeling every movement of the horse and encouraging it to step through with the inside hind leg and reach into the bridle by stretching the outside of its neck (a stretch that your position will, of course, allow).

Riding a corner correctly means having the ability to deal with pace, rhythm, position, balance, turns and straight lines, and to deal with them smoothly and all at once. A well-ridden corner is the beginning of collection -- and THAT, I suspect, is what your clinician meant when he said "You won't be ready for Second Level until you learn how to ride corners."

So don't give up. You're obviously not hopeless, and you weren't being criticized unfairly or picked on; you were being treated like a serious rider, and reminded of something that you NEED to know, and need to be able to do consistently, if you're going to make the shift from First to Second Level.

Don't be insulted, take it as a compliment to your progress and determination, and keep on riding and learning! And above all, keep on enjoying it.

Jessica

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