I sent a copy of the video clip to Liz Graves and heard back from her this afternoon. Thankfully she was brutally honest (love this about her) and she put in writing some of the things I knew from watching the video but didn't want to say out loud.
Although G has developed more muscle and more strength, by overdoing lateral work and keeping too much contact with his mouth, we've hindered his back to front impulsion; he's not using his abdomen or back muscles properly and I'm using too much seat and leg on him. I truly have been so focused on contact and sideways movement that we've lost any ground we gained in the gaiting department. I watched this video a zillion times today, and I replayed in my head what was different between this and the work we did with Diane Sept a year ago. Diane had me bring out G's running walk with wonderful impulsion, which is so lacking today.
So what changed? I stopped focusing on "centered" riding as Diane teaches it and followed the more German art of dressage. I took up more contact, brought my hands up (sorry I wrote down by mistake) asked for too much contact, stopped stilling my center. Ugh, it makes me want to go back to simply riding the trails and enjoying the ride. No, that's not totally true as this did teach me a few valuable lessons. Prior to this I was an advocate that a good riding instructor doesn't need to know the gaited horse in order to advance the horse in its abilities. I now don't believe this is true. A good riding instructor can assist the rider in becoming a better rider; but not necessarily on a gaited horse. At least not one that needs work on its gaits. If someone doesn't understand how a horse should be using it's body in order to produce the proper gait, and only thinks "frame" well it just doesn't work. Regardless of how much they read. I love Deb to death, and I owe her a lot for the skills she has taught me, but not only did Claudia pick up things in the first 15 minutes that we were doing wrong, but a horsewoman who's opinions and knowledge I respect 100% picked up all the problems in a 7 minute clip.
Now we begin again....tomorrow we'll spend 20 minutes in the arena doing some suppling exercises and I don't care how cold it is, we're going to work on the outside track and work on gait. Root of the neck up, nose slightly in. I'll throw in some roll backs and maybe take him to the trail head and walk him up and down the hill for ten minutes.
Sometimes we get so wrapped up into the details of something that we lose sight of the big picture. Thankfully through Claudia coming to work with us and Liz being honest I can see the picture more clearly.
Oh, and this is another trainer that was recommended to me (by Liz) as he is a student of classical dressage rather than germanic. The funny thing is Mark Russell used to live around here! I'd heard his name but wasn't into dressage at the time. So I went to his website and found that he had two clinics here in New England the past couple of weeks, argh! I ordered his book Lessons in Lightness yesterday and am excited to see that he's now in Tennessee and not too far a drive from where we'll be living. Hopefully by then I'll be ready to start up anew!
http://www.markrusselltraining.com/
After conversing with Liz some more, she agreed that taking him back to the sidepull might be a good idea. So last night I pulled out our sidepull, which was covered in mildew since we haven't used it in some time. Cleaned it up, and tacked G up. After doing flexion using my hands on the bridge of his nose and on his neck on both sides, I did some flexion using light pulses with my hands on the reins. After about the 4th request the light bulb went off and he began to soften. I mounted up and the first 10 minutes I just walked him around the arena on a long rein. We did 3 loop serpentines and some circles. When I took up the reins and slightly bumped him he proceeded to give me a beautiful soft flat walk. No issues with where to carry his head, he just hit his own sweet spot and nodded away. So much lighter! Hard to believe a horse can get softer in a sidepull, but he did. We're going to spend the next 30 days in the sidepull and work in the oval track or arena. If we get an opportunity to trail ride I'll probably put him back in his snaffle, but we'll see.
Liz had mentioned at one of her clinics at EA that some horses were never taught how to pack a bit properly. I'm thinking this could be part of G's issue. This may be the next step in our journey.
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