Why you are not getting the marks you want in your dressage tests

Dressage is a complicated yet super simple sport. It tends to look quite easy to do and is thought to be schooled a lot more the it is. But at the foundation dressage is mastering the basics, it is finding a clear line of communication and trust with your horse to get them to do what you ask.

So I ask, when you go to a dressage lesson do you feel the clear communication, do you feel your horse understands you, trusts you, listens to you? And when they don’t, do you feel frustrated? Do you feel like you need to force them to do what you ask in fear of the next movement coming up?

Don’t worry if it is you. Because we are schooled to learn to master the movement rather than the actual point of the sport. We get marked on how well our movement looks rather than the ability to communicate the movement to the horse, and yes that should have been trained before hand but point of an instructor is to get you the results and the way our brains work is that we will try to find the path of least resistance, so your trainer will find a way to get you to do the movement.

And so now I ask, does it ever feel like you have to bend yourself into 2? Like there is no way you just mastered a leg yield and now have to move yourself in a completely different way to get into a half pass?

That’s because there is a gap in the connection. There is a gap in the trust your horse has in the ablilty to move because you have created resistance.

Think of it like this, you’ve probably been told in order to do a shoulder in you need to take your inside leg a bit back, bend the neck… but not to much, push the shoulder over with the outside rein and keep them going with the outside leg. Now that seems like a lot of work, and a lot of resistance, and your doing all the work. If you’ve ever been to a yoga class and been adjusted by the instructor you will understand that most times it doesn’t feel comfortable, it doesn’t feel like something you will ever do yourself, and it might even make you feel more unbalanced.

So how do we fix that?

There is so much you can do to start creating a better line of communication with your horse and show them that they can trust you.

1. Develop a neutral pelvis A neutral pelvis will enable your seat bones to sit in a position that will allow your horse and yourself to feel them the most. This will in turn allow your horse to move with you in a better way and get you to make more accurate movements.

2. Become more aware of what you are doing in the saddle When you become aware of what you are doing in the saddle you can better understand where you are holding tension, you can describe to your instructor where you are putting pressure so that they can correct you if it is not in the right place, you can start to notice your horses imbalances and you can feel what your horse is doing underneath you.

3. Use dynamic imagery that will develop feel A lot of instruction tends to be static imagery. What I mean by that is, when an instructor tells you to do something they usually bring in static images such as a sack of potato’s, a wet towel, and a string. These images can be hard for us to imagine moving, especially on a horse, and they tend to create more tension than anything else. When we think of movement in the other hand that tends to create more movement into the body and therefore we tend to stay on a bit longer. Images can include things such as water, pendulums, anatomical movement and so on.