by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
So, it’s time for another thrilling adventure in dressage neepery. This time it’s all about the importance of the leg in riding, particularly in dressage. This all started when my coach blew my mind by telling me that in the leg yield (which is a maneuver in which the horse steps sideway while keeping their body parallel to the rail while still moving forward) the yielding leg ie the leg that is pulsing against the horse’s body and telling them to step sideways remains directly under the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
You would think I would have learned this before now given how long I have been riding (rode for the first time at 3 years old. Had my own horse at 7, sweet black and white paint named Suncloud), but it took riding with Leslie to help me truly, fully, understand how to control a horse almost exclusively with my seat and my core muscles. I can go from an extended canter to a canter so collected we’re almost cantering in place just by using those core muscles and thinking more up than...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
I was riding in a Bill McMullin clinic and had my mind blown, and I wonder why nobody ever told me this before. The shoulder-fore is not just a more shallow shoulder-in. It’s actually designed to get the horse straight on the rail. Here is how Bill explained it. The horse is narrower in the front than they are in the back, so if you keep their shoulders right on the rail they will always look like they are doing a slight haunches-in because their butts are much wider than their chests....
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
Today we were working on canter to walk transitions, and Leslie said you ask for the transition by lengthening your leg, sinking down into the horse, shortening his stride, but making the hind legs jump through more quickly, and you give the aid to walk when the horse’s withers and shoulders are coming up to you. I applied this technique and we had some perfect downwards. And then I realized that this was when I needed to be asking for the lead change when we were doing tempi changes....
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
I keep thinking if I write all this down my muscles will just magically start doing what I want, and isolate the way I need them to. It is starting to work, so hooray. One of the problem is that I was a ballet dancer for a long, long time. Toe shoes, the whole nine yards. But year ago I had to make a choice — riding or dance, and the equestrian sports and ballet are not compatible. I had to make a choice. Horses won… because of course they did because horses are magic and as the...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 7, 2023 | Blog
For years when I rode my low back would end up just killing me. I thought it was the price you pay to ride, but Leslie realized I was hyper-extending and arching my back. So, I tried to fix that, but I was going at it all wrong. I was trying to slouch/hunch and that ended up freezing my hip so I couldn’t swing through with the horse’s motion. And when the hip is frozen I ended up gripping with my thighs and my knees, and all that tension made my tempi changes (flying lead change)...
