Aids for Leg Yield

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MegaBeast

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I've just bought "Basic Training of the Young Horse" by Ingrid and Reine Klimke, which on an initial look through appears excellent. However, the aids it gives for leg yield are at odds to the aids given in other training manuals eg "Down to Earth Dressage" by Carl Hester and "Six Steps to a Schooled Horse".

I've always understand that you weight the seat bone in the direction of travel as the horse will want to step under your weight. However the Klimke book talks about weighting the same seat bone as the leg you use to move the horse sideways. Although I may have mis read it as it talks about leg yielding with the horse facing towards the wall which I'm struggling to get my head around. But does clearly say that the rider should weight their left seat bone, and use their left leg to ask the horse sideways.

Doesn't help that Carl refers to the inside as the direction of the movement and the Klimke's refer to the inside in relation to the bend of the horse. So in leg yield where the horse is bent left when it's moving right their "insides" are opposite?

My brain is now tied in a knot! Which seat bone do you weight for leg yield?

Thanks!
 
I attempt to keep my weight even... the horse should be 'yielding' from the leg. Leg yield from left to right, left leg on the girth, right leg behind to control the quarters. I see so many people swing their left leg back to move the quarters over and let the horse fall through the shoulder. By moving the left leg back you are blocking the horse from yielding 'around' your leg. Remember to keep riding the outside of the horse too!
 
I have seen this contridiction before and like you started to get confused.

I weight the same seat bone as the leg - rightly or wrongly. Read Chris Bartles book for some great info on "body statements" and which seat bone to weight and when (Now I am wondered what he says for leg yield)

Leg yield against the wall features in Carls book (I am pretty sure it is in there with a pic) but it is the same aids but you move down the long side on 4 tracks, so pushing the quarters away from the track.
 
One thing I've been told in the past, which doesn't make perfect sense, but does make some sense, is that if you weight the seatbone on the side of the direction of travel, you place more weight on the muscles that have to stretch most (because of the horse bending away from the direction of travel), which would discourage the stretch of these muscles, and limit the bend - therefore, you weight the inside seatbone, making it easier to ask for & get the desired bend. However, the fact that you still have to use your other leg means you will still be stretching that one down too, balancing it out, so you don't just topple off your horse :p
At least, that's how it works in my mind, generally speaking I now don't think about weighting anything as it can get a bit baffling to think of it that way!
 
Ok it seems that what should be a simple exercise really has a few different methods and is not as simple as we think. The way I was taught is as follows;

Point one is that the inside rein and seat bone is the direction of the bend so in the case of leg yield this is the opposite to the way of travel.

Half halt to balance horse and rider, shift weight slightly to outside seatbone to move the centre of gravity and make horse want to catch up!

Outside leg on the girth to control forward movement, inside leg just behind the girth to ask the horse to yield sideways.
 
I can maybe answer one of your points of confusion, without having the book here to check.

Although I may have mis read it as it talks about leg yielding with the horse facing towards the wall which I'm struggling to get my head around.
Click to expand...

It sounds as though you've interpreted this as meaning that the horse is bent in the direction of travel, as in half-pass. If you were thinking of the leg yield as, for example, from the 3/4-line to the wall, then having the horse's head point towards the wall would indeed imply that he's bent in the direction of travel. What is suspect is being described is a leg-yield along the wall, as mentioned by Horsemad12. One way to get into that is to cut the corner from the short side to the long side, so that you are arriving at the long side at an angle, and then ask for LY along the long side. The old outside leg (say you're on the right rein, so the left leg) becomes the new inside leg, for the purposes of the leg yield. I've been taught that way by instructors of German instruction, but haven't encountered that particular exercise here yet.

---------------------------------------wall
........... / / / / / / / (horse, which is bent to the left)
........../
......../
....../
..../

(the periods are just place holders; html won't let me do typewriter-style spacing)
 
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