Difference between speed and forwardness???

[Muddyboots]

I am going to sound like a complete numpty with this one but I really struggle to tell the difference between forwardness and speed. I hired a course of SJ's this morning with my instructor. We really worked on getting him going forward as part of the warm up. He was jumping really well and I could feel him taking me into the fences. However, half way through putting a course together, we completely missed a stride and ended up ploughing into a fence which knocking both mine and my horses confidence. My instructor said I was going to fast. I didn't feel the difference between that and what we were working on in the warm up.

This is just one example. It's something that happens all the time (on flat and jumping!). Something just isn't clicking. Has anyone had similar problems and how did you overcome it?

Any handy tips to help!

Thank you in advance!!

 

[blitznbobs]

Perhaps it would help to think of impulsion (desire to go forward) rather than 'forwardness'

 

[DabDab]

I don't know if this will make any sense...

Forwardness or impulsion should feel like you have a lot of energy captured and available for use, but you're not necessarily using it all. So that at any time you could just put your leg n a little more and the horse would go 'boing'. This should feel kind of springy and bouncy.

Whereas when you are going fast without that impulsion you may have lots of energy but you are using it all in going fast. So that if you put your legs on all that would happen is that you'd go faster rather than get more 'lift' in the canter or a take off for a jump. This should feel flat and speedy.

Hope that makes some kind of sense

 

[Lyle]

The 'desire to move forward' is a fantastic description. I couple 'forward' with in front of the leg, however that energy isn't being pushed into your hand in an attempt to escape out the front!. DabDab has given you a fantastic description, I won't repeat it!

 

[philamena]

I like the description of impulsion / forwardness being 'available energy': so it's all there, toned and ready to spring out as soon as you ask for it...
Way easier said than done!!
I remember when I was a young kid riding a pony for an owner once who kept telling me to make the horse more 'bouncy'. (As it happens, it was a proper breakdown in communication because to my uninitiated bwain the horse felt bouncier the more you held it back and smoother the more you rode it with forwardness, so he kept shouting 'more bouncy' and I'd go even slower, and more dead, and slower. It wasn't until someone else who rode for him explained to me what he meant that I realised he must have thought I was thick as two short planks, doing the opposite of what he said until I was cantering at walking speed! But "bouncy" worked as an image for him, it might work for you!)

 

[hobo]

DabDab beautifully put really helpful.

 

[Kallibear]

Power is an easier description to understand than 'forward'

Speed is the wind whistling past your ears.

Power is the feeling you have driving a big fancy car: that there's a hell of a lot of energy simmering away under you.

 

[MandyMoo]

DabDab gave a brilliant description I agree entirely with it!