Felt like I lost the plot when schooling yesterday..

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karenjj

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I've been having lessons as I'm hoping to do dressage with my boy next year. He's 11 but very green as far as schooling is concerned, I felt in last week's lesson like we were really getting somewhere, he was actually bending round when we were doing circles and we did our first leg yield.I lunged him in the week with the pessoa (I have been using this for about a month now) and this has been helping him then I rode him in my field Sat. and it felt like he'd forgotten everything! It also felt like I'd forgotten everything! So it was a bit of a disaster really!
I sometimes get half way through schooling him and forget what I'm trying to achieve, basically I'm trying to get him supple and working properly and possibly even eventually get an outline! What little exercises can I try to help us both? My instructor has got us doing little spirals and then pushing him out which he's getting the hang of but 20mins of just that is where we start losing focus and I forget what I'm doing! HELP!
 

If you are doing 20 mins of the same thing then I don't wonder that you are losing it a bit! (esp going in spiralling circles)

If you are schooling a movement & you start to lose focus, I would go off & do something different (leg yield/acute transitions) or something, to pick him up a bit.

Just put it down to an off day - don't be too hard on yourself.
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I get like this when schooling! I lose concentration and so does my horse
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the only way I can keep it up is either have someone on the ground telling what to do or remembering a dressage test which keeps me focused, then I pick out bits of the test to practise.
 
I find that my mare can sometimes lose the plot when I try to school her in an open field. As far as she's concerned a field is more for play than for work. That doesn't mean that she SHOULDN'T work...

I do a LOT of schooling while I hack. I practice leg yield, turns on quarters, shoulder fore and so on while out and about. I sometimes do spirals etc as well. I find that when the mare is getting a bit strong that doing a series of circles rather than a straight line helps lots when in a field (eg if she's pulling - which she does a lot) then rather than allow her continue on to a straight line, I circle and if she is soft when going the direction we are travelling, I allow her to go forward - if she's still pulling a circle the other direction - she soon gets the idea. I try to keep in mind that schooling is meant to help with "real life" riding (eg hacking, riding in company and so on).

And then we get days where we just ride "on the buckle" as it's good to have an easy non-work day too. That might help the focus later, when you DO want to school.
 
How do you organise your schooling sessions? Ditto MayFlower, can't blame you or your horse for losing concentration when you've been spiralling for 20 mins! I try to leave an exercise as soon as I get a few good results, or if we're both too frustrated. How about some serpentines and other school figures? Do you give him breaks during your sessions?
 
My instructor recommended just 20mins of work work work, 10 mins then break then another 10 mins. To help keep his concentration and to sharpen him up as he is quite lazy but she's just been getting us to spiral in and then push him out which was ok to start with as it was all new but we both get a bit fed up of it now! So I start off walking then spiraling then change rein same then change rein then in trot then change rein then in trot again by then we're both bored but I don't know how to liven it up a bit and do something different!!
 
Sounds like you need to talk to your instructor for some more exercises! I have this book , which has lots of exercises in it when you run out of ideas. It also explains very well what they're for, and how they're supposed to work.

If you feel the spirals are doing their job, you could make life more interesting by adding some changes in direction with the bend (such as a serpentine), or working on precise transitions at specific markers, without losing his engagement.
 
Buy a book - something like 101 schooling exercises - and read it!!
I think I'd get pretty sick of spiraling every day too!
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Just doing one exercise isn't really going to help you. Sure, come back to it every few sessions, do a few spirals, go do something else - but just doing it again and again and again is going to drive you and horse insane pretty fast
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Also, 20mins is quite a long time for a horse to work solidly on schooling, followed by a 10min break? 10mins is the average time I would probably take to cool a horse down so by the time you come to work him for the last 10 mins I imagine he'd have lost almost all concentration and also not really be prepared to work again! Surely it would be better to walm him up for about 10mins (basic transitions, walk, trot, canter, halt, circles, changes of rein through x etc.) give him a 2 minute break in walk, let him stretch out, then pick him back up and work on say.... leg yield, for 7-10mins, another break on a long rein for about 3-5mins, then work on something else...

Practicing or making up dressage tests and riding them, and then thinking about what could've been better always works for me! Quite often I warm up and then ride a test, and then consider what should've gone better about it. Say it could have been more accurate or my transitions could have been neater - then I go and practice a few things to improve them, like riding to specific markers, small circles, straight lines, or lots of transitions and making the transitions closer together and transitions within paces. THEN I go and ride the test again to see if I can do it perfectly!
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Hope I haven't gone on too much and that gives you some ideas! Just remember that it should always be fun for you AND the horse otherwise you probably aren't going to learn much other than how damned boring it is! xD Have fun!!
 
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