HHO virtual group clinic ideas - week 1

milliepops

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When I've done this, I've begun with the first set on one day, then added more as its become less to think about. They aren't really long or strenuous exercises so I think you could do each on each rein if you wanted but tbh it's not a huge strain to do the set on one rein and then swap over.

Looking forward to riding later, if the stars align I might try it with Darcy too.
 

DabDab

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Did the in hand version with Dabs yesterday, which is quite a challenge with him as he has no concentration span at all, so just wants to dick about. But he tried very hard by the end and was bending properly in both directions rather than being lazy and one sided. Need to do more of this sort of thing with him, thanks for the kick up the bum MP!
 

Wheels

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I counted in the end too, the words confused me more but I still found counting sits only a bit hard. I'm a bit spesh like that ?

I don't count the sits only, I count each step but only doing the action (rein squeeze, calf squeeze or whatever) every four steps

So count
1, 2, 3 ,4
2, 2, 3, 4
3, 2, 3, 4
4, 2, 3, 4
5, 2, 3, 4
6, 2, 3, 4

Then you can keep count of the beats and the amount of sets you have done
 

Wheels

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Do you do the whole thing on one rein? If so is it ok to repeat the exercises on the other rein?

I did 1-6 on one rein then 1-6 on the other although had to stop after 3 to check my post it note as to what I should be doing lol

Then I did 7 on one rein then the other.

This is something so quick and easy that I'm going to do it every ride this week so I can try and get the hang of it and hopefully be able to utilise the different effects whenever I need them in whatever exercise i need it in.
 

Wheels

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Tried this tonight.




Found it did help get an even consistent contact which is something we need to improve. However we struggled to keep a rhythm (always a problem neither of us have a sense of rhythm) and we struggled a bit with keeping the circle the same size and an even shape.

In general terms for the rhythm in trot it is good to visualise the sound of a clock or metronome in your head, tick tock tick tock - whenever your horses rhythm slightly changes you have to do something immediate about it. This helps to catch a slight break in rhythm before it turns into a major change.

In canter I count say the word 'eleven' in my head, some people count 123 really quickly in their head so one number for each footfall step.
 

catkin

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had a go this morning

oh my!
we've both got brain-ache!! Fellboy appeared to quite enjoy it, though he did ask for a stretchy rest after the first 3 exercises.

I too am finding counting easier than words

Finding the shoulder moving the most difficult (a theme with Fellboy, he is inclined to weaponise his huge neck/shoulders though) and I had difficulty in not changing the diagonal when counting at times.

Enjoyed the challenge - and we are going to have another go tomorrow.
 

catkin

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I did 1-6 on one rein then 1-6 on the other although had to stop after 3 to check my post it note as to what I should be doing lol

Then I did 7 on one rein then the other.

This is something so quick and easy that I'm going to do it every ride this week so I can try and get the hang of it and hopefully be able to utilise the different effects whenever I need them in whatever exercise i need it in.

I'm too clumsy to keep a post-it note where it needs to be - I ended up writing on my hand ;)

I'm thinking the same about putting the exercises into each session as they seem to illuminate how you are both reacting to one another too. And I may experiment in trialling it out on a straight line rather than on a circle as I still have a bit of short hacking available.....
 

Kat

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I don't count the sits only, I count each step but only doing the action (rein squeeze, calf squeeze or whatever) every four steps

So count
1, 2, 3 ,4
2, 2, 3, 4
3, 2, 3, 4
4, 2, 3, 4
5, 2, 3, 4
6, 2, 3, 4

Then you can keep count of the beats and the amount of sets you have done

Now that sounds a bit easier! I will try that next time I school. I'm planning to hack over the weekend as I can get there a bit earlier.

I think it is potentially a good exercise to incorporate into most sessions.
 

HashRouge

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I'm in! I like the look of week 1 exercises but (and probably sound very lightweight) not sure if I will be able to remember everything in one go! Interesting!! :) Thanks - a great idea to do this. :)
I couldn't remember them either! It doesn't help that the only field I can ride in is about a 20 min hack from the yard. By the time I got there this morning I'd forgotten everything and he's not very good at standing still, so I tend not to get my phone out and try and do things on it as he will start fidgeting!
 

DabDab

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Ok, did my first stint with Arts this morning. She was as usual a model pupil, although it did show quite nicely our collective resistance to bending left. We can get the suppleness bending left with nice springy trot, but only for 4 or five strides at a time. Will keep working on it.

Also, something about the instructions that I only remembered once I started doing the exercises was the knee thing. I used to really struggle with the 'close your knee' instruction that is often given, until I had a bit of a lightbulb moment when I went to a clinic with Katherine Branderup and she mentioned that she has often seen her husband struggling to teach some women on that point, because to someone with a man's physiology with legs that are pretty restricted in the way they move, 'close your knee' is a very simple instruction to follow. Whereas for a lot of women with legs that move quite differently to a man's, they can end up with a really funky leg position in the course of trying to move their knee. So for women it's better to describe tensing or relaxing particular muscles rather than moving a joint.

Anyway, it helped me massively at the time, so just in case anyone else was doing this exercise thinking oh my god I'm hopeless, why can't I squeeze with my knee, I just thought I would share.
 

catkin

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Ok, did my first stint with Arts this morning. She was as usual a model pupil, although it did show quite nicely our collective resistance to bending left. We can get the suppleness bending left with nice springy trot, but only for 4 or five strides at a time. Will keep working on it.

Also, something about the instructions that I only remembered once I started doing the exercises was the knee thing. I used to really struggle with the 'close your knee' instruction that is often given, until I had a bit of a lightbulb moment when I went to a clinic with Katherine Branderup and she mentioned that she has often seen her husband struggling to teach some women on that point, because to someone with a man's physiology with legs that are pretty restricted in the way they move, 'close your knee' is a very simple instruction to follow. Whereas for a lot of women with legs that move quite differently to a man's, they can end up with a really funky leg position in the course of trying to move their knee. So for women it's better to describe tensing or relaxing particular muscles rather than moving a joint.

Anyway, it helped me massively at the time, so just in case anyone else was doing this exercise thinking oh my god I'm hopeless, why can't I squeeze with my knee, I just thought I would share.

interesting about the female joints.
What muscles are we actually tensing or releasing? (I'm having some difficulty with focussing down exactly on this bit, not quite sure exactly what I'm doing. I may be doing stuff all wrong)
 

milliepops

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Now the knee thing I struggle with a bit, I am hypermobile and my hips tend to be rather loose so I have a job to get my knee into the saddle sometimes without adding tension. So I'm hoping DD can elaborate because I am not sure I can make any useful input here personally... I just try to go on the effect (or lack) that I have on the horse and not end up in a tangle myself :p
 

Ambers Echo

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Well that was interesting. I can't say I noticed her responding well during the exercise - she seemed quite braced - but she was rounder, softer and more manouvreable afterwards. For a short while anyway before I lost it again! The massive (and rather embarrassing) eye opener was the existence of the knee/thigh aid. I might have been doing it wrong but she and Dolly both slowed immediately and quite markedly in response to that. Having struggled to slow her down for YEARS it might have been helpful if someone had mentioned that at some stage. :rolleyes::D
I've been told to sit back, sit deep, press down, squeeze butt cheeks, exhale and about 20 other ways-to-slow-a-horse but not to put my knee/thigh on. I took my fab new aid into a big field and played around with walk/trot/canter which was fun. And she responded well to it. Hurrah!
 
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DabDab

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Now the knee thing I struggle with a bit, I am hypermobile and my hips tend to be rather loose so I have a job to get my knee into the saddle sometimes without adding tension. So I'm hoping DD can elaborate because I am not sure I can make any useful input here personally... I just try to go on the effect (or lack) that I have on the horse and not end up in a tangle myself :p

Um, well I'm not sure I can explain particularly well...KB described things in terms of 'seat feet'. So for someone with a woman's anatomy, if you are riding around in a neutral position (not giving any aid), your seat should be like a pair of feet stood in sand, and they should be parallel, aligned with each other, and equal pressure between left and right foot and between balls and heels. Once you've got that image for neutral position in your head, then to do the man knee thing, you're turning the toe of the seat foot on that side towards the other seat foot toe, but keeping everything else level.

Hopefully that makes sense?
 
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milliepops

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Um, well I'm not sure I can explain particularly well...KB described things in terms of 'seat feet'. So for someone with a woman's anatomy, if you are riding around in a neutral position (not giving any aid), your seat should be like a pair of feet stood in sand, and they should be parallel, aligned with each other, and equal pressure between left and right foot and between balls and heels. Once you've got that image for neutral position in your head, then to do the man knee thing, you're turning the toe of the seat foot on that side towards the other seat foot toe, but keeping everything else level.

Hopefully that makes sense?
Having just got off one horse, and about to get on the other, that does kinda make sense, yes ?
 

catkin

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Um, well I'm not sure I can explain particularly well...KB described things in terms of 'seat feet'. So for someone with a woman's anatomy, if you are riding around in a neutral position (not giving any aid), your seat should be like a pair of feet stood in sand, and they should be parallel, aligned with each other, and equal pressure between left and right foot and between balls and heels. Once you've got that image for neutral position in your head, then to do the man knee thing, you're turning the toe of the seat foot on that side towards the other seat foot toe, but keeping everything else level.

Hopefully that makes sense?

Thank you DabDab - that does make sense. I've been taught something similar with different imagery.
If that's the case then wasn't doing it right this morning and got us all in a pickle.

So I shall think 'close knee' roughly translates as 'close upper leg' in the context of this exercise.

I shall have another go tomorrow and see how we get on..............
 

milliepops

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Well I had 2 nice rides this afternoon.
First time back on Darcy since, well, probably 3 or 4 weeks actually, as before lockdown I had agreed with trainer that it was actually becoming counterproductive to ride him at home and so we should just do a couple of arena hires a week and groundwork in between. And then Kablammo! no more arena hires. I lunged him a bit yesterday and he was daft as a brush so I figured I couldn't really be in any less control from on board ;)

All Darcy did was Phase 1, 1-6 because I wanted to quit while I was ahead and not get too carried away :p I started in walk and then did the whole set again in trot. I worked him on a circle as the long sides are the danger zones ;)
I think he really "got it". His ears were flicking around softly whereas usually they get pinned on whatever object catches his attention that second. I don't say the words, I breathe in time to the steps and use that as my cue, and actually I didn't count the reps, I just waited until i got the feeling I wanted (about a whole circle, on average). I think next time I will be able to count.
He especially cottoned on to the outside aids, that made him reach more to the contact and relaaaaax. I think the rhythmic nature of the exercises just made him tune in. And me,too, because it made me stick to The Plan even when I thought he was going to spook at something. Good stuff.

Kira was also easier to get to a zen point today. It helped that the surroundings were fairly quiet for once ;) we only had one interruption of the neighbouring horses galloping up and down but she also settled to the rhythm quite nicely and really stretched out over her topline. We've done so much collection lately this was really well timed for her, to just take the physical pressure off and get the mental state a bit easier. I also started her in walk (I have tried to do it similar to the trot exercise in the article, so one aid for every other complete walk stride) then trot and also canter (every other stride again). with the knee-in I did really notice a giving feeling in front of the saddle, interesting I don't remember that before with her. I finished her off with some on and back work in the canter just to re-connect her ready for a bit more advanced work next time.

I intend to check the stretch with Darcy next time (wasn't *quite* brave enough today!) and K will do the second phase.
 

Roxylola

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So, proper riders can coordinate this with their breathing, meanwhile the rest of us are going rise, sit squeeze shit did a double sit, rise sit rise sit rise oh shit now I'm squeezing on a rise :p
We turned out today so no riding today, I did check the stretch yesterday with supercob and he did feel like he was taking the other rein forwards and reaching in to it when I did
 

milliepops

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So, proper riders can coordinate this with their breathing, meanwhile the rest of us are going rise, sit squeeze shit did a double sit, rise sit rise sit rise oh shit now I'm squeezing on a rise :p
We turned out today so no riding today, I did check the stretch yesterday with supercob and he did feel like he was taking the other rein forwards and reaching in to it when I did
hahaha I did have to start myself off with a "now, now, now, now" countdown ;)

there are quite a few exercises that I've been working on that involve counting and I've figured out ways to do it that don't involve actually counting numbers :p so I think it's just tagged onto the tail end of that (tempis, zigzags etc). Those things are impossible if you can't get a feel for the rhythm and let your body be the metronome for you, there's just too much to actually need to think about besides the counting bit. So basically, keep going, because it gets easier the more you do :)
 

Wheels

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Had another go today (without needing the post it note reminder) I'm trying to work out what specific responses I got from each exercise but it's not that easy as didnt get a consistent response each time I applied the aids. Tried in trot and canter today, inside knee in canter is not easy, especially my left knee, my leg does all sorts of weird things instead lol

2 of them were consistent and that was additional schwung due to better bend using inside calf only but I also got additional impulsion so need to try a softer squeeze. The other was using inside calf and outside rein which gave me a lovely soft feel of self carriage every time I applied those aids.

What I'm learning most is that I micromanage my pony a little too much and it really isn't required! After we had done the exercises in canter we tried a couple of canter half passes and played about with how often to apply the outside leg, a lot less required than I have been using so that was a bit of a revelation
 

tatty_v

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Well that was fun! I tried in the field this morning with my fellow livery. I didn’t have particularly high hopes as my old boy is a bit of a diva and never goes particularly well in the field - I’ve always thought he prefers the firm, level surface of an arena.

We struggled initially to get the engine going (think he finds it harder to push on the unlevel ground) but we persevered and the results were fab and we even finished with some super medium trot!

I didn’t have any problems with timing the aids, but he is a very rhythmical horse. As per the pics below I did get drawn into all my old classic trio of failings - tipping forward slightly, drawing the heel up when applying the calf aid and looking down (!) but he soldiered on despite his rider being a muppet!

Pics below for those who are interested. My fellow livery really struggled - her horse is 22, has never been properly schooled and is really heavy on the forehand. For the most part she struggled with him falling out so any tips for that would be helpful.

Thanks milliepops for the great exercise, going to try again on Tuesday and focus on the rider’s position! Looking forward to the next one.

609C095E-F449-4C29-97B6-6B3A02D99054.jpeg600B5C82-D505-4ADC-8BE8-621494E51657.jpeg
 

DabDab

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Had another go today (without needing the post it note reminder) I'm trying to work out what specific responses I got from each exercise but it's not that easy as didnt get a consistent response each time I applied the aids. Tried in trot and canter today, inside knee in canter is not easy, especially my left knee, my leg does all sorts of weird things instead lol

2 of them were consistent and that was additional schwung due to better bend using inside calf only but I also got additional impulsion so need to try a softer squeeze. The other was using inside calf and outside rein which gave me a lovely soft feel of self carriage every time I applied those aids.

What I'm learning most is that I micromanage my pony a little too much and it really isn't required! After we had done the exercises in canter we tried a couple of canter half passes and played about with how often to apply the outside leg, a lot less required than I have been using so that was a bit of a revelation

Glad I'm not the only one with a wayward left leg!
 

tatty_v

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Had another go today (without needing the post it note reminder) I'm trying to work out what specific responses I got from each exercise but it's not that easy as didnt get a consistent response each time I applied the aids. Tried in trot and canter today, inside knee in canter is not easy, especially my left knee, my leg does all sorts of weird things instead lol

2 of them were consistent and that was additional schwung due to better bend using inside calf only but I also got additional impulsion so need to try a softer squeeze. The other was using inside calf and outside rein which gave me a lovely soft feel of self carriage every time I applied those aids.

What I'm learning most is that I micromanage my pony a little too much and it really isn't required! After we had done the exercises in canter we tried a couple of canter half passes and played about with how often to apply the outside leg, a lot less required than I have been using so that was a bit of a revelation

I also got a lovely response from the inside calf and outside rein - don’t know why I was surprised as that’s how we started to teach him flatwork back when we first got him but clearly I’d forgotten that!
 

Ambers Echo

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I've read the article again and it does not mention slowing in response to knee on. So I assume I am using a different aid to the one intended. Hey ho! I am still pleased to have found a way of influencing her speed in walk. It's easier it trot because I can slow her with my rise. Did these all again today and again she was not giving me what the article said I should be getting. BUT she then did give me the nicest work I've ever had from her. I am intrigued as to why though? If she was gradually softening, relaxing, yielding and coming onto the aids during the exercise, the nice work afterwards would make sense. But she isn't. But then is softer, rounder and more on the aids anyway. Anyone know why?
 

palo1

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I gave it a 'trial run' this morning out hacking :) That is easier for me atm as my little mare is only just 4 and finds 'schooling' much more difficult - I wanted to get a feel for the exercises before also having to 'support' my girl in the field in more general terms. I just loved this exercise !! :) We got as far as 6 or 7 but it was amazing how well we got on tbh. The mare was forward and listening and the lanes were completely empty so I had a go in walk first (really interesting responses) and then trot (harder for both of us but a good step up). I will be doing these again. I never knew that there was such a well organised 'method' for introducing all of the separate aids so this is quite a revelation to me.:oops::rolleyes: I am delighted I can introduce this to my youngster. I can do tiny bits and still feel like I am 'doing' something constructive with the very limited riding I can do (and want to do with a young horse). The only bit I got confused about and will have to check again is the the relationship of the words/counting to the sitting/rising....Not a problem in walk obviously but I did get myself a bit confuzzled in trot. No matter - still made a good exercise and stuff to be built on. I don't know if it made any difference but my mare was able to offer a few strides of canter on bits of verge on each leg. We have only cantered under saddle literally a handful of times previously but both offerings were MUCH better in terms of response/coordination and lack of 'shapes' than previously. All good and so grateful for this!!! Thank you :) :)
 
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