HHO Virtual group clinic week 3

Roxylola

Roxylola

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So now we've got nice rhythmic paces and horses who are responsive to our half halts I suggested we throw in a bit of circle work.
I really like this exercise and a post by Talland on facebook reminded me of it just a few days ago. They call it 6 circles, I've always just called it the circle pattern
So to begin on the right rein passing A
At K ride 2 10m circles to the right, as you finish the second circle ride a straight line to X.
At X ride 2 10m circles left riding a straight line to H off the second circle
At H 2 10m circles right and a straight line to M
At M 2 10m circles right and a straight line to X
At X 2 10m circles left and a straight line to F
And you've guessed it at F 2 10m circles right followed by a straight line to K
For the other rein obviously just flip it round.
I find especially in trot it helps maintain rhythm while you change bend etc.
You can also add difficulty by using lateral work on your straight lines - shoulder in, travers, half pass etc, even the humble leg yield.
It's a nice suppleing exercise and highlights if you have one direction which is easier to bend than the other.
Enjoy :)
 
i've just had to draw this one out on a bit of paper to fix it in my brain - i'll bet the pony will have it off pat first go when we try it over the weekend - whether he's gonna like it I don't yet know..........

PS we had a lovely hack this morning - although we aren't actually very good at them I think the exercises over the past two weeks have really helped.
 
Catkin, it sounds quite complicated but it rides nicely I promise.
Oh that's good. I've definitely found the contact and half halts have helped improve our canter so far
 
I may have to pace this out in the school tomorrow........

K, H, M and F are all 6 metres from the short sides yes?
So if we are doing 10 metre circles at these markers then the point of the circle nearest the short side is 1 metre from that short side not on the track?
 
Sheep, yep that's the shape of it.
Catkin, yes technically you dont go right in to.the corners of the school. I wouldnt get massively obsessed with being on or just off the track neither is really detrimental or crucial to the exercise
 
We are still working quietly (and not very often) on weeks 1 & 2 but I have done this circling exercise previously and it is fab!! I will get round to it and it will be excellent for my young horse. Such a good idea. :) :)
 
Thanks Roxylola - this sounds great. I'll have a go later. I've been doing the other virtual clinic exercises largely on straight lines or trotting verry slowly in huge circles because the ground was like concrete, but it's rained on and off since Thursday so this is perfect timing.

Diagram was much appreciated, Sheep :)
 
I love this exercise, and do it quite often. Great for getting them sit sit on their hocks and into your outside rein.
If you have a long arena you can keep to the same exercise/markers or upgrade to 6 circles
 
We've just had a go at walk and trot - and it flows really well when you are riding it.

at walk we really concentrated on being precise about the arc of the curve or straight on the straight-line strides.

at trot we tried to keep rhythm and flow and for us doing the trot work as single circles at each marker then the change of direction/curve was better than doing a good first circle then a rubbish wobbly one. i think this is us needing to build up the suppleness and fitness - be interesting to re-visit double circles down the line.

We too revisited the kindergarten and halt-halt exercises which are rapidly becoming favourites in the warm-up!
 
Tried this in-hand today and it's quite tricky, you dont really have time to change sides and that would lose some of the straight strides I think so when you're doing a circle with the horse bent away from you it is quite hard to keep a consistent bend and to make sure the new inside hind is stepping under enough, M likes to go quarters in with me on the outside so we did a much smaller circle, probably 6m to ensure he was stepping through enough.

Quite tiring for me actually so probably is for them too
 
Yeah wheels I came to a similar conclusion, it's a lot of turning so probably something I will use sparingly with an older horse but was effective. Should have some video later , including bloopers ?
 
Wheels I am impressed you did it in hand, that's not easy at all.
It is quite a challenging exercise mentally and physically
 
Right here goes. CC welcome as before, I believe C&T is a safe space and as such we should feel able to share and contribute in the knowledge that it's a supportive environment :) please comment if you have observations or suggestions :)

Overall....Next time I will just do one circle each time. Doing 2 was useful in some cases - if you watch the videos you'll see why, Kira will always drop a NOPE in now and then and so I'd have had to repeat if we didn't already have a 2nd circle in the programme ;)
I am conscious with her of not doing too much in the way of circles as always trying to work her in the lowest impact way, and in fact I think these are some of the first 10m circles I've ridden since she was injured last summer. So this was quite intense for her.

Learning points: mainly I'm bad at 10m circles. Having had to learn how to do 8m circles my 10m ones are often too small :p
This was a good exercise for getting her between hand and leg and I was trying not to tip forward so much :oops: and make sure she stayed forward without me chasing her. I think I usually have a fairly good connection to the outside rein but this did make me more aware of it.

Walk. This took a long time ;) and tbh I am not sure it was particularly useful for her in walk. She gets sticky in walk and I felt this was laboured. If you can be arsed to watch it there's a blooper about 6 mins in when she jacked it because she had decided that B was scary. This was a theme today, in fairness there were ramblers behind that hedge when we started and they were quite noisy but invisible. reviewing the video I know I need to keep my leg more forward when I feel like she's stuck, it's more effective on the girth.
(if anyone has ideas for a future exercise that helps get the walk more snappy then please let me know, it's always been a struggle with K)


Trot. I think this time i started with a better base trot than the last exercise, as I have done a bit in between to get her a bit more honestly forward. It's something we really struggle with at home but I think this was better. (sorry about the squeak, I cleaned my stirrup leathers with something squeaky and it's impossible to clean off again!)

Right first

then this happened, it's that pesky B again :rolleyes:

then a better go at left

Having ridden the trot and felt that she was staying more fluently forward, I thought this could be good in canter. Kira enjoys learning hard things in canter like twiddly piris and tempis but it has a knock on effect of making her second guess everything and ad-lib changes everywhere because she misinterprets my leg aids. So I thought we'd see if we could stay forward but balanced in the circles then ride slightly forward to a change on the straight and then circle again without sucking back.
I think as we went on, it gets better. It was intense for her so we just did one circle each time in canter.

 
I love the rather exuberant changes at first then oh another circle, by the time you're on the second long side she gets it, she knows shes riding a pattern but shes still listening and not anticipating.
What I've found really useful about this in general is the floor pattern keeps you moving and bending and you're not stuck on the track or a circle riding the pace and forgetting to move about but because it is a pattern you do still ride the pace etc because you dont become over focused on where you are going to go next.
 
Roxylola said:
I love the rather exuberant changes at first then oh another circle, by the time you're on the second long side she gets it, she knows shes riding a pattern but shes still listening and not anticipating.
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yeah we've been on change bootcamp because she was being lazy with the change left, so where I was trying to be strict about sitting quietly and making a neater job of it, I've gone back to insisting on the correctness even if that makes it a bit yee ha :p it was really useful for the canter and then I rode our new short arena freestyle which was definitely better for the bum kicking!
 
Really well ridden MP! She looked massively more secure in your outside rein, and you didnt tip forward at all, also much better quality in all paces compared to the last video, it looked like a much more honest connection, lovely job!!
 
daffy44 said:
Really well ridden MP! She looked massively more secure in your outside rein, and you didnt tip forward at all, also much better quality in all paces compared to the last video, it looked like a much more honest connection, lovely job!!
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thanks daffy, we'll keep trying!
it's nice having other people doing the same exercises to chat to as well, eases the "going crazy on your own" factor ;)
 
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