How do i ride a walk pirouette?

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alex_mac30

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I am really stuck with riding a walk pirouette, can anyone explain the aids and also what exercises you use to build up to actually doing the pirouette.
I cant work out what I should be asking for and my poor horse is getting very confused.
I have been riding then from squares, but i think I am pulling the front end round too much.
thanks
 
Not easily explainable in writing - why don't you get a lesson from a decent instructor who can teach/demonstrate to both you and your horse what to do? If you've never done one before, it is much easier to first show the horse, then the rider.
 
Firstly is the horse ready to do walk pirouette? It requires the horse to take the weight back onto the quarters and engage their core muscles efficiently. Before even thinking about it the horse needs to move in rhythm and balance, be straight and understand basic lateral work. I introduce it from quarters in working from straight lines onto a circle gradually decreasing the size of the circle but always maintaining forward motion. I find that doing it on or from a square can in encourage the movement to become too static and as a resistance the horse may step back which is a difficult fault to overcome leading the horse to come behind the bit. It will take time and I am sure that there are faster methods but I find that this way limits tension and it is easy to teach canter pirouettes using this method.
 
romulus said:
Firstly is the horse ready to do walk pirouette? It requires the horse to take the weight back onto the quarters and engage their core muscles efficiently. Before even thinking about it the horse needs to move in rhythm and balance, be straight and understand basic lateral work. I introduce it from quarters in working from straight lines onto a circle gradually decreasing the size of the circle but always maintaining forward motion. I find that doing it on or from a square can in encourage the movement to become too static and as a resistance the horse may step back which is a difficult fault to overcome leading the horse to come behind the bit. It will take time and I am sure that there are faster methods but I find that this way limits tension and it is easy to teach canter pirouettes using this method.
Click to expand...

This ^^^^
Remember to keep the walk active with the hind legs. This is a great video showing a good walk pirouette -
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sGA2WAhDE34
 
Sorry but the video link to the walk pirouette is not a good example. The horse is over bent, short in the neck, tense through the jaw and swishing the tail.

Aids for a walk pirouette:
- Inside leg at the girth providing the forward energy
- Inside rein asking for the bend
- Outside leg guiding the hindquarters
- Outside rein guiding the outside shoulder
- Weight on inside seat bone
- Upper body turning to face the horses ears

- The horse should be light to the bridle, soft to the hand with acceptance of the contact.
- S/he should be reactive to the forward driving aids.
- The rider should be able to flex the horse softly through the throatlash area and relax the jaw.
- The horse should be able to show correct lateral bend (including the flexion) through the whole body.

In other words if you are having an issue with an individual movement then break it down to look at its component parts and then put the jigsaw back together again.

Squares are a super exercise, quarters in on a circle is another.
 
You need someone on the ground - this is so easy to get wrong you can end up with the shoulders and quarters all over the place and nothing even close to a pirouette. I use the aids SB mentions above and like using squares for 1/4 pirouettes but you do need to get a feel for how to do it correctly and even then it can go wrong!
 
I have a really good instructor who is great at explaining exercises but i am really struggling to grasp this one. We are working with quarters in on the circle and then moving to the square exercise. I think looking at SB resonse the bit I am missing is moving my weight. This seems to be a common thing for me, I move the legs and hands but forget to shift my weight.
My horse is good at lateral work and picks things up quickly, so if he is struggling with something it is usually because Im not giving the aid correctly.
Thanks everyone
 
Also just to add, control of the outside shoulder is vital too.

I had a bit of a light bulb moment this summer when riding a very advanced schoolmaster highlighted the fact that I didn't have the control of the outside shoulder that I would previously have thought I had.
 
It can be done with shoulder in, on a circle, so that the haunches form the circle and the forehand does the SI around them. Just make the circle with the haunches smaller and smaller, horse will let you know if he isn't supple enough or balanced enough as yet because he will fall in. Just a stride or two to begin with and a large circle.
 
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I just started attempting them on Dan a few weeks ago. We'd been doing lots of work on a small-ish circle (15-12m ish usually) & riding shoulder-fore, shoulder-in, 'shoulder-out' (does that have a proper name?!), travers & renvers, varying back & forth between them all so he was really listening & really supple and I was just changing my body position more than using my hands/legs. From there is was really easy one day to go shoulder-fore, pop my outside leg back & do a 1/2 walk pirouette and it helped me to ride it forwards rather than previously where I'd been trying to hold on to him too much and he didn't understand (understandably!) :)
 
I turn my body and weight to the right, hold the right rein, when I say hold I really mean feel, I support the outside shoulder in a guiding way, but I use my outside leg, in this case left leg forward, so I feel the horse stepping into the piri which means it is more on the quarters and feels light on the front, no pulling or shoving just riding into it and not blocking the horse, sort of keeping the forwardness somehow, in fact I this afternoon riding a recently broken 6 year old who is big and gangly I asked for this and he did it beautifully, first time,not clutching at the front end helps,
 
It seems 'tis the season to try walk pirouettes; we had our first wee go with the Ballerina Mare a few weeks ago, by doing the quarter piri in a square thing. The feeling Booboos describes totally makes sense to me, and I have no idea why. :confused: Must go off and think about it now! I too am frequently naughty with my inside rein; as soon as I stopped doing that, she sorted it out for me.
 
I do have my outside leg against the horse like Tristar, otherwise half halt and turn, seating tall like if we were stopping but turning with the upper body. Perhaps try to turn on the haunches 180 degrees when walking on the long side so the horse understands what you are going for (with fence behind you for support).
 
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