In what order do you teach (horse) or learn (yourself) laterals?

Casey76

Casey76

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Sorry, title is a bit truncated!

In what order do you teach your horse, or learn yourself the lateral movements? Is there a progression, do you think, or is it just a case of get on and do it?

It's been something I've been thinking of a bit recently, and it really pushed to my forefront this weekend, when I've just started doing travers (that is me learning it, AND my mare learning at the same time). My mare is pretty good with her lateral aids, so it didn't take long for her to catch on, and we even stopped my lesson 10 mins early as she made such a fab attempt the last time.

We've been doing lateral work in walk and trot for a while now; and our shoulder in is fairly strong and consistent, leg yielding is OK though stronger along the fence than across the diagonal, but I'm despairing of ever teaching her half pass lol. We've started work on walk pirouettes, which has been interesting for me, but also meaning I'm having to unlearn some bad habits I got into as I was taught TOF/TOH from a halt many years ago (and a different instructor)

I mustn't grumble, she is coming along fabulously, and we've gone from having no canter right, to doing canter figure 8s with only 2 strides of trot to change the lead in 6 months (which may not be fast, but it is consistent).

With my youngster it has been a little clearer, as he has had one instructor since the beginning. He was started early August, and has shoulder in, leg yield (off a circle, against the fence and on a diagonal), all firmly installed in w&t. Actually both his shoulders and his haunches will pretty much go where you tell them to, fairly independently - you just need to tell him. He isn't dressage bred by any means, so he finds the crossing over a bit of a chore, and having short legs for his 16hh body he'll never be particularly elegant or have a massive "sweep" he does OK for a baby horse.
 
I'm not sure exactly what you are asking :lol:
In an ideal world, rider would learn on an experienced horse, and then use their knowledge to teach a green horse.
Not an ideal world though, is it :D

I taught myself and Millie as we went along. It took a while, and it was trial and error, but she is obliging enough to humour my attempts and have a go.
Now I know what I'm after, I can teach Kira and she has picked up all the sideways stuff really quickly - despite also being on short stumpy legs, she'll have a jolly good go at it and it improves her basic paces no end. I've thrown away the rule book with Kira, in her first 6 months of actual training she is doing Medium level sideways things and flying changes, just because it's fun and it makes us up our game. If she's happy, then I'm happy, because she's got a funny little brain and I have to keep her on side :)
 
I have no idea what the right answer is, but here's my experience if it's of interest.
I learned turn on the forehand, leg yield and shoulder in at RS on RS horses.
I then got my own and trained the same things in the same order more or less.
Then added quarter and then half walk pirouettes.
Then added travers, we were both learning that together.
Then traversal.
Never got as far as half pass.
 
Just re read that, sounds a bit poncey and I should clarify that none of it was done at a high standard, I.e. wouldn't have been rushing out to any of it in public at competitions etc.! But it was good enough to keep him from getting bored, improve suppleness and help with general way of going in our basic work. All good clean fun!
 
It is difficult for a rider who doesn't know the aids to teach a horse who doesn't either! When my daughter was introducing lateral work to an ex SJ'r who had no idea about sideways on purpose we had a couple of lessons on a school master (and one on a mechanical horse which I am less sure of the value...) But she needed to know where the buttons should be so she could teach him - which she went on to do very successfully. The other thing to think about is a couple of lessons on your own horse. When you are new to lateral work it is very easy to twist your pelvis in an effort to communicate what you need to to the horse. Having experienced eyes on the ground will stop any bad habits.
 
Sorry, I guess my question was a bit garbled ;)

It's two parts. If you know everything, in what order do you teach a naïve horse? If you are learning, in what order do you learn your laterals?

I learned only TOF/TOH and leg yielding on school horses, everything else I've learned on my own horses whilst also teaching my horse. It often results in much hilarity and quite a lot of confusion, but so far we are getting there slowly :)
 
I start a baby horse off on lateral work with a very simple exercise which I call head-to-the-wall (sorry, only know the Spanish word for this exercise) in walk, which essentially is using the wall to keep the horse from escaping forwards from the leg asking the quarters over. But I only do it for the first or second "ask", then go into shoulder-in (still in walk) for maybe 3-4 steps. As soon as they've got that then we go a-trotting (shldr-in), and all the other fancy-pants sidewaysey stuff follows on from that.

Teaching riders is MUCH more difficult :-), and I usually get someone who's never done lateral work to start off with walk pirouette, then go on to shoulder-in and finally leg yield (or better, half pass). It's all too easy to convince yourself that you're "doing" leg yield when in fact the horse is just staggering vaguely sideways, as crooked as h=ll.
 
If you are struggling with HP have you taught renvers yet?
Most of the work I do is in hand but I didn't try HP until we were ok at renvers.
Then we started the long side in SI, switched to renvers then turned down the 1/4 line, changed the bend and asked for HP.
We are by no means brilliant but that's how we learned it.
Our hardest move was travers, it took a long time for my pony to understand she could move her quarters independently of her shoulders.
 
It would slightly depend for each horse but as a guide for the sequence:
- leg yield head to wall
- leg yield then across the diagonal
- shoulder-in
- renver
- leg yield head to wall then change bend to make traver (haunches in; quarters in)
- Once traver started you then have the basis for your half pass and pirouettes
 
You've been speaking to my instructor Simon ;) that's almost the exact order in which I've been learning, except we switched SI and LY across the diagonal.

We also started pirouettes from SI to begin with, though I know it's not exactly the correct starting position.

Last week we began work on travers along a solid wall. it took me a while to figure out what I was doing (I still have translation issues during lessons at times!), however once I could visualize what I was meant to be doing, we made some passable attempts :)
 
Casey76 said:
We also started pirouettes from SI to begin with, though I know it's not exactly the correct starting position.
Click to expand...

Actually it is. Riding a slight shoulder-fore is a good set up to then ride the pirrie. Most riders practise or train quarters in on a small circle, which is fine but then when coming to ride a pirrie from a straight line if you think quarters in then the horse is stepping sideways too much. Slight shoulder-fore and then think about how your body / hands would turn a tray to that side. (i.e. walk down a corridor carrying a tray and turn into a room on your right - then relate this to a right pirrie).

Last week we began work on travers along a solid wall. it took me a while to figure out what I was doing (I still have translation issues during lessons at times!), however once I could visualize what I was meant to be doing, we made some passable attempts :)
Click to expand...

As a side note I do not use too much traver along the straight line as this could possibly enhance the natural one sidedness of the horse but it is commonly used.
 
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