Schooling ideas wanted please!

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FinellaGlen

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Since the advent of the warm weather my schooling inspiration seems to have deserted me. I find myself mooching about in the school with no definite plan. Tomorrow I have a lesson and I will hack out Saturday and Sunday but I would welcome any ideas for what I can do this afternoon.

I am not a good rider so nothing complicated please!
 
Hmm - when Im having problems focusing I do lots of circle (it works!!) Kepp your brain ticking over and the horsies brain tivking over by constant changes of direction - 10m circles down the long side followed by larger circles at each end. Use serpentines and such to change direction and then when the horsie settles into that add lots and lots of upwards and downwards transitions. It may sound random but it gets the job done! xx
 
First of all you need to think about what the aim of your schooling is? Have you a specific problem you need to address, like lack of bend, going on the forehand, lack of impulsion, tension etc? Are you schooling to improve your performance in a specific discipline - dressage, showing, jumping etc? Often the reason people don't know what to do in the school is because they don't set themselves goals!

A few suggestions that might be of help:

Work over ground poles
Riding school figures such as serpentines, figures of eights, circles of various sizes, loops in from the track etc.
Practice transitions from halt to walk, walk to trot, trot to canter, and back down again, and perhaps walk to canter, halt to trot etc.
Transitions within the pace - so from shortened trot, to working trot, to trot with lengthened strides etc.
Spiralling in and out from 10m circle to 20m circle and back again using leg yielding.
If you are trying to improve your jumping set out a 'course' of ground poles and canter over them, concentrating on rhythm, balance, bend, correct leg etc.
 
Thank you! I really am just looking for someone to tell me what to do and I will try it, unless it involves jumping which I am rubbish at. any more suggestions also welcome becuase I will try them all, although not necessarily all in one session.
 
TGM thank you. Loads of suggestions for me to try there! I will work through them all and will definitely put some poles on the ground, even though I am not intending to jump, because its ages since I did polework and my pony does enjoy it.

As far as having a goal to work towards. I suppose I am just trying to get Nelly bending more to the right as this is her (and my) stiffer side. She also likes to try and fling her head around when I first start to take up a contact and I have been working on lessening this. I think she is just "testing" the boundaries to see if she really is allowed to go round the school with her nose poked out and her legs trailing along miles behind her? Once I apply my leg more strongly and squeeze the outside rein she stops doing it but my goal is to get her to forget about doing it at all. I am a novice rider so apologies if this doesn't make sense and advice is very welcome.
 
FG, have you got a copy of 101 Schooling Exercises ? Its really been my Bible for working with Brooklyn - I think about what I want to do in each session, and look up a couple of the exercises in the book, and then work on those. It has a section at the front which suggests which exercises are good for particular problems, which is also very helpful.

I also try to do zillions of transitions all the time, to keep her awake and listening to me. In theory, loads of transitions should get the horse working properly, wondering what the heck you're going to ask them to do next, and they won't have time to think about playing up because they'll be so busy sorting out their legs !

I would definitely beg, borrow, buy or steal a copy of 101 Schooling Exercises if you possibly can, its great.
 
The transitions between paces and within paces will really help get her more balanced and therefore less inclined to poke her nose.

With the stiffness on one rein, I find it helps to regularly change the bend rather than try and school on a circle on the stiff rein for too long. So do things like a 20m circle at one end of the school, change rein over X and circle other end of school. Also serpentines, doing a 5m loop down the long side of the school and doing half 10m circle from B to X, change rein over X, and half 10m circle from X to E.
 
Trundle - I've never heard of that book but will go and look it up on Amazon as it sounds perfect for me.

TGM - thanks again. I think I have been a bit guilty of doing endless circles on the "bad" rein to try and improve it. I will try the other things you've suggested and stop obesssing about the right rein. I am going to get my OH to video a schooling session next week as well because I find it helps me a lot to see what is happening from the ground so to speak.
 
I know how you feel, specially when your confined to the 4 corners of the ménage because you can't hack out (I've got a youngster) and with this warm weather you get in the menage and after 10 minutes start convincing yourself its too hot bla bla blaaa boring circles blaa bla blaaa.
But there's lots of ways to get you back into it, I used to think dressage was a bit dull until I had a go, but then you realise and think hmm this is actually quite good and you think hmmm so that's why you do that and hmmm oh right yeah my horse is good at that but needs a bit of work on this etc etc and everything falls into place.

A good riding instructor will give you inspiration, a schooling plan, something you can get your teeth into and every week or month you improve, you never know, you might actually because a schooling perfectionist! set yourself a goal (even if you don't want to compete) and practice to achieve it, not only will it benefit your horse but it will do wonders for you and your self confidence and sense of achievement.

Books, videos are great but having a good RI there to give you that gentle push and make sure your doing everything correctly will help leaps and bounds. You can do lots in the school and it doesn't have to involve funky dressage moves,..pole work, lateral work, setting up obstacles which requires good rider balance and well behaved and responsive horse (trec type) games, all sorts as it all helps.
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Thanks everyone who replied. I felt a lot more inspired this afternoon when I rode in the school. I did some of the exercise which you have all suggested and I think there was a slight improvement by the end. Pony was quite eager today and was in her "Walk? Me? No, I'll trot thank you very much" mood but after we'd had a canter on both reins she settled down.

I am having a lunge lesson tomorrow but I'll explain to my instructor that I would like some sort of game plan to follow so that I have definite goals to aim for. I think this is definitely the way forward for me because I really do want to improve.
 
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