Tension in Dressage

J_sarahd said:
I am a new member and I have had conversations and discussions with all these people you have said are in a clique and despite us not always agreeing on things, I have never felt bullied by any of them. But perhaps the difference is I appreciate and accept the viewpoints of people who are clearly a lot more experienced than I am.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Another personal comment. You know nothing of my experience, but do carry on with your cliquey little bullying.

The difference is the people they've bullied don't post here anymore.
 
Tiddlypom said:
It's been an interesting thread, with lots of food for thought. Excessive tension in dressage is a bug bear of mine.

I wondered why the OP decided to troll under a new username, then it became clear. So that they could rubbish many of the more knowledgable regular posters.

But thanks anyway, most peeps, for giving so much insight into real issues in training, and suggestions on how to deal with them.
Click to expand...

I've thanked those that gave the real insights :)

And once again you address one side of my question. I asked about tension die to excitement in a novice horse vs kicking a horse around an arena, but don't let that get in the way of defending your mates.
 
Melodra said:
Exactly. Another personal comment. You know nothing of my experience, but do carry on with your cliquey little bullying.

The difference is the people they've bullied don't post here anymore.
Click to expand...

How am I bullying?? These people are giving their experiences and opinions on your question. You may not agree with what they’re saying, but you need to learn to accept their points of view. Or at the very least agree to disagree graciously. I’ve never once seen any of these people bullying anyone.
 
Melodra said:
Not me. You've bullied others, to the extent of causing serious upset and making them feel that they can't post here. You are known for it apparently.
Click to expand...

Well, nobody's ever complained before which would be the usual route if anyone was feeling abused. Unless you are perhaps a returning "victim"?

To return to your point: there are no "insights" because the rules of dressage, and the training that judges receive, do not correspond with the views that you so firmly hold. Sorry about that.
 
J_sarahd said:
How am I bullying?? These people are giving their experiences and opinions on your question. You may not agree with what they’re saying, but you need to learn to accept their points of view. Or at the very least agree to disagree graciously. I’ve never once seen any of these people bullying anyone.
Click to expand...


Wtf are you talking about? Have you missed the many comments in which I have thanked...and often agreed with people.

The issue here seems to be me disagreeing with kicking not my thoughts on tension.

Do you agree with kicking a horse?
 
Cortez said:
Well, nobody's ever complained before which would be the usual route if anyone was feeling abused. Unless you are perhaps a returning "victim"?

To return to your point: there are no "insights" because the rules of dressage, and the training that judges receive, do not correspond with the views that you so firmly hold. Sorry about that.
Click to expand...

Absolute rubbish. You'll struggle to find a judge, trainer or decent rider that advocates kicking.
 
Melodra said:
I asked you specifically about kicking. I would take a look at your response.
Click to expand...

I know what i have contributed to this thread, so I'll go with the suggestion that I am innocent until proven guilty, ta... if you can prove it then I'll put my hands up :cool:

Tiddlypom said:
I wondered why the OP decided to troll under a new username, then it became clear. So that they could rubbish many of the more knowledgable regular posters.
Click to expand...


Oooh do tell, TP... this thread does have troll written all over it tbh!
 
Melodra said:
Wtf are you talking about? Have you missed the many comments in which I have thanked...and often agreed with people.

The issue here seems to be me disagreeing with kicking not my thoughts on tension.

Do you agree with kicking a horse?
Click to expand...

From what I’ve noticed they seem to be answers that fit into your agenda or are written by people who aren’t in this “clique” you seem to be banging on about. From what I’ve seen, nobody has advocated kicking a horse. They’ve simply said that sometimes the more backwards horses are easier to train up to higher levels.
 
Melodra said:
Wtf are you talking about? Have you missed the many comments in which I have thanked...and often agreed with people.

The issue here seems to be me disagreeing with kicking not my thoughts on tension.

Do you agree with kicking a horse?
Click to expand...
only you have made this about kicking a horse, which we have all said is undesirable.

The rest of us are a bit bemused that you on the one hand thank people for their posts, then slate them 2 pages later, and appear not to be able to accept that other people hold viewpoints different to your own. It's a bit hard to work out exactly what you want to get out of HHO, unless you just wanted 20 people to chime in like sheep, "Baaaaaaaaaaa, tension good, lazy horse bad"
 
Melodra said:
Absolute rubbish. You'll struggle to find a judge, trainer or decent rider that advocates kicking.
Click to expand...

NOBODY, at any time, has advocated kicking. What several people, quite experienced, and in some cases actual listed judges, have tried to tell you is that in many instances a horse exhibiting tension will be marked more severely than lack of forwardness resulting in a less experienced rider perhaps overusing their legs in a test.
 
Melodra said:
So while I appreciate the issues with tension...this still brings me back to the original question.

A horse being kicked is not harmonious. I see a lot of euphemisms such as “behind the leg” but the reality is that force and discomfort are being used to carry out the movements.

Still struggling to get my head around the fact that so many find this preferable to a rider sitting quietly on a novice horse excited by its surroundings.

There is a huge difference between tension as a result of discomfort or stress...and horse in new surroundings excited by being surrounded by lots of new potential friends (being a horse basically)

Ethically, regardless of dressage scoring, the latter has to be preferable.
Click to expand...

But tension is harder to train out therefore is a bigger problem ... it takes me a couple of sessions to train out backwards thinking - I have horses at medium that, not for want of trying, get tense sometimes... which is why I changed my method of training - so that the first lesson that should be taught to any horse is to relax in any situation - it’s the first thing ... it’s taught badly but it shouldn’t be - watch some Tristan tucker lessons he explains it better than anyone I’ve seen - tension is the absolute enemy of dressage - laziness is just a minor schooling error which can be fixed unless there is something g wrong with the horse - kicking would lower your riding mark but dressage is mainly judged on the horses way of going and only one collective is for your input. And it’s usually not a x2 mark like the other collectives
 
milliepops said:
I know what i have contributed to this thread, so I'll go with the suggestion that I am innocent until proven guilty, ta... if you can prove it then I'll put my hands up :cool:




Oooh do tell, TP... this thread does have troll written all over it tbh!
Click to expand...

"I disagree with you so you are a troll" Lol.

Bored now and things to do. I'll go back to training my horses with kindness. You can go back to kicking if you wish.

But the fact there is now zero point now in interacting with a witches coven that launches into personal attacks on my experience (and the horse) because they believe kicking their own horse is acceptable, really bears up what is said in those PMs.

Once again, thanks to those who offered a balanced point of view, constructive advice about settling my boy at events going forward and also - encouragement. It is much appreciated.
 
twisting peoples words and then flouncing when it gets noticed is not really a grown up way to behave, on a forum or anywhere else, that's why you seem like a troll ;)

If you'd like to return to civilised discussions then I'm sure we'll all be here to welcome you back, it is christmas after all :)
 
blitznbobs said:
But tension is harder to train out therefore is a bigger problem ... it takes me a couple of sessions to train out backwards thinking - I have horses at medium that, not for want of trying, get tense sometimes... which is why I changed my method of training - so that the first lesson that should be taught to any horse is to relax in any situation - it’s the first thing ... it’s taught badly but it shouldn’t be - watch some Tristan tucker lessons he explains it better than anyone I’ve seen - tension is the absolute enemy of dressage - laziness is just a minor schooling error which can be fixed unless there is something g wrong with the horse - kicking would lower your riding mark but dressage is mainly judged on the horses way of going and only one collective is for your input. And it’s usually not a x2 mark like the other collectives
Click to expand...

Exactly, very well put. Calm - forward - straight, in that order, and everything else flows from that.

Ooh, and OP you could use a bit of calm yourself.
 
May I just add that you don't know the story behind that 'kick' along horse or rider. Just as the judge does not know that your horse was 'excited' she just saw tension.

Just for an example I know of a few people that want to go out and have a go at dressage but they are normally happy hackers (I hate that phase as IMO I find hacking quite stressful on my TB so I think they are very brave people) anyway they have a horse that loves to hack forward going and happy. They decided to give DR a go they don't have a school at home either to train in. The horse is not keen on schooling any way so they go to do a test. They have fun and enjoy it, its hard work on a horse that is now 'behind the leg' but guess what they had a ball doing something different for once.

I hate SJ I ride like an idiot I am all flappy legs and chicken arms both are completely ineffective aids that he total ignores. But guess what when I have finished a round I am grinning from ear to ear. Also my boy warms up like a dream forward and responsive but I go in the arena and I tense up and find that I probable kick to much to try to get that little bit more out of him but its actually not even require.

So yes kicking a horse along is not pretty and does match the ideal and so what they scored well this time it is meant to be fun and not just at the lower levels, at all levels. These people may not want to go higher then intro or prelim and are just happy to be out doing something different or they could be at the start of their journey on a new horse, they could have scared themselves on a previous sharp horse and just wanted something nice and in their eyes safe to go to a couple of local shows on and have fun they have no interest in going higher and go back to hacking the next day where their horse is back to doing what it loves and is forward and responsive again.
 
milliepops said:
only you have made this about kicking a horse, which we have all said is undesirable.

The rest of us are a bit bemused that you on the one hand thank people for their posts, then slate them 2 pages later, and appear not to be able to accept that other people hold viewpoints different to your own. It's a bit hard to work out exactly what you want to get out of HHO, unless you just wanted 20 people to chime in like sheep, "Baaaaaaaaaaa, tension good, lazy horse bad"[/

I'll just address that last point. The people I thanked, I thanked. I didn't go on to slate them later, even if I disagreed.The people who advocated kicking as acceptable, I politely disagreed with until they became rude and personal. You in particular launched into a personal attack.

"The rest of us" is not everyone on this forum. I received some lovely, constructive and yet encouraging comments. I do think some of you may view this forum as way of presenting an expert image, but your comments give you away.

I never said tension is good and laziness is bad. Why lie about it? That is just awful. I specifically referred in my OP to horses being kicked around an arena. Yes, I did make it about kicking, it was one half of what the post was about.

I really have too much to do now and have to go, but looking at your bitchy personal attacks above, a new member would think twice before posting and daring to disagree. You are intolerant to different viewpoints yourself, laughable that you accuse me of this.

You say you don't bully? Have a read back. Hoisted by your own petards.
Click to expand...
 
Yes I still say there is no bullying on this thread.
I would look you in the eye and say that.
The only person resorting to personal attacks is you, every other thread on this post has been measured, constructive, helpful, informative, probing, challenging at times but all civilised and adding to the debate.

It's interesting that your own run down of the "facts" above is inconsistent, you thanked me, at one point you reminded me that you had done so, and then look what happened! :rolleyes: if that's not slating then I am not sure what is! no matter, enjoy your horses, Merry Christmas :)
 
milliepops said:
Yes I still say there is no bullying on this thread.
I would look you in the eye and say that.
The only person resorting to personal attacks is you, every other thread on this post has been measured, constructive, helpful, informative, probing, challenging at times but all civilised and adding to the debate.

It's interesting that your own run down of the "facts" above is inconsistent, you thanked me, at one point you reminded me that you had done so, and then look what happened! :rolleyes: if that's not slating then I am not sure what is! no matter, enjoy your horses, Merry Christmas :)
Click to expand...

I liked your first couple of comments which were balanced and informative in terms of scoring...you then descended into personal attacks when I brought up the second part of my post which was about kicking an unresponsive horse and whether this was really the aim of dressage and disagreed with your friends on that. It's interesting that I have been at pains to state on multiple occasions that I agreed with the comments on tension, but was finding it hard to understand that so many should view kicking as presenting in any way a harmonious picture - and yes this was said further back. I am then accused of not accepting other viewpoints. Bizarre.

Hey ho. Merry Christmas.
 
I think we're all constantly learning. I know that I never ride as well at shows than I do at home.
I went through a period of the beast being very behind the leg at shows. This was caused by my tension. I wasn't letting my hips move with him because my muscles were tight. So in this case a tense rider resulted in a backward thinking horse.

Occasionally the beast's walk becomes lateral; it's almost always due to me becoming tense. If I turn myself to jelly he walks beautifully.

I think a lot of undesirable horse behaviour is a result of rider inexperience but we are all working to improve ourselves. I think there's bound to be a lot of inexperienced riders at a prelim show, mabey that was a reason for the backward horses the op saw.
 
blitznbobs said:
I think the thing to remember is dressage is a sport not a showing class there are a set of arbitrary rules made up and whether you agree with them or not doesn’t matter... thems the rules and if you don’t like them don’t play or make up your own new sport.
Click to expand...

To be fair the requirements of dressage don't sit alongside kicking and forcing a horse do they? Kind of my point really.
 
What was it you were hoping to achieve from this post OP? Clearly no-one here has responded in the way you wanted them too. Is everybody that has posted wrong? Probably not, which should start to make you think that perhaps tension (from excitement or not) is a major major fault in dressage less so than a horse behind the leg. HOWEVER if a rider is being abusive to the horse then that is a different story. Your posts seem to have changed the other competitors horses from being lazy and kind of on the forehand to basically being abused around an arena.
 
blitznbobs said:
I think the thing to remember is dressage is a sport not a showing class there are a set of arbitrary rules made up and whether you agree with them or not doesn’t matter... thems the rules and if you don’t like them don’t play or make up your own new sport.
Click to expand...
It's a difficult sport too. When I event I find showjumping and cross country much easier, but the dressage is actually my favourite part.
It might sound strange but I find a balanced transition more of a buzz than xc jumping o_O
 
Melodra said:
To be fair the requirements of dressage don't sit alongside kicking and forcing a horse do they? Kind of my point really.
Click to expand...

Actually most of the requirements of dressage are to do with the movements and not the rider. A bad rider will be marked down in the collectives unless the movement is being affected.
 
shortstuff99 said:
Actually most of the requirements of dressage are to do with the movements and not the rider. A bad rider will be marked down in the collectives unless the movement is being affected.
Click to expand...
Hence the reason we can have para dressage ;) if you judged those riders solely for the way they sat or applied the aids vs the classical ideal then the sport would fall flat on its face. Happily the judges look beyond that to see and score some fantastic work the horses produce.
 
Melodra said:
To be fair the requirements of dressage don't sit alongside kicking and forcing a horse do they? Kind of my point really.
Click to expand...
No never said they did but that is a problem with the rider - dressage judges in the main, the horses way of going and ridability... not the riders ability to ride
 
blitznbobs said:
I think the problem with tension is that it needs to be dealt with early... if a horse is tense at prelim it will be more tense at novice and struggle as it goes up the levels but I’ve never had a backward horse that doesn’t get more forward as training continues ...tension is a harder problem to fix... I’ve never seen a truly backwards horse at Grand Prix but I’ve seen a lot of very tense ones so it is a problem that stays rather than gets trained out and hence why I think it’s right that it is marked more harshly, dressage is about harmony and working together and tension is the absolute opposite of that.
Click to expand...

yeah totally agree. one of my little mares is starting her dressage career and shows tension. Later on i ended up writing for the judge who marked us afterwards and she advised that for lower unaffiliated levels I would be better off not even trying to ride the moves correctly on her (ie to miss markers if the horse needs more times between transition etc) and make it as easy and fun for her as possible. She said do anything needed to get the horse happy and relaxed, even if it looks awful and loses marks. She said she sees so many horses going up the levels, and if they start tense at prelim and don't solve that, then the tension compounds as they move up the levels.

I really took this on board as I had three years of tense comments on another horse. So for the next test i did i took her in and literally played around the arena, chatting to her, scratching her and not worrying about how we looked, and she actually got better marks than when i tried to 'ride' her correctly!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top