When and how do you start introducing the piaffe steps?

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_jetset_

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I was working Grace this morning and was working a lot on the canter work which has come on so much I am positively grinning everytime I am riding her
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I have been working her on collecting the canter to the point she is about to trot and then pushing on... this has made her just start sitting back a bit more and pushing from behind. We have a lot more work to do on this, but it is a definite step in the right direction
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Her walk has suddenly become huge too... I think this is partially down to how she is now working, but also the use of the Kavalkade lunging aid as she is really stretching now with that
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However, the trot gets a bit flat and onwards bound at times which transitions are helping, but I wondered whether some steps towards piaffe would help and whether she will be strong enough to start asking???

Any tips on how to start asking for some steps? I presume you collect the walk (I would rather do it from walk) and then ask for some trot steps but keep the collection???
 
It depends on the horse. I introduce them when they are strong enough behind to do a decent shoulder in/travers on both reins in a nice collected trot.

Its not really something you can learn by being told in writing because its about timing. But in principle, yes, collect the walk and as the horse to "diagonalize" i.e. trot-like steps. If the walk is correctly collected, the horse will have to lower its haunches to achieve the diagonalization. But actually doing this is not as easy as it sounds. Having someone on the ground indicating the rhythm to the horse with a whip is usually necessary at first. I've taught horses to piaffe from the saddle only, but its not ideal.
Traditionally its done in hand first, then with a passive rider, and finally prompted by the rider alone.

Kyra kyrkland's book has a very good section on introducing the piaffe. And yes, it does wonders for the trot. But beware - it can ruin the collected walk unless done carefully........
 
Thanks Halfstep... which book is that?

We can shoulder in nicely in the trot and the canter and we are getting there with some collected steps but I don't want her to get too stuck so have been doing some collected in the lateral work and then pushing her on again in the same angle etc.

I really need to get the trot more elevated... but I also know this is also going to be a working progress, after all she has only been back in 'proper' work since October 2008 really with a few stops and starts along the way
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I took her to a test riding day last week and the judge (they are list 2) said her trot is really exciting
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I guess that means she can see there is more in there whereas I have been concerned that although it is lovely, loose and swinging, I never feel as though there is that pizzaz in it.
 
at the dressage yard i worked at horses started doing in hand piaffe steps when they were 4 or 5.

roller, side reins and a leader at the front with reins so you can feel the horses mouth and helper behind who can click and tap the horses hocks with a schooling whip- not hit, just tap gently in rythym.

the key is the rythym and praising as soon as you get any vague resemblance of steps- we would do it in hand for a few months to get the horse to understand the movement and then it would be practised a few times a year until the horse was strong enough to do it with a rider (usually at Adv.Med).

when starting it under saddle the rider replaces the leader athte front but you still have the helper behind- as the rider begins to use the aids the helper can do less and less to help.
 
We used to start off on the ground like this as well, at the same sort of age but then we progressed onto doing a little tiny bit on top, with a helper.
 
I think the thing is though, those horses that are starting so young (at least the ones that go on to have a good piaffe and don't sacrifice something else for it) are being "taught" (or, more correctly, allowed to do something they are already capable of under direction) under the constant supervision of someone experienced, who has learned the skill at least in part by working with horses even more experienced people prepared before them. I've seen a few very good people teach it in hand and sat on a few horses as the "dummy" and it all seemed very simple.;)

I think the warnings about the walk (a HUGE hole in a lot of otherwise decent dressage horses and the easiest gait to permanently wreck) are very important, as are concerns about causing too much tension in the trot and/or producing an initial approximation which is fundamentally incorrect in some way that's tough to fix. Like changes, it's one of those things where you never have a second chance to make a first impression.:)

Someone asked Balkenhol about this at a lecture I attended and he - not so jokingly - said the first steps his young horses do are usually returning home from a hack near feeding time. The horse wants to go, the rider restrains and applies the "shaping" aids, the horses, because of the kind of horses they are, offer a few steps, are rewarded and go on. The next time they ask again, until the horse starts to connect with the aids, then they ask again in another situation, and so on until they feel (an important element) the horse has made the connection. I thought it was a great example of setting a horse up for success by rewarding something it was inclined to do anyway.
 
I think that is a great way of starting the piaffe TarrSteps...

I sometimes get tempted to do something similar when Grace gently jogs slightly in the walk when I pick her up, but trainers have told me to keep the walk as the important gait and ensure she does not jog, so I end up returning her to walk when sometimes I want nothing more than to give her a little encouragement
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I sometimes wonder if I just compress that urge to jog and allow some steps forwards would I get some beginnings of a piaffe moving forwards???
 
When I was in Germany, piaffe was taught quite early on in the training, one method that worked quite well was to collect the walk, collect but ride forward(as halfstep says, very hard to describe) and to tap the top of the horses rump in a good rythym with your whip, this encourages the horse to lift its back legs up and create an active piaffe.
Be very careful though not to ruin your walk.
 
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