DRESSAGE TRANSITIONS

by Dr. Nancy Nicholson

RIDING FROM THE ‘INSIDE OUT’ MEANS THAT YOU START RIDING FROM AN EFFICIENT POSITION OF YOUR WHOLE SKELETON.

Riding transitions with your bones held in position by deep core muscles has three wonderful results. First, you are elastically established on your horse in comfort. Second, good rider posture shows your horse the route to its improved posture. Third, your aids are invisible to an observer, because they lie deep in your body. But your horse knows every move you make and is encouraged to move through its back, rather than just with its legs!

Add transitions with deep core elastic aids and you have become an effective ‘elastic pillar’ ready to train in harmony with your mount. Even your head, which weighs 10–12 pounds, needs to be held above level shoulders and evenly weighted seat bones.

Diagonal aids of the ‘inside-out’ rider at right involve leaving upper body free enough so the horse is not ‘trapped between hand and leg.’ The outside rein, the rein on the convex side of the bend in the whole body, is the guiding rein for manoeuvering: the inside seat bone is the default one to weight slightly. It is generally supported by the inside leg at the girth. THIS IS THE FOUNDATION POSITION FOR ‘ELASTIC PILLAR’ HALF HALTS. Think logically about this position. Your lower body embraces the middle of your horse. You ride in a one gravity environment with friction, making alignment of your mass with your horse’s mass the biomechanical essence of classical position.

Note that the ‘circle of aids’ for the classical position UNIFIES RIDER AND HORSE. If the skeleton of either is misaligned, then gravity works against the partnership.

At last we come to HALF HALTS, aids some have called ‘mysterious.’ With a correctly aligned, elastic rider, the mystery is removed, but not the physical effort or the mentally focused serenity that keeps aids in tune with what is asked of the horse. Half halts are more than ‘calls to attention,’ they are part of a mutual information flow between partners. If you maintain a consistent elastic alignment of your skeleton and core, then your arms and legs are enabled to assume the library of specific positions needed to tell your horse what to do. With an uninterrupted circle of aids you stay ‘on the same page’ with your mount. This enhances the emotional foundation for riding: attention and confidence.

Transitions between equine gaits as a whole come in a spectrum of possibilities. For instance, there are the very quick limb swaps that keep four-legged animals from being a meal, or they help a predator to catch a swift-footed snack. Dressage, with its emphasis on grace and poise in motion, uses only a fraction of the gait change spectrum. These transitions are relatively slow, in the neighborhood of two seconds.

Dressage changes of gait use a set of positions that demand relaxed, elastic strength plus endurance in order to remain balanced. Long leg contact times with footing increase the aerobic work required. In other words, relatively deliberate tempo (rate of steps within strides) is crucial to graceful, fluent movement. But horses prefer the lighter workload of quick steps! Your horse needs to be developed slowly in order to be mentally calm and physically able to perform dressage transitions. It is a rider’s task to have correct aids for correct posture that teach the horse by touch (kinesthetic learning).

I have selected two transitions that illustrate how half halts and elastic pillar riding from the inside out function. Trot to canter and canter to trot transitions explained on the next two pages use the foundation classical position where aids are mainly from your lower body directed through the body of your horse.

COLLECTED TROT TO COLLECTED CANTER

Interconnectedness of a dressage transition with its origin and end gait stride is shown in this real time analysis. It is prompt, fluent and in stride with level balance because it distributes leg position and braking (slowing velocity) over several steps. Equal flexibility to each rein is needed for rider and horse. Straightness as capacity for symmetry of position is founded on relaxation/looseness of both partners. The partners here are the Morgan gelding Raynyday Maximillian (bareback) and the author.

Max’s transition begins in the second half of his trot stride with half halts given with the outside leg in Frame 1, then inside leg in Frame 2. The rider’s upper body remains as quiet as possible in an elastic stretch calibrated for a rebalance to canter. This 1–2 half halt sequence alerts Max to the kind of transition desired, then produces the diagonal position of his pelvis for the canter.

Position of the horse’s pelvis determines the canter lead! And the horse will usually imitate the human placement of pelvis.

Errors of lead are frequently traceable to rider failure to have proper pelvis alignment before, during and after the transition.

If you are stiff or one-sided, then suppling exercises are in order! No excuses, as you owe this sort of physical support to your horse! These half halts place the outside leg in support of the outside hind of the canter. The outside hind for the canter is established early during the transition (Frame 4), just after the vee or limb swap (Frame 3). Note that the transitional stride is neither trot nor canter, but is unique to one of the six basic dressage transitions.

This sequence using a modified limb position pattern from walk is consistent with the math pattern of the canter, that it is ‘walk plus jump.’

In addition to work required of each leg, it is important to note which legs are involved in braking and vertical support functions. It is these legs that are important in transitions down from higher velocity and tempo to a different set of positions.

Among the features of the transition between trot to canter are:

• The transition is inside foreleg intensive: it is used twice and supports propulsion into canter from the right hind leg. For this reason, it is wise to change rein often to avoid over-stressing one foreleg.

• One suspension of the trot is absorbed into the transition, and the exit from the transition overlaps the first canter stride.

• Compare the transitional canter with collected canter in Frames 6 and 12 where legs are phased differently at RH mid support. Forelegs are carried more ahead of the center of mass in Frame 6, increasing the workload of the whole spine to keep posture level.

• Apparent lower poll position (Frames 9 and 10) reflects the ‘roll’ of the canter onto the inside foreleg. Max’s angle of neck and poll does not change, nor does his contact with the rein complexus neck muscle group.

The outside rein supports the unilateral to diagonal half halts in this transition. During a ‘vee’ moment (red triangles), the horse is supported on two legs of the same side (unilateral support), in this case the two inside or left legs (LF-LH). The horse needs elastic support during the half halt sequence from the rider’s entire body on the outside (right in this case). Too much pull on the inside rein unbalances the transition to the inside shoulder and onto the forehand.

Note the way different positions of the passive balance tripod of legs, vee of limb swap and diagonal pairs (Frames 2, 5, 8, 11) are used in the transition. As with other dressage transitions, the work of the limbs (time in ground contact, intensity of braking, propulsion) is ‘time-shared’ over almost two seconds, avoiding an abrupt impression for the movement.

COLLECTED CANTER TO COLLECTED TROT

The interconnected uniqueness of a dressage transition is again revealed in this real time analysis. It is prompt, fluent and in stride with level balance.

Max’s transition begins in the canter with a timed elastic half halt given on the rider’s outside leg with elastic support on the outside rein (unilateral half halt). This rebalances the canter even though this is already collected canter.

The transition starts with the first limb swap (Frame 4, red triangle). As before, the upper body should experience minimal change of position. Because I am the rider, my upper body leans too far back in Frames 4 and 5. I can be critical of my riding without creating an international incident! My out of position moment puts me behind the motion of Max, who does not even switch his tail in protest.

The change from asymmetric gait (canter) to symmetric gait (trot) is reflected in the asymmetries of the transition. Step sequence of limb swap encompasses two right ‘vees’ and two long strides behind, both involving the left hind during diagonal support.

Legs with braking activity are important in transitions down from higher velocity and frequency to a slower speed. Two contact times of the inside fore reflect strains of the transition.

Among the features of the transition between canter and trot are:

• The transition is inside foreleg intensive (in this case, the LF or left fore marked by the red triangle): it is used twice and supports the limb swap into trot (frame 4) as well as the development of the trot at the end of the transition (Frames 9, 10).

• The position of mid support for the hind limbs is not restored until the first full trot stride (after Frame 12), and this is preceded by a second long stride in positive relative elevation with the left hind (Frame 11) to accomplish that restoration. The first long stride behind occurred during a tripod of passive support (Frame 7).

• Max’s poll is the highest point of his neck: the musculature of his neck maintains a consistent, elastic stretch into the rein.

• These long steps behind visually dominate the fluent, forward, in-stride aspect of the transition.

This transition, as are the other dressage transitions, is frequency (tempo) dependent for limb positioning. Canter undergoes a large change in tempo. Extended canters have a stride frequency of around 99 strides per minute, collected canter is in the range of 75 strides per minute, and canter pirouettes are usually about 68 strides per minute.

Adjustment of tempo comes with an aerobic price. Because a horse in suspension (all four legs in the air) must fall back to earth with the acceleration of gravity, slower tempos gain their slower frequencies as legs work for longer times against the ground, not longer times in the air. If this seems strange to you, rethink the physics misunderstood by some statements involving the phrase ‘prolonged suspension!’ Video evidence is very clear on this point: it is descriptions that are at fault. Horses compensate for longer contact time by keeping two or three legs in support and absorbing the time spent in the air with muscular effort.

And a concluding thought:

AIDS ARE NOT COMPULSIONS! BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF AND YOUR HORSE. YOU HAVE TIME!

Dr. Nancy Nicholson is an active competitor and an ‘L’ graduate with distinction from the United States Dressage Federation judge education program. She is an advocate of classical equitation, having trained several horses of different breeds to international levels as a hobby (read that as ‘obsession’). Her profession is teaching geochemistry at the university level. She has achieved national and local awards for dressage and is author of ‘Biomechanical Riding and Dressage: A Rider’s Atlas’ as well as having revised the geochemistry text ‘Chemical Cycles and the Global Environment: Assessing Human Influences.