What being in front of your leg means and how to achieve it.
In order to understand what behind your leg means, let’s first look at what being in front of the leg means.
The german training scale provides trainers, riders and judges some great guidelines to follow to help develop an understanding for how a horses training is going.
The training scale is seperated into three parts:
- Development of understanding and confidence, focusing on rhythm, suppleness and contact;
- Development of pushing power, focusing on suppleness, contact and acceptance of the bit, impulsion and straightness;
- Development of carrying power, focusing on impulsion, straightness and collection.
The result being that the horse is fully responsive, in front of the leg and through.
Behind the leg
So now that you know what in front of the leg is, we can think about what behind the leg is.
Maybe you are constantly getting remarks that horse needs to go more forward from your coach or you have remarks on your test sheet that your horse needs to be more forward.
Maybe you are finishing your rides completely exhausted from constantly kicking and pushing your horse around the arena.
Maybe you have heard your horse described as lazy and dull?
All these things could be related to your horse being behind your leg.
When your horse is working correctly and in front of your leg, it feels easy and light to the aids. It’s able to maintain the gait without constant nagging and input from the rider. No matter what level.
When the horse is trained correctly, it feels as if they can carry you any where and ready to respond to what ever aid you give.
So, how do you put your horse in front of your leg?
I love the way that Jody describes this in her program and it all comes down to balance and I had never heard it described in such a way. So its refreshing angle on it all.
Here is a snippet from her online program discussing a little about being in front of the leg and to learn more about Jody’s description of this, check out her online program.
To access her entire series join us here and take your Dressage Training to a new level by learning from the best. We hope you enjoy it.
Get access to the full video plus over 4 hours of Jody’s teaching with her online training program ‘Principles Of Horse Training.’
Want to learn more from Jody? Check out these articles
Equitation Science – Cues + Signals
Inhand Work For Dressage Horses
Clicker Training For Dressage Horses
Want to improve your dressage riding off your horse?
Check out our sister site Dressageridertraining.com
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Flexor chain exercises for dressage riders
Improve your riding posture off the horse
