Help your horse become responsive to 'light' leg aids in leg yield and travers.
Is your horse dead to the leg? In this lesson, Jenku will teach you how to help your horse become light and responsive to leg aids. This is helpful for Fleur, as she doesn’t have ideal dressage conformation and can get quite strong if she loses her balance. It’s easy to get into the bad habit of squeezing madly with your leg, lifting your heel as you do so. This ends up disrupting your balance and - before you know it - you’re standing on the balls of your feet.
Leg yielding, using the wall of the arena as a guide, is an excellent way to help Fleur soften through her back, and at the same time, train the leg aid. Instead of constantly driving with her leg, Tracy uses light pressure in time with Fleur’s hind leg as it steps across and under. Then, as a seamless progression from leg yielding using the wall, Fleur and Tracy move into 'travers'. Tracy uses her body as a pendulum to help Fleur take bigger steps. Fleur’s back is relaxed and so she’s able to use her abdomen to bring her hind leg forward and under. Textbook!