How to ride a proper Circle

There are two things to think about

• How the CIRCLE is being ridden geometrically.

• How the HORSE is being ridden on a curved line

Remember, in a circle you should NEVER NOT BE TURNING.

Another mistake is often you will be doing a great job until you reach the side of the arena then end up moving along the rail of the long side for a few strides, all flat. Then you realise you need to turn to get to your next ‘circle point’ and veer sharply off the rail to make it to center line in time. Now you have made a twenty meter shape with some flat sides instead of a circle.

Think of it like this, if you have ever seen tennis balls inside their plastic packaging cylinder, you will notice that they only just touch the edges of the ‘long side’ and ‘short side’ of their container with no flat bits . A circle in a dressage ring is the same, with us always having to ride into, onto and out of every contact point, no matter the size of the circle. If you are on the rail for more than one or two strides then you have been at that point of the circle for too long and it is no longer circle.

The aids and the rider

If you understand the aids for bending, then creating a circle should only be a matter of preparation and practice. Otherwise you will definitely have some issues with the precision of your figure and also the rhythm, balance and suppleness of your horse. These are all basic errors that will stop you progressing in your work. Circles are basic but very important for progress.

You can ride a circle correctly when you can bend the horse’s body laterally according to the shape. Moving the horse away from your inside leg and receiving him into your outside hand. The hind feet should follow exactly in the tracks of the forefeet.

In a correctly executed circle the horse’s inside hind leg carries more weight than the outside one. Before every circle you should prepare the horse with a half halt and transfer your weight a little to the inside seat bone, in the direction of the movement. The movement you make is little.  You can achieve this by a slight turn of your belly button to the inside.

The horse should then be flexed in the same direction. The inside rein should guide the horse into the turn, placing his nose on the curve as if you are drawing the circle with his nose.

Your inside leg should be active and close to the girth, causing the horse’s inside hind leg to reach further forward. The outside rein should yield just enough to allow the horse to flex to the inside, while at the same time it restrains the horse from falling out over the outside shoulder. There should still be CONTACT with the outside rein. Your outside leg should control the quarters and stop them from swinging.

When the horse’s wither (forehand) is guided from the straight line into the direction of the turn, the influence of the inside rein is decreased but not lose contact. You should ‘straighten’ the horse with your outside rein; keep the horse exactly on the line of the circle. (‘Straight’ on the circle means making sure that the hind feet follow in the tracks of the forefeet, and that the horse is bent from head to tail according to the curvature of the line.)

The correct distribution of your weight is important. In transferring some of your weight to the inside seat bone you should push your inside hip forward with a deep knee and turn your belly button to the inside. This will also prevent you collapsing your inside hip and lateral (side) muscles which would slip your seat to the outside. At the same time you should make sure not to leave your outside shoulder behind. Hips in line with horses hips shoulders in line with horses shoulders outside seat bone connected with the saddle           NO LEANING to the inside.

AND remember to breathe

Note on turning your Belly Button:

On or off your horse try sitting on your hands with your palms up. Make sure you are sitting on your seat bones.  Notice what happens when you turn your belly button left or right.  Just a little movement has a big effect on your weight distribution.  Make sure not to collapse your side muscles from under your armpit to the top of your hip when you do this.

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Contact and Biomechanics

The mouth is sensitive hand position is important and varies from rider to rider as we are not all the same shape or length of arm or body.

Contact should feel like gently holding hands with your horse

Top picture: What a pulling hand does to the horse. It locks him up.

Its called Tea Pot Neck and steals the energy from the horses hind legs leaving them trailing out the back.  It can affect the horses breathing and is very uncomfortable for him.

Try this exercise

• Stand up, hands on knees.  Try to walk with hollow back

•  then with your head pulled in like Tea Pot neck

This is the effect of pulling the horses head into position on a hollow backed horse

It hurts and you cannot move easily.

Contact and hand position

Hands should be level. Thumbs on top and Knuckle to Knuckle or you cannot engage your side muscles that keep you upright

Top Tip

Try imagining keeping two $50 Bills behind your armpits to engage your side muscles

To find your own personal hand position – take your elbows back behind you whilst still holding the reins.  Stop when it feels really uncomfortable. Now gently ease your elbows forward until the uncomfortable feeling becomes a really comfortable feeling.  Your elbows should be around about perpendicular to your body line. That is your own personal workspace. Imagine that between your body and your hands there is something solid like a concrete block, so that you are unable to pull back from this workspace into your tummy.

Imagine that your hands are in an ice-cream container and that they can move around within that space (your workplace) but they cannot pull back beyond the confines of your ice-cream container.

Hands have different jobs.  It’s a bit like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time.  They work together at different jobs.

The inside hand

• Supports the outside hand so the bit is not pulled across the horses mouth

• Positions the horses head on your line

• Keeps the inside mouth moist and soft

Top Tips

• A horse will tend to go on his forehand when the rider brings the elbow in front of the perpendicular body line.

• The weight of the riders shoulder and arm should be absorbed in the hip area.  Rather like resting your elbows on a table.

• The upper arm should be relaxed enough to hang naturally but sufficiently supported enough to carry the forearm lightly.

How not to pull

Lets start by engaging your core

• The opposite of Core engagement Is often called motorboat  / Water ski

Exercise 1
How to engage core

This is best done standing up

• Bend over laterally to the left side.

• Bend over laterally over to the other side.

•  Now try and do both at the same time.

You’ll look like you’re just standing straight, but everything will be completely engaged and totally braced.

Exercise 2

In a riding position knees bent hands out in front Try pushing the person next door to you out of your space

Engaging your core will help you to have independent arms from your body rather like a conductor

An engaged core will help to prevent you from pulling

No core + A pulling hand

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·       The outside hand 

• turns the horse

• Half halts

• Asks for reach to the bit

The inside hand

• Supports the outside hand so the bit is not pulled across the horses mouth

• Positions the horses head on your line

• Keeps the inside mouth moist and soft

Top Tips

• A horse will tend to go on his forehand when the rider brings the elbow in front of the perpendicular body line.

• The weight of the riders shoulder and arm should be absorbed in the hip area.  Rather like resting your elbows on a table.

• The upper arm should be relaxed enough to hang naturally but sufficiently supported enough to carry the forearm lightly.

How not to pull

Lets start by engaging your core

• The opposite of Core engagement Is often called motorboat  / Water ski

Exercise 1
How to engage core

This is best done standing up

• Bend over laterally to the left side.

• Bend over laterally over to the other side.

•  Now try and do both at the same time.

You’ll look like you’re just standing straight, but everything will be completely engaged and totally braced.

Exercise 2

In a riding position knees bent hands out in front Try pushing the person next door to you out of your space

Engaging your core will help you to have independent arms from your body rather like a conductor

An engaged core will help to prevent you from pulling

No core + A pulling hand

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About the Author: Linda Brown

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How to Correct your Seatbones

Seatbones are the center of your body.  They affect the rest of your frame and most importantly your balance.

Balance:

The balance of the centre of the body, affects the body above and below. Do you sit evenly on your seatbones?  Do you have one hip more forward than the other?  Do you have more weight on your front (Pubic Bone) or your bottom (Tailbone)?

SEATBONES: Three Quick Tests to see how even you sit

• One seatbone more forward

“Which seatbone do you think you have most forward?

 Try this:
“Can you point your belly button to 11 o’clock, now 12 o’clock, now 1 o’clock…
now can you point it directly straight ahead” trying to locate and place seatbones is too hard for most people. But, talking about your belly button  really works ! Unless you have had some medical misadventure your belly button is located in the middle of your torso

2.  One seatbone heavier

 On the Straight Line

Again your belly button can help you to fix this.  Align your belly button with the zip of your jodhpurs, the middle of the pommel of the saddle and the horses wither.  This will go a long way to fixing up any inbalance.

Your horse will step under your weight no matter what your hands and legs tell it to do however if the horse has wrong flexion and bend or a head tilt it will affect the results of you sitting correctly.  It is best to start as balanced as you can and then sort out the horse biomechanics once you have yourself more correct.

 On Turns or Circles

Try some turns…do one turn with the inside seatbone heavier.  Then another with both level.  Then another with the outside heavier, and see for yourselfwhat happens to your horse.

Simply keeping your helmet level to the horizon is a great help to stay balanced and fix your seatbones losing balance in the circle.

Keeping your elbows softly level, not allowing “tipping in” is easier to manage than if your shoulders tip in.  And, level elbows help level seatbones.

Think of the Spanish School of Riding…their hats are level, and their gold buttons are level! The don’t lean in or fall in circles & turns.

3.  The “other  Seatbones” – Front & Back

When we talk about seat-bones, we nearly always think of the “left/right” ones.  But, don’t forget the “front/back” ones!  Your pubic bone and your tail bone.

The tailbone controls speed through on the forehand -vs- engagement.

A –Jockey leans forward in a race – minimum to zero contact of the tail bone.

A –  Cowboy SITS in a slide – maximum contact of the tail bone.

The rider’s tail bone is like an “anchor” in a ship that “sits the horse down”, and the more sit, the slower they go.  When a horse is engaged, their tail is lower to the floor. In that way both horse and rider “match”…Rider’s tailbone down = horse’s tailbone down.

How you sit can hurt your horse

Full engagement, “tailbone down”, the entire time, and eventually your horses stifles and hocks will suffer

The opposite goes for jumping, leaning forward (especially if your heel is up, throwing you onto your wrists for support). This puts the horse on the forehand,  and the opposite end of the horse – the front legs suffer.

Over-arched back

You might hear from your coach “your back is too arched”, or “your seatbones point out the back”, or “sit deeper”.  These are all accurate descriptions of the same thing, however, no matter how you try to fix it, you are still “overarched” and sitting on your pubic bone.

Slumping

The opposite is “slumping” where you sit too deep on your “pockets”

Here are two questions to ask yourself to help you change these problems:

• Does your belly button point up to the sky  or down to the ground, or is it parallel to the floor.

• Which is heavier your pubic bone or your tail bone?

If you ask yourself the question: “which is heavier, my pubic bone or my  tail bone?” the answer is immediate. You could then add in “how heavy is my tailbone out of 10?”.  Then, try to make your tailbone a 4, now 2, now 9, now a 7 etc.

Keep changing the number UNTIL YOUR BELT IS LEVEL from side-one.

Fear & Injury:

If your seatbones are firmly “planted in place” technically you can never come off.

Pain:

 Back Pain, Hip Pain, Lumbar Area – even knees & feet, your   seatbones  affect them all. The more the bones are in correct position, the less it’s going to hurt!

You cannot “engage your core 10 out of 10” for more than a few minutes, and even then, that’s not how the great riders  stay on.  They are totally relaxed….they’re not using their core to hold together bones in the wrong position.  They train to find ways to support the bones into the correct position…and then they say they are relaxed.  Of course there has to be a little bit of core and what you start with becomes less and less effort as you train your body to keep your seatbones correctly in place.  If you are able to sit or stand you are using your core, you are just not putting effort into it once it becomes a habit because you have trained your body.

Injury to the Horse:

Help your horse by giving him a balanced, stable load to carry. As a beginner you will feel that you are working really hard and are using a lot of core. It does get easier to keep  your seatbones in place.

Some GREAT FIXES for seatbone imbalance

Remember that your seatbones are the route of all evil.  If they are not balanced they affect your shoulders your head your arms legs and feet and very definitely your horse and how he goes.

a)  RIDE DOWNHILL

Is a quick way for learning to get your tailbone on the saddle and is one of the fastest ways to improve your balance and your confidence.

b) GIVE YOURSELF AN IMMAGINARY TAIL

Imagine sitting on your tail with it poking out towards your tummy.  Think of taking it in both your hands and giving it a pull towards the sky to get your tailbone on the saddle.

C) BOWL OF WATER

Imagine a large bowl of water in your pelvis.  Try to keep the water level even, not tipping any out the front or the back or either side to get yourself really even in the saddle.  This exercise will help the slumper and the overarched back.

d) LIFT SOMETHING!

it’s not MUSCLE that keeps you on it’s ANGLE. It’s about the only sport where you can be an Olympian and overweight and a little unfit in the core, but have the right ANGLES of the feet, ankles, and  SEATBONES, and NOTHING will pull you out of balance. When you’re lifting, thinking of a safe bicep curl.  As you do the bicep curl, with something you are ACTUALLY LIFTING, your tail bone is FORCED into the saddle, you don’t have a choice.  And, if it’s heavy enough – like when you are leading another horse that is being “reluctant” it forces every part of the pelvis into the correct position…All Four seatbones will be balanced where they need to be INSTANTL

The ultimate tip for backing a horse float.

Cant do it.  Scared of going places where you cant turn around?

Try This

If you were on your horse and you wanted to push his quarters to the left you would push him with your right leg and visa versa.

Just imagine your steering wheel is your leg and the horsefloat is your horse. –  Perfect backing every time.

 Keeping horses can be expensive, and from time to time we need to supplement what we are doing.  Here are some basic remedies Passed on to me by others who have found them useful.

Remember to buy in bulk for really good savings.  Check with your local rural supplies and cash and carrys for great deals.

Ulcer Treatment

Ingredients: Baking Soda Coconut Oil

Recipie: Mix Baking Soda and Coconut oil together to form a smooth paste similar to cake icing in consistency.

Place in a container in the fridge.  To use scrape off about one heaped tablespoon and add to the feed.  I do this twice daily but once is OK. Most horses have no objection to eating this as it tastes like salt.  Bonus: A really shinny coat.

Hoof Oil

Ingredients: Lard Oil (any e.g. Rice Bran) Stockholm Tar

Recipie: Melt Lard and add oil to your own consistency remembering that it will solidify as it cools.  Add Stockholm Tar at the rate of about 2tblsp to one litre of the mixture

Basic Electrolytes

Ingredients: Salt Dolomite

Recipe: Mix together 4 Parts Dolomite to one part salt.  Add a handful to the feed daily. Note: This is a basic electrolyte and not suitable for horses in very heavy work.

Leg cooler and tightner

Ingredients: Methylated Spirits White vinegar Epsom salts

Recipie: Mix equal parts of Methlayted spirits and White Vinegar and add a big handful of Epsom salts to make approximately 1 litre.  Make sure the Epsom salts have dissolved. Note there will be a white residue left on your horses legs. This will just wash off.

Lets put some weight on

Ingredients: Rice (any kind) salt

Recipe: One cup of rice to about 10 cups of water plus salt to taste.  Great as a winter filler added to the feed. Bring to the boil then turn off leaving the lid on the pot.  Add to feed when cool enough to eat. This is better made daily as it caN GO OFF

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Balance

What Is Rider Biomechanics?

Have you ever wondered what it is that talented riders do and why they can’t seem to tell you exactly how they do it? Would you be surprised to know for every change you make in your seat, your horse will give you a reaction? Do you long for someone to tell you exactly how you should sit and why? Then Rider Biomechanics training is for you. You will be amazed how quickly change can happen!

Linda Brown is a accredited Ride with Your Mind (RWYM) coach. No matter what your current ability or what type of horse you own, all you need is an open mind and willingness to learn. You don’t need to have competitive ambitions, just the desire to improve.

Where Are Lessons Held

26 Dekker Road, Pyes Pa, Tauranga

Who can benefit from it

How much does it cost?

Lessons at Lindas $70
Travel up to 30 minutes away $75
Travel multiple lessons within BOP, by arrangement

Clinics outside BOP $115

Testimonials

Meet Linda Brown

Linda is accredited Ride with Your Mind (RWYM) coach and an ESNZ Performance Coach. 

She has attended numerous Andrew and Manuela McLean clinics and is a strong follower of their methodology.

Linda was a List 2 Dressage Judge and she also was the Area Delegate to Dressage NZ for the BOP Area for 20 years and has a sound understanding of Dressage from a Rider, Trainer, Judge and Delegates perspective.

Linda offers unique before and after videos of your lesson and is happy to give you exercises to be done without your horse in your own space and time.

Linda has an Adult teaching diploma, a Biomechanics coach accreditation with Mary Wanless UK. A certificate in e-learning Design and Facilitation with the Open Polytechnic and a diploma in journalism.

Contact Info

Email

Phone

Find us on face book https://www.facebook.com/148545838627778?ref=embed_page

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5r0PZGfglE

Clinics Separate tab on top

January 2026

10, Opotiki  Jo Steele

16-18 Feilding Janine Wilson janine.wilson@nzhomeloans.co.nz

Rotorua

Te Horo

Cost

Services Sub tab

Lesson Pricing Structure

Option of private and group lessons, as well as clinics.

Linda offers a 60x 20 all  weather arena at her property.

Linda will travel to areas around the Bay of Plenty for individual riders and group lessons. Price is dependent on distance.

I can video part of your first lesson and later lessons so that you can see the before and after difference of your riding and give you feedback The first lesson video will be free but after that it will be $5.00 Lesson duration with video feedback is 1 hour.

2026 Private Lesson Prices

Pyes Pa Location $70

Local $75

Travel up to 30k $85

Travel

2026 Group Lesson Prices  $65 pairs only

Clinic Format options

Daily coaching fee (5 hours) at local venues $500.
Other locations – fees can be negotiated to cover travelling and associated costs.

6 Riders Intensive Clinic
Private morning lesson of 45 mins
Afternoon shared lesson (2 in the lesson) of 40 mins to consolidate the morning’s lesson
Video feedback and Workshop as above

8 Riders Clinic
8 Riders having a shared lesson of 1 hour (2 in a lesson)
Video feed back: This helps the riders see the changes made to their position throughout the lesson which may feel different to how they actually appear. Actually seeing their body positions on the video will help to make them aware and able to make the necessary changes to achieve optimal results. Workshop: During this time we will examine the body alignment of the rider off the horse and give specific exercises to improve any areas of stiffness or weakness that we identify.

Rider Bio Mechanics

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·        Rider Bio Mechanics

Linda Brown is offering 45 min lessons on rider biomechanics using Ride with your Mind and Andrew McLean techniques. These lessons concentrate mainly on the rider but will have a dramatic effect on how the horse goes.

Core Training

Part of being a stable dressage rider is having a stable on strong core for you to work from.

Linda makes sure all of her clients are doing some form of core strength training to help develop the postural strength and stability that they need to ride efficiently. Check out an online core strength and stability program for dressage riders that you can start today in the comfort of your home.

Click here to find out more about Dressage Rider Training

Core Strength New Top Tab

3 Reasons Why Engaging Your Core Is Important When Riding

In this video Linda talks about the 3 reasons why we need to engage our core when riding. When you understand why, and you get the tools to improve it, you will have a more successful time with your horse.

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Why Core Strength Is Important For Dressage Riders

Blog, Video

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Why Core Strength Is Important For Dressage Riders

In this video Linda talks about core strength and stability, and why we as riders need to place huge importance on making sure we have good core strength. […]

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Why We Need Core Strength

Blog, Video

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Why We Need Core Strength

In this video Linda talks about the importance of core strength. Why it is such an important aspect 

Contact  

Contact Us

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Pyes Pa, Tauranga

Mobile: 027 4790 314

Email: linda@lindabrowndressage.com  

sandlbrown@xtra.co.nz

A Balanced Rider

Welcome

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·        Welcome

Welcome to The Balanced Rider.

This program is designed to help you find a balanced position on your horse, to keep you safe and enable your horse to move without the hindrance of an unbalanced rider.

Section 1

For new riders, mature riders returning to riding after a long break or those that are weekend riders and want to know if they are doing it right and how they can ride more safely.

Overview:

A lot of this content will be about things you wanted to know but were too scared to ask

What we will cover

• How do I sit balanced – where and how do I hold my hands

• Getting braver and staying safe – Put on your Brave person pants

• The first aids. –  How to ask your horse to go, stop, and move sideways away from your leg

• Having a training plan – what should be in it and where to from here

• Rhythm

• Suppleness

• Contact

• How to ride corners and circles and serpentines

• Impulsion

• Showing some lengthening

• Straightness

• Turn on the forehand and leg yield

• Rein back

• Using a Mantra

• Rider relaxation

• Setting realistic goals – Keeping a diary or workbook

• How to keep improving

Getting Started

It can be difficult to study online. Often we start off with good intentions but don’t manage to keep it up even when we are really enjoying the content. Life gets in the way.  Try to set aside some regular time just as you would if you had a fixed appointment.  Sometimes appointments have to be cancelled but if you have a regular time scheduled you can get back to it.

The good thing is that you can repeat sections as often as you want or skip bits and come back to them later.

You have your own personal coach in your own home at your own pace.

Being Brave

Some Tips on how to deal with your fear

Give your fear a name.  Lets call ours Nancy

Tell your fear to” Go Away Nancy” take control and stop the  hormones that turn you into a quivering wreck (you can shout out loud or in your head — either works!)

One of my riders locks Nancy in her car when she comes for a lesson.  Nancy is part of her life but my rider controls her.

Breathe 

Calm your mind with focused breathing.  You can use it before you ride, while you are riding and as soon as you recognize the first symptom of fear.  Take long, slow, deep breaths   Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.  Feel your belly expand on the inhale and collapse on the exhale.  Changing your breathing is the fastest way to help you to feel more calm and confident.  It helps your mind to slow down and relax. Try sighing as you breathe out.

Count your breaths and keep them slow.  Try matching them to how slow you would like your horses footfalls.  The slower you breathe the lower your heart rate will be.

Tension

 Release tension from your body.  Stiffness in your body affects your balance, suppleness and confidence.  It also affects your horse.  When you are nervous or fearful, you will have tension somewhere in your body.  Is it in your shoulders and neck; your bottom or somewhere else?

Do a top-to-toe scan of your body to check for physical tension:

• Face and jaw are relaxed

• Shoulders away from ears

• Ribcage relaxed and not lifted and tense

• Engage your core

• Elbows heavy and hands soft

• Backside isn’t clenching

• Thighs heavy and lengthened downwards

• Lower leg relaxed

• Toes up

• Centre of gravity down

• Engage your lats –from (how do I sit balanced) section 1)

Visualization

Change the pictures you see in your mind.  Visualization is a strong and proven technique used successfully by professional and world class amateur athletes to improve their skills and confidence.  Your mind doesn’t know the difference between a real and an imagined event. If you keep replaying in your mind the mistakes you’ve made or situations that you imagine might happen, your mind believes you.   Change your mental video tape from the possible catastrophic outcome to seeing the positive outcome you want.  Your mind believes you either way.  Use positive talk. “I can do this”

Focus your gaze on the area between your horse’s ears, not a ferocious stare but a soft, almost out-of-focus, supportive gaze so he knows you are just paying attention to him and not the ‘scary’ thing. You can do this out of the saddle too by finding a part of him to focus on rather than looking around you which will unsettle you both.

Count your hip swings; as the horse walks he will move your pelvis side to side, the more relaxed you are the easier it is for him to do so. Count to 10 and then start again. You can then use this hip swing to slow his gait too, slow your swing — he slows too. If you are on foot, just count your strides instead.

The Comfort Zone

Begin in your comfort zone.  Ride where you are most comfortable and gradually move out of that area while paying attention to your breathing, your tension and your thoughts.  When your stress increases to the point where you can’t manage your stress, go back to riding in your comfort zone until you are calm again.

Start small: if you are feeling anxious about hacking out try breaking it down into small, achievable steps:

Tack up, get on and get off again

Tack up, lead your horse on foot for a short distance then return home

Tack up, get on, walk a short distance with someone you trust on foot beside you

Walk a bit further with your ‘foot soldier’ for support

Train your Amygdala

There is a primitive part of your brain (the Amygdala).    It is the center of your brain and is the area that triggers fear. It prepares your body for flight or fight which causes physical changes in your body like increased heart rate, shallow breathing and tense muscles.

In people and horses this area of the brain can be trained not to over react .

Repetition and positive experiences can help build new neural pathways around the Amygdala

Should I buy a vest?

Not only will it save you if you have a fall but it is a great confidence builder to know you are less likely to get hurt if you do fall off.

I recently took a rider for a lesson where she forgot to plug in her vest and proclaimed at the end of the lesson how much more confident she felt with it on only to find that she actually hadn’t had it properly on at all.

Learn a little horse language

Watch your horses ears If they are both well forward you do not have his attention

If they are flat back he is angry

Horses ears should flick forward and back one ear back means you have his attention

Have a look at

Anne Gage, Confident Horsemanship (www.annegage.com).  

Jane Pike Joyride.

Core Engagement

CORE – how switching it on can help or impede

If a rider sits very relaxed, with little inner core muscle engagement, they can feel very heavy on the horse’s back.

If you engage your deep core muscles more, you support yourself more, which makes you feel lighter to the horse.  Most horses will then lift their […]

Throughness

Throughness
Comes from the activation and increased carrying power of your horse’s hind legs. When your horse takes more weight behind, that results in a lighter shoulder and a more mobile front end. This allows you as the rider to ride the horse through various movements with small, unobtrusive aids.

Horses that are not through are typically […]

The Heavy Horse

The Reins and the Rider – Some problems that aren’t what they seem
  

A rider usually talks about a symptom of the problem, what’s happening and what they feel.  When they try to fix the symptom they often cause other problems.

It’s easy to ride for an hour fixing the symptom when all you have done is […]

How to ride a circle

There are two things to think about

• How the CIRCLE is being ridden geometrically.

• How the HORSE is being ridden on a curved line

Remember, in a circle you should NEVER NOT BE TURNING.

Another mistake is often you will be doing a great job until you reach the side of the arena then end up moving along the rail of the long side for a few strides, all flat. Then you realise you need to turn to get to your next ‘circle point’ and veer sharply off the rail to make it to center line in time. Now you have made a twenty meter shape with some flat sides instead of a circle.

Think of it like this, if you have ever seen tennis balls inside their plastic packaging cylinder, you will notice that they only just touch the edges of the ‘long side’ and ‘short side’ of their container with no flat bits . A circle in a dressage ring is the same, with us always having to ride into, onto and out of every contact point, no matter the size of the circle. If you are on the rail for more than one or two strides then you have been at that point of the circle for too long and it is no longer circle.

The aids and the rider

If you understand the aids for bending, then creating a circle should only be a matter of preparation and practice. Otherwise you will definitely have some issues with the precision of your figure and also the rhythm, balance and suppleness of your horse. These are all basic errors that will stop you progressing in your work. Circles are basic but very important for progress.

You can ride a circle correctly when you can bend the horse’s body laterally according to the shape. Moving the horse away from your inside leg and receiving him into your outside hand. The hind feet should follow exactly in the tracks of the forefeet.

In a correctly executed circle the horse’s inside hind leg carries more weight than the outside one. Before every circle you should prepare the horse with a half halt and transfer your weight a little to the inside seat bone, in the direction of the movement. The movement you make is little.  You can achieve this by a slight turn of your belly button to the inside.

The horse should then be flexed in the same direction. The inside rein should guide the horse into the turn, placing his nose on the curve as if you are drawing the circle with his nose.

Your inside leg should be active and close to the girth, causing the horse’s inside hind leg to reach further forward. The outside rein should yield just enough to allow the horse to flex to the inside, while at the same time it restrains the horse from falling out over the outside shoulder. There should still be CONTACT with the outside rein. Your outside leg should control the quarters and stop them from swinging.

When the horse’s wither (forehand) is guided from the straight line into the direction of the turn, the influence of the inside rein is decreased but not lose contact. You should ‘straighten’ the horse with your outside rein; keep the horse exactly on the line of the circle. (‘Straight’ on the circle means making sure that the hind feet follow in the tracks of the forefeet, and that the horse is bent from head to tail according to the curvature of the line.)

The correct distribution of your weight is important. In transferring some of your weight to the inside seat bone you should push your inside hip forward with a deep knee and turn your belly button to the inside. This will also prevent you collapsing your inside hip and lateral (side) muscles which would slip your seat to the outside. At the same time you should make sure not to leave your outside shoulder behind. Hips in line with horses hips shoulders in line with horses shoulders outside seat bone connected with the saddle           NO LEANING to the inside.

AND remember to breathe

Note on turning your Belly Button:

On or off your horse try sitting on your hands with your palms up. Make sure you are sitting on your seat bones.  Notice what happens when you turn your belly button left or right.  Just a little movement has a big effect on your weight distribution.  Make sure not to collapse your side muscles from under your armpit to the top of your hip when you do this.

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Goal Setting

Goal Setting

Write down a goal (you may have several) write it as current tense e.g.

I am riding my horse out on my own down the beach and loving it.
Or I am riding a level 5 test and its going really well

Think about how your goal will show itself

What will you […]

A rider usually talks about a symptom of the problem, what’s happening and what they feel.  When they try to fix the symptom they often cause other problems.

It’s easy to ride for an hour fixing the symptom when all you have done is […]

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