The best riders in the world, regardless of discipline, have one thing in common; they have a special feeling for balance. A dressage horse has a different balance from a racehorse or an event horse, but, balance is the key to every equestrian sport. Achievement of balance is the greatest secret of riding. Transitions are helping me to get balanced.
Working on my transitions has really helped me. Walk-trot, trot-canter, all of these help me get his weight off his forehand, and onto his rear. The transitions require that I too try to have a balanced seat. and I have to think about my seat going down into the saddle. I’m also working on not leaning forward. To keep my center of gravity/center of balance, I have to really think about sitting straight up and down in my seat, keeping my leg under myself instead of hunching over. I have a tendency to lean back and pull on the reins, then Hammie’s head goes up, his back drops and he can’t get his hind legs under him to stop. Instead, I have to think of the transition as a softening and allow Hammie to do it rather than make Hammie do it. I tend to pump and try and do the work for the horse.
Some of the exercises I have been working on include trot half twenty meter circle then canter half of the twenty meter circle several times each way and when I do that our up transitions really get better and softer.
Another one is to do one trot and then almost walk by sitting down, breathing/sitting deep into the saddle and then right away trotting again. I also do this with the canter. I remembered an analogy the other day of thinking of being a plane taking off, nose up, tail down.
Hammie’s and my transitions are steadily improving. We’ve just to keep working at them and we will eventually make them smooth. If you have some other good ideas, let me know.