Mini-Clinic: Fixing the Hands and Arms

The BHB has been improving leaps and bounds since he had front shoes applied and a thorough massage to relieve any lingering body soreness. So in celebration, I thought I'd share some of the tips and tricks that have helped me improve as a rider.

I'm definitely not a professional or upper level rider, but I'd love to share the things that have made a huge difference in fixing my riding and position issues. My hands and arms are probably my weakest links in riding dressage, so I'm constantly trying to improve them.

1. Shorten the reins... all the time!
• When my reins get too long, everything starts to go downhill.
• The one thing that has made a HUGE impact on me recently was when Heather told me that the top international riders are constantly shortening their reins between movements and even during movements in their tests.  They've just perfected the art of shortening the reins to make it discreet enough so that neither people nor the horse really notice it. This changed my mindset of trying to keep the perfect rein length. Instead, now I'm trying to shorten my reins much more frequently!
• Think about whether you need to shorten your reins or not at every half halt.
2. Shoulder blades back and down
• If my shoulders roll forward, my arms straighten, so in order to fix this I have to think "stick the chest forwards/ upwards" 
3. Elbows at the side
• Obviously a big one for me! I seem to have a hard time getting to that perfect spot with my elbows. Most often I have them too straight, but sometimes I'll also have them too glued to my sides. The elbows should be just in front of being perpendicular to the ground, and the angle of the elbows can vary greatly upon rider build and horse front end build. 
• I hit the gym and do weight exercises that engage and strengthen my lats. There are a million options for these. You can do a search for "lat strengthening exercises" and find some that you have the equipment for. If you don't have weights/gym equipment, you can use straight arm planks  (make sure you "pinch" your armpits to engage the lats) and tricep push-ups to engage the lats (these differ from regular push-ups because you keep your elbows next to your sides the entire time)
4. Double reins reduce fidgeting
• For some reason when I have two reins to hold, my always-busy hands become quiet. I can't wait to see if this holds true at shows once I'm ready to show 3rd+ level where it's legal to use a double bridle.
5. Fingers closed
• I still struggle greatly with this since I want to have super open hunter fingers. I've tried all the "hold x between the reins and your fingers" tricks, but none of them have really helped me. Wearing stickier gloves makes it a little bit better, and grippy reins with stops help a tiny bit too. I'd love to see if anyone has suggestions for this. 
6. Be "side reins" to reduce movement
• In the trot, imagine your arms are creating the same connection as side reins would with the horse's mouth. Hold your hands steady in one spot and don't move them except to do open the rein to the side when needed.
• Holding a grab strap at the front of your saddle can help you distinguish when your arms are actually moving so you can increase arm movement awareness. 
7. Straighten the wrists
• These fix themselves when I have short reins and good arm positioning without tension. At one point in time I was ready to tape Popsicle sticks to my wrists to help with this though!
8. Stop bouncing arms
• If you fix all of the above and lose any extra tension you may have in your shoulders/arms, this should resolve itself.

Uncovering soreness... at a show!

For the past two months, the BHB has been a bit more sluggish and downhill than usual. For the most part we blamed it on the heat coming out, but after watching Heather ride Mark before our show 2 weeks ago, it became evident that he might be foot sore. He was super downhill and his front leg movement resembled a western pleasure shuffle while his hind legs were as snappy as usual. Lately, he's also seemed to digress in his training too and Heather has been struggling with the lead changes he's never had issues with before.

We had the hoof soreness confirmed by our vet who noticed that he seemed slightly off in both fronts while trotting on the lunge. The farrier also examined his hooves when he came out. The BHB didn't react to hoof testers, but his feet are so large that it's hard for anyone to get enough pressure on them! Evidently the footing in the arena we school in (crushed rock, all-weather type material) is making his feet sore. He has absolutely fantastic feet that have foxhunted in mountains and have worked in sand-based footing barefoot without an issue.

So... The BHB got his first pair of dance shoes this morning! I would love to have been able to keep him barefoot forever, but I obviously have to worry about his comfort first and foremost. He's going to have a massage next week to help work out any sore muscles used to compensate for his hoof pain. Then we'll hopefully be able to quickly work back to peak performance condition!

Getting his first pair of shoes!

Getting back to our show results-- I made the BHB do an energetic crawl through 3 tests this weekend before scratching the last. The first day we managed to get our last qualifying scores at first and second level for Regionals. So now we are qualified in 3 classes! If we manage to get a second level freestyle together in time to get qualifying scores, we'll go for a fourth class! I have a rough idea for the freestyle and 2 sets of music picked out that I have to choose from... so it looks like it could happen!

Creating a Freestyle: Music

I'm currently going through the music choosing process for the second time... and I wish it could be the last! Choosing music for a freestyle has proven to be a stressful and time-consuming task. 

The first step is to find your horse's tempo in all 3 gaits. Then it's on to listening to a million soundtracks (mostly browsing youtube.com for me) to find music you like AND would work well in a freestyle. The kicker is that it also has to be the right tempo for your horse. Tempos can be modified, but large modifications (more than around 10%) probably won't end up sounding the way you want. Also, it really needs to be music that's quite pleasing for judges of every background. The BHB's favorite music happens to be R&B... but I can't imagine it would go over as well with the judges as classic rock would!

For the DIY-er, you can download the free music editing program Audacity. It's not a very beginner-friendly program, so if you're not very tech-savvy you might be better off hiring a professional. Heck, anyone would probably be better off hiring a professional... I'm just trying to see if I can squeeze by in creating a great lower-level freestyle without spending more than $3. Granted, I've done plenty of video editing in the past, but editing music seems to be much more complicated.I do realize I may have to end up hiring someone to create seamless music, but at least it will be less expensive since I've picked out the music and made the choreography.

If you're still reading this after hearing how daunting music editing can be, let's go to the next step. First, I did rough edits of the music to eliminate the part of the music that I don't want to use. I figure if I have a 5 minute limit and have to do all of my movements in both directions, then I need no more than 45 seconds of walk, 1 1/2- 2 minutes of canter, and around 2 minutes of trot. Counting in both directions for the trot and canter, and I could probably edit it down to 1 minute trot and canter segments to repeat in my freestyle. I still left 2-3 minutes of music for each gait so that I had enough to easier match it to my choreography without creating horrid franken-music by piecing many different parts together and loosing the natural song flow.

I video-taped my choreography ridden how I'd like to show it so that I could get timing for each movement.  Then I used Audacity to edit the segments. I found the segments I wanted and pieced them together with Fade/ Cross-Fade effects. I'm still learning to use Audacity, so maybe in the future I'll figure out how to use some other effects in editing freestyle music.


A few educational articles on choosing and editing freestyle music:
USDF Connection article "Got Music?"
USDF Connection article "The Wow Factor"
USDF Connection Article "To Turn a Phrase" 

May Chatt Hills Show Recap

Our May show was decent, but I'm not sure we improved any from our April show. I did get 3 more qualifying scores for Regionals-- now we're fully qualified for the first level freestyle and need one more score for both first and second levels. Hopefully we will pick these last necessary scores up at the June Chatt Hills show we plan to attend! I still haven't uploaded videos from my rides, but I definitely will post once I do. 

We weren't set up for the best success since both of our rides each day happened to be less than an hour apart during the heat of the afternoon. The BHB does much better in the morning and/or when it's not 90* out in the blazing sun. I'm sure he would have enjoyed more than a 15 minute break to chill out after the first ride before he had to warm up for our second one. I'm sure the same thing will happen to us at the June Chatt Hills show, so I'm in the process of figuring out how to better prepare so that he can have the energy for the second ride of the day. I think we actually crawled through our second day tests and I could barely manage to get a trot lengthening/mediums out of my beastie. 

After this show, I've decided to edit our freestyle some more, at least the last part of it. We received good scores for movements at this show but then the collective marks were 6's straight down, lowering our score to a 65%. I'm not sure if the judge just hated the music or what... So now I'm going to try increasing the difficulty and improving the music even more!

Right now, I'm trying to finish an application for my GMO's Adult Amateur grant award. Having $750 more to spend on training would be awesome! I'm also planning to go to Aiken to train a week with Amber this summer (late July or early August). The BHB will be overjoyed to see her again and I'm sure will show off all his new tricks to her. 

Videos From Last Weekend's Show

I finally got the videos from our show last weekend uploaded onto youtube.

Our freestyle video. Hopefully next time we show this I won't have to do as many improvisations to stay with the music! I also really need to figure out how to make the one trot music transition a bit smoother before we ride it again!

Here is the first level test 3 in which the BHB checked out of the arena mid-way through. Other than that, it was a relaxed and accurate test.

My fingers are still in the process of healing from some massive blisters I got the week before the show while trying out some glove-rein combinations. I may end up going back to my leather gloves and give the Roeckls a break!

Good Horseman Show Recap

Our first show of the season was a big success, minus one thing. We scored a 71% on our first attempt at a freestyle with finished music that we only ran through twice the day before the competition since I was out of town for work most of the week! We brought home the reserve high score freestyle ribbon of the show too! Once I figure out how to edit one of the transitions to make me happier, I think it will be all set for Regionals and hopefully Nationals with the $2 freestyle! I found through this that I'm pretty good at improvising to stay with the music, and decided on a couple more changes in choreography that I'd like to aim for. Video to come later :)

Here I am with the BHB's ribbons from this show

We made an attempt at riding second level tests on Sunday. The BHB was pretty tired and lazy, so it required much more kicking through than it should have, resulting in gaining the usual "needs more uphill balance" comments. It's not easy to have the necessary uphill balance for dressage when your horse has short legs to begin with, so it's even worse when they are feeling lazy! We still scored a 62% for 2-1 and 65% for 2-2, so I'm extremely happy with our first efforts. Now I know that we need to schedule the harder tests the first day of a show when the BHB has the most energy.

Now for the thing I'm not so happy about. The BHB decided during our 1-3 test that he was going to duck out of the arena at A without any advance warning. He's NEVER offered to do this before and better never ever do so again or the judge will need to close his/her eyes for 5 seconds to break a habit from forming. I heard from the show manager later that the judge was very surprised about it too and that no one saw it coming. The judge was nice enough to let us come back in the arena and score the rest of the test. We were eliminated of course, but at least the BHB did not get the break he was looking for when he ducked out. We were putting in an awesome test that would have garnered right at a 70% too!!! I think the BHB is just not getting enough mental stimulation at first level anymore after riding this test around s dozen times last year. He's ready for much more than I am! I think I'm going to let Heather show him at least once this summer. She thinks she could do 4th level with him, he's so much further advanced than I am!

We have 2 new horses in the barn that are going to join us in showing, so hopefully we'll have a summer show schedule in place soon. Right now I'm not sure which of several options we'll head to next. I'm very excited to try out our freestyle again and try to get all our 5-7 more qualifying scores for Regionals!

Show Preparation: Our Show Packing/Prep List

Our first show of the season is in one week! I'm just finishing putting the freestyle music together today so we can run through the whole thing once or twice before competing! I'm out of town for work Wednesday-Thursday, then have a networking-type event to attend mid-day Friday. Not the ideal work week leading up to a show! On the bright side, I hear the BHB has successfully mastered his first tempi changes with Heather, so maybe I will actually get to try a real lead change someday soon!


One time I trailered to a jumper show across town, unloaded my horse and was preparing to tack up only to discover that I forgot to put my tack in the trailer! Luckily, I was able to send my dad the 30 minutes back to the barn to pick it up, but how mortifying would it be to have that happen at a dressage show when you're much further from home! Also, in dressage we have custom-fitted saddles and bits carefully chosen through trial and error, so it's not as easy to find tack available to borrow as it would in the H/J world where saddles and bridles seem to be constantly thrown from horse to horse.

When I was foxhunting, I wouldn't trust myself to pack everything correctly at 5am on a weekend morning, so I would actually tack up the horse completely before throwing it on the trailer so I could just hop out and mount up. It also helped that I didn't have to saddle a dancing horse at the meets! Now, I don't saddle up before going to a dressage show, but I do make a list to make sure I have everything before leaving for the weekend.

This is the checklist I use for going to shows. It may seem like quite a bit, but most everything should already be in one place (like the trailer) or easily grouped together.


TO DO DAY BEFORE SHOW:
 Bathe Mark
 Clip Mark
 Clean tack
 Fuel-up truck
 Put coggins, health certificate, insurance info in truck

TACK BOX (The bolded items are things that don't always live in the show box):
 Body brushes
 Tail brush
 CANTER Mane & Tail spray
 Hoof pick
 Hoof oil
 Braiding supplies (comb, clip, rubber bands, quickbraid)
 Small cordless clippers (charged)
 Shampoo
 Bathing sponge
 Sweat scraper
 Scissors
 Sunscreen
 Sugar cubes
 Tack cleaning supplies
 Adult amateur calming supplement (I.C.E. mini liquor bottles)
 Clean towels
 Polos/boots for schooling
 For championships: white polos
 Fly spray
 Schooling gloves

PUT IN TRAILER:
 Tack box
 Full hay bag for Mark to munch on
 Show bridle
 Extra noseband option
 Extra bit option
 Saddle
 Girth
 2 white saddle pads
 1 schooling saddle pad
 Thinline pad
 Blankets/sheets if cold weather
 Hay
 Grain

THINGS THAT SHOULD ALREADY BE IN TRAILER:
 Chairs
 Folding table
 Water buckets with hooks
 Feed pan
 Hose with sprayer attachment
 Muck bucket/wheelbarrow
 Pitchfork
 Shavings
 Twine (from hay bales)
 Saddle rack
 Bridle rack
 Folding step stool (for braiding and mounting)

GARMENT BAG:
 Show coat
 Stock shirt (1 per day showing)
 Stock tie
 Boot socks (1 pair per day showing)
 White breeches (1 pair per day showing)

HELMET BAG:
 Show helmet
 Hair net
 White gloves

BOOT BAG:
 Boots
 Spurs
 Boot polish

BACKPACK/SUITCASE:
 Video camera
 2 casual outfits (jeans, t-shirt)
 Schooling shirt and breeches
 Cash for concessions/shopping
 Sweatshirt/jacket
 Sneakers 
 Toiletries (for overnight)
 PJs (for overnight)

COOLER:
 Snacks
 Lunch
 Breakfast (if not staying at free breakfast hotel)
 Water
 Electrolyte drinks (Gatorade, propel, coconut water)
 Carrots