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Leads
Oct 9, 2015 15:50:35 GMT
Post by horseguy on Oct 9, 2015 15:50:35 GMT
The ability to pick up a correct lead and to change leads is perhaps the single most misunderstood element of riding. Over my years of teaching I have encountered numerous good and even advanced riders who could not predictably achieve a correct lead or a flying lead change. I believe the reason is in how leads are taught in a mechanical way. Usually leads are taught as a series of steps culminating of a leg cue. This Dressage Today explanation of how to pick up a correct lead is typical of how a lineal progression of steps are intended to result in a desired lead. We hear very indirectly in this DT explanation and from others like it how to prepare the horse with collection and technique to reach a point where the horse is ready for the outside leg cue that will trigger a correct lead. This is what I mean by mechanical. It's in these cook book mechanical step methods that riders get lost in the details.
It is far simpler to think of leads as energy flowing through your horse. This energy initiates in the outside hind leg and flows diagonally through the horse's mass to and out of the inside shoulder. That's it, nothing more. In the Dressage Today explanation we see many words about how to build up the energy that will enable the horse to initiate the lead with the outside leg cue. To a newer rider, the outlined steps of building collection are intimidating and often difficult to connect to the end goal of the lead. It is simpler to think of the lead process in terms of energy. I tell students if you can shake up a bottle of soda with your thumb over the bottle opening and then spray the shook-up soda in a direction using your thumb to release and direct it, you can get a correct lead. It's pretty simple and this energetic approach to teaching leads also allows a rider to relate more directly to the individual horse they are riding, where the cook book technical approach ignores the individual horse's uniqueness.
First we must understand and feel how horses are programed to "push" their energy. For example, if there is one pile of hay and two horses, most horses will push against one another to position themselves to control the hay pile. If a horse pushes on another horse the programed equine response is to push back. We can use that push back impulse in picking up a lead. If we are in a posting (or not) trot and sit into the saddle with more pressure on the outside seat bone, the horse will feel that seat bone pressure and push up into it with their outside hind leg. If we can get the horse to push their outside hind leg up into our seat in this way, and if we can "shake up the soda bottle" not with our legs squeezing the horse but with our seat, we can "take our thumb off the bottle opening and spray" the horse's energy releasing it out through the inside shoulder (thus getting the correct lead). We do this by moving our hips in much the same way that we would use or thumb to spray the soda from the bottle or water from a garden hose, IF we do not block the path of that energy. Herein lies the most common problem in achieving a correct lead, blocking the energy.
The most common way a horse's outside hind leg energy is blocked from exiting the horse's inside shoulder to get a lead is by blocking the energy path with the head and neck. If we pull on the inside rein and swing the horse's head to the inside of the turn, the neck muscles can compress the inside shoulder. This compressed inside shoulder is the energy block. A rider learning leads might ask, how can I turn left and get a left lead if I cannot use my inside rein to steer my horse left? The answer is you can, but you must feel how far you can pull the horse's head to the inside with the inside rein without compressing the inside shoulder and blocking the energy path. It's different with every horse. Some require that their neck be straight or even bent to the outside in order to let the energy pass through and out of the shoulder to the inside. Through trial and error we can find a specific horse's threshold of openness on the shoulder.
Instructors might say that teaching beginners using this "feel" perspective, rather than linier steps they don't understand but can repeat, is too much to ask of newer riding students. I disagree. When students cannot understand they still can feel something. A good instructor finds out what a student can feel, which is usually quicker and easier than finding out what they understand. The added benefit of this feel approach to teaching at all levels including beginners is that riders experience their horse more. It is difficult for a student who is trying to remember a cook book recipe, mixing the ingredients and executing the listed steps to feel much of their horse because they are in the mind, not in their body. If we build on the rider's experience of their horse and get them in their body sensing their horse, we end up with a rider with far greater depth of skills and abilities, not only with their horse but with all horses.
I am fortunate to have had such a good first instructor. He was a military rider who taught the military way. You might think that the military teaching method would be very cook book in nature but it is not. His method was very structured, but his experience of horses with its respect for the uniqueness of every horse dominated the curriculum. For example, the Fort Riley manuals do not specify a set stirrup length. Instead you read a description of how horses' barrels differ and other conformation variables that effect stirrup length. Additionally, you read how human "conformation" varies. The manuals state that it is the combination of the horse's and the rider's physical uniquenesses that determines stirrup length. There was no recipe of one-size-fits-all in his teaching, whether it be stirrup length or leads. We had to feel if we were to learn in his wonderfully exciting field riding instruction.
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Leads
Oct 20, 2015 4:02:40 GMT
Post by jimmy on Oct 20, 2015 4:02:40 GMT
I don't know when I started feeling it, but leads made sense to me early on. I got to where if a horse was trotting around, I could feel, and still can, which lead they are about to strike off on, before they actually do it. This is very helpful, because as you feel it about to happen, you position your legs, and hands, for that lead. The horse learns the cue this way, not from just the pressure of the leg, but the position that happened right before he struck off. It's like you don't apply the aid first, you set the horse up and wait for him to just about canter off on his own, maybe using the circle or a turn to initiate the lead, and apply the aid, the one he hasn't learned yet, just before he picks up the lead.It is more align with classical conditioning, rather than operant conditioning. It takes a lot of feel on both the riders part, and the horse. Some horses that are dull, do not feel what you did with your body, and so that's when the pressure/release part has to come in. It is more along the lines of feeling your horse get ready, before he actually commits. That is the time for the release of pressure, or the application of presenting a feel to him, without necessarily being a pressure cue. Make sense?
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Post by horseguy on Oct 20, 2015 14:32:06 GMT
"The horse learns the cue this way, not from just the pressure of the leg, but the position that happened right before he struck off. It's like you don't apply the aid first, you set the horse up and wait for him to just about canter off on his own... It is more along the lines of feeling your horse get ready, before he actually commits. That is the time for the release of pressure, or the application of presenting a feel to him, without necessarily being a pressure cue." Jimmy, I think you are onto a very base foundational principle of riding and training. I will call it "the set up". When a rider/trainer can find a mutual level of comfort from which to create a connection with the horse, then a purpose can be communicated between the rider and the horse that sets the horse up for that purpose, in this case a lead. It's not pressure, it's communication and it's physical. The example I go to in this "set up" is in a polo game the rider watches the ball and the opponents to anticipate the direction of the play. Once you see how the play is unfolding you make a plan and sit into your horse to execute that plan. You sit in a manner that will make you the best balanced and positioned to get out of your horse's way to do their part. What you find is the horse only has to feel that readying "sit" from you to get the plan and join in the execution of it. What is so cool about polo is it is so fast and these moments of connection and purpose are so rapid fire that it demands this shorthand messaging. There just isn't time for the pressure release communication. It's a physical set up in your body that is a preparatory hint of what you want. The horse listens for it.
You might say that this is for trained horses, that they need to learn how to listen that intently, and in that learning pressure release is the means, but I don't think so. Polo horses can only learn the game in a game, so training is rapid fire and they only get so much time to "get it" in each play, and the plays just keep coming like the chocolates on the Lucy candy factory conveyor. The nature of the set up is quick and the horse gets it or misses it, and in this way learns. It is not through pressure release that they learn, there is not enough time. It's really feel-to-feel between the rider and horse. This is what I got from your post. So how do we learn as horse trainers to be the other half of this kind of communication? How do we learn to feel? My answer is a Wynmalen quote, "Let the horse move you".
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Leads
Oct 23, 2015 14:56:44 GMT
Post by horseguy on Oct 23, 2015 14:56:44 GMT
Today we very often think of leads as something to be judged at a horse show. Judges like to see a horse leading with the inside fore leg in a bend. Here below we see a rider on a right lead going right around an arena. In the first picture, we see the second or diagonal (right hind/left fore) beat of the canter, followed by the right leg leading, and finally that same right front leading leg pushing off with the left hind preparing to fall to the ground for the first beat of the new stride.
The above picture shows a "correct lead". But why is it correct?
The picture below shows a right or correct lead in a tight right bend.
This horse is on the second beat of a right lead. We see the right hind and the left fore pushing off in the diagonal second beat, and the right inside fore leg preparing to lead to the right in a "correct" right lead. In this type of tight bend we can see why the inside lead is important. Imagine seeing this same bend to the right with the horse doing a left lead. The left fore leg would have to reach across the horse's chest in order to make the bend work. Additionally, the horse would have to do this reach across his chest with the left fore following the second canter beat of the left hind and right fore pushing off prior in the second beat, which would make it even more difficult to get his left fore headed in the right direction of the bend. It feels awkwardly twisty to me just thinking about it.
Here below we see the "incorrect lead" in a right bend.
The horse is bending right and we see the incorrect second beat of the canter, the left hind and right fore diagonal beat, and the outside left hind about to reach in front of the chest in the third beat trying to enable the right bend. While awkward, the horse is managing the right bend on the "wrong" lead with apparent ease. So, why bother with leads at all? A horse can bend right on a right or on a left lead as the pictures show.
The answer is that a horse can indeed bend right on either lead if the terrain is flat and if the footing is easy to grip. But what if those conditions are not present?
We are now entering the fall season. Temperatures are dropping and the crops are harvested from the fields. This is when the farmers and land owners permit us to hunt fox in the traditional equestrian sport of fox hunting.
In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere we begin to get heavy frost that can create a frozen crust of ground 2, 3, or sometimes 4 inches thick overnight. These are wonderful scenting days with the sky overcast, so as not to burn off the fox's scent, and the frost is there to "refrigerate" that scent and preserver it often long into the day. Good hunting! The hounds can run a scent fast in these good scenting conditions, sometime approaching 40 mph. In these frosty fall conditions, how would you feel moving fast over uneven terrain with an unstable ice crust over soft ground? A good hunt horse is used to this kind of not so wonderful footing and most do well if their rider is conscious of details, like correct leads. It is, however, not uncommon for a horse to slip and fall to the ground in a turn while hunting on frozen ground because of an incorrect lead. Typically what happens is the horse reaches across his chest with the opposite lead, and as the incorrect leading foot tries to grab the frozen ground, the hoof grip slips due to the awkward angle of the foot fall. As the incorrect leading foot slips one of two results usually occurs. The front end of the horse breaks loose from the frozen ground, and the horse goes down to the ground in front. Or a second thing happens, the horse feels the outside fore leg slipping as it tries to grab the ground across its chest, and the horse attempts a lead change in its hind, desperately pushing off with the outside hind leg to stay up, which usually lifts the front of the horse, but very often breaks the hind loose and the horse goes down in the hind. When this happens, and I have experienced it many times in too many variations, you hardly have to me to say, "Oh s**t". You have asked for the safe correct lead but your horse has ignored you, and there you and your horse are on the cold ground. In a horse show, an incorrect lead will result in a lesser ribbon or none at all. In a fall or winter hunt the cost of a wrong lead is very often far greater. We therefore train hunt horses to listen to the lead cues. The point of Jimmy's and my back and forth discussion about the "set up" becomes essential in these circumstances. At 40 mph there is no time for pressure/release cues, and in crusty frozen ground there is little or no room for error. Leads are important. The good news is horses get it that they might fall and learn to listen carefully to the rider's "set up" as they move fast across terrain in bad footing. They learn to listen early to the plan the rider makes through the woods with multiple obstacles. There are usually many paths to reach the sound of the hounds in pursuit of a fox, and a head strong horse that has its own stubborn planned route must subordinate to the "set up" the rider provides. If the horse ignores the rider's communication, both face dangerous consequences. A good hunt rider communicates their plan early and good hunt horses pick up or changes his leads well before a planned turn, which brings us to straight line flying lead changes a few strides before an icy turn.
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Leads
Oct 23, 2015 15:34:22 GMT
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Post by Candy Lass on Oct 23, 2015 15:34:22 GMT
Thank you for that indept explanation of picking up a lead. As a young rider with no instructor, and the only horses I had came from a horse sale, so needless to say my first horses were green, or abused and mean. Your explanation beyond the "cook book method", (which was all I had) was hard for me to try. I did have a natural sense of how to get a lead, and our worked sometimes. Your explanation about sitting deep on the outside seat bone makes good sense, and it would have worked if I would have felt safe on my mount.I am sorry to say that I rode in the "perched" position, so not a lot of deep sitting. I know now really would have helped my horse relax and be safer. Thank you for your knowledge.
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Leads
Oct 24, 2015 14:45:43 GMT
Post by horseguy on Oct 24, 2015 14:45:43 GMT
It is far simpler to think of leads as energy flowing through your horse. This energy initiates in the outside hind leg and flows diagonally through the horse's mass to and out of the inside shoulder. That's it, nothing more. A couple weeks ago I posted the above in an energy vs. mechanical explanation of how leads are best determined between rider and their horse. In my continuing re-reading of Chamberlin I came across the quote below in his 1937 book Training Hunters, Jumpers and Hacks. I am reading from the 1978 ARCO edition, pg 259. Before quoting him I want to point out that Muybridge's work on the gallop (see the Gallop for Geeks thread here) in 1878 was only 59 years old when Chamberlin wrote about canter leads. The language distinction between the canter and gallop was then not yet firmly established as it is now. Therefore, many people (and I remember this into the 1950's) used the words gallop and canter more or less interchangeably, which is different than we do today. Also back then "false lead" meant incorrect lead. Chamberlin writes, "The false gallop - leading with the left leg when curving or circling to the right, or visa versa- lengthens and lowers the stride; supples the spine; lowers the head and neck; puts the horse on the bit; and improves balance and agility. It is begun by riding on broken lines composed of very long, large curves, so that there will be neither interference nor attempts to change lead or gallop disunited. The left direct rein (see Fort Riley Seat thread), with the hand held low, is employed to control the left shoulder, if circling to the left with the horse on the right lead. This rein effect when combined with the predominating action of the rider's left leg (which is required to sustain the false lead with the hind legs) bends the horse's spine slightly to the left. As he gains experience and balance on broken lines, a figure-of-eight, initially described with very large loops, is traversed. This results in a false gallop on one loop and the true on the other. Calmness and success may be quickly attained if the rider, in addition to the aids just mentioned, allows great liberty to the loin by sitting well forward over the inside shoulder, and to the head and neck by following the mouth."In this piece of writing about the canter and leads, Chamberlin describes how to block the energy initiating with the outside hind from "escaping" out through the inside shoulder by means of the low inside rein and weighting the inside shoulder with an exaggerated forward position. He recommends this false lead exercise in order to supple the horse's spine. I have found that this paradox of using incorrect leads i.e. counter cater to supple a horse in order to more easily get correct leads really works. The figure eights he describes, if used with a moderately athletic horse, maintaining one lead without change also teaches a horse to listen to the rider and not execute a lead change automatically at the intersection of the two circles in the eight. This is exercise is at least a training two-fer, maybe a three-fer. If we follow Chamberlin's advice, we get a more supple horse, a horse that better listens to the rider regarding leads, and a horse, due to increased suppleness, changes leads more easily. For the rider, the exercise develops control of the direction of the energy generated in the horse's hind. After many years of this sort of training/riding, a rider begins to feel the horse's hind energy as we might feel a strong spray of water coming out of a hose. Sometimes the horse is easy to control and sometimes the horse's energy can feel like a fire horse that might be a little too powerful and a bit out of control, but still we begin to feel the energy "spray" of the horse. This, I feel is perhaps the highest form of unity of horse and rider, the ultimate goal of horsemanship.
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Leads
Nov 18, 2015 15:13:52 GMT
Post by rideanotherday on Nov 18, 2015 15:13:52 GMT
I rarely had the opportunity to work in an arena as a kid. Because I was in 4-H, I did show in an arena. All of my training for leads was down dirt roads. I would pick the lead, set the horse up, and let it happen. At the time, I didn't know any better and the more I know that type of training was really helpful down the road (no pun intended). I didn't end up with a horse that was over bent and I didn't have a horse that was reliant on the rail and for that matter, neither was I.
Much later in life, I took some college classes that were the first real instruction in riding mechanics I'd ever had beyond what books could teach me as well as what I learned from the horse. I found that I had learned a few things I needed to change and a few things that really helped. I could feel when the hind legs were starting to come off the ground and was able to use my seat and legs appropriately to create bend and affect the appropriate lead. We, as a class spent several lessons going around the arena counting strides and telling the instructor which hind leg was coming up. Some did better than others. I'm glad that was a portion of class that I did alright in.
I have heard a number of "tricks" of how to get a horse to pick up a correct lead. People get downright creative to force a horse into a lead. Typically, these are the people who are minimally aware of what their horse's hind legs are doing.
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Leads
Nov 18, 2015 18:28:29 GMT
Post by horseguy on Nov 18, 2015 18:28:29 GMT
I have heard a number of "tricks" of how to get a horse to pick up a correct lead. People get downright creative to force a horse into a lead. Typically, these are the people who are minimally aware of what their horse's hind legs are doing. Here is my favorite "trick" for changing a horse's lead. I met a guy out west who said it was easy to change a horse's lead. He said all you need to do to change leads is if you are on a right lead and want to change to a left lead, is you just lean back in the saddle, stretch out your right leg forward, and poke the horse's right shoulder hard with your right spur. He had huge sharp rowel spurs. Wow.
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Leads
Nov 18, 2015 18:47:46 GMT
Post by rideanotherday on Nov 18, 2015 18:47:46 GMT
<sigh> Spurs. That will have to be another topic entirely!
I've seen people take an extended trot into a corner and then hard turn and cue for a lope / canter to get the cue with all sorts of configurations of nose tipped in or out, hips in or out etc etc. It's mind blowing really.
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Leads
Nov 21, 2015 14:13:20 GMT
Post by horseguy on Nov 21, 2015 14:13:20 GMT
I've seen people take an extended trot into a corner and then hard turn and cue for a lope / canter to get the cue with all sorts of configurations of nose tipped in or out, hips in or out etc etc. It's mind blowing really. There is a connection between the half halt and picking up a lead in a trot to canter transition. This connection combined with creating an energy path from the outside hind, out through the inside shoulder may be the essence of an upward transition into a correct lead. It is for me. When I think about "gathering up" the energy and releasing it through and out of the horse in a controlled and directed way, it feels very 3-Dementional. The tipping of the nose to the outside of the bend is a technique (Chamberlin writes about this) to insure the straightest most efficient energy path. The half halt cues too are technique, but the whole thing is not technique. It's feel. I wonder if anyone has written a book solely on feel in riding. The military officers' books are largely about technique because of the military science aspect of their culture, I think. I may reread some of these and see if I can identify sentences or paragraphs that refer directly to feel. Once again I will go to the profound statement, "Let the horse move you." (Henry Wynmallen or Noel Jackson said that, maybe both) That statement is not technique. It goes directly to feel.
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Leads
Nov 21, 2015 20:12:15 GMT
Post by jacki on Nov 21, 2015 20:12:15 GMT
"I wonder if anyone has written a book solely on feel in riding." Funny you should mention this. I consider my daughter a very well-rounded rider, and just this morning I mentioned to her that she would make a good instructor someday. She said,"Oh no -- I would make a terrible instructor." When I asked why, she answered that she couldn't tell people HOW to do whatever she's doing; "I just FEEL it." Yet when presented with a new skill, she not only seems to understand her trainers' instructions, but applies them immediately to her riding.
So -- if such a book exists, maybe I can convince her that in time she'll be able to both feel and explain good horsemanship skills to the next generation!
Jacki
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Rideanotherday as a guest
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Leads
Nov 21, 2015 21:36:09 GMT
via mobile
Post by Rideanotherday as a guest on Nov 21, 2015 21:36:09 GMT
" I wonder if anyone has written a book solely on feel in riding." Funny you should mention this. I consider my daughter a very well-rounded rider, and just this morning I mentioned to her that she would make a good instructor someday. She said,"Oh no -- I would make a terrible instructor." When I asked why, she answered that she couldn't tell people HOW to do whatever she's doing; "I just FEEL it." Yet when presented with a new skill, she not only seems to understand her trainers' instructions, but applies them immediately to her riding. So -- if such a book exists, maybe I can convince her that in time she'll be able to both feel and explain good horsemanship skills to the next generation! Jacki There is exactly that book by a great horseman. Its one of my favorite books to revisit. "True Horsemanship Through Feel" by Bill Dorrance. Its well worth taking the time to read.
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Leads
Nov 22, 2015 5:14:06 GMT
Post by jimmy on Nov 22, 2015 5:14:06 GMT
Yes, Bill Dorrance's book is the best on addressing feel.
I am teaching some beginner adults to ride. I have yet to begin to teach then what a lead is. I am wondering how I am going to approach this. It has been so long since I didn't know what a lead is, I can't remember what that is like or how I learned. Except I remember looking down at their shoulder moving.
What are some good ways to teach a beginner how to tell they are on a correct lead?
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Leads
Nov 22, 2015 14:20:22 GMT
Post by horseguy on Nov 22, 2015 14:20:22 GMT
I will look for this book ."True Horsemanship Through Feel" by Bill Dorrance on Amazon. Sounds very interesting. Never heard of it, but that's probably because of my English" limits. Laura Has great feel and, I think the ability to understand what she feels. The challenge young people face who have feel and do understand what they experience, in becoming an instructor, is prioritization. A good instructor at any given moment sees 10 to 20 things that need improvement in a rider. The challenge is to pick the top one or two things from that list of 10 to 20 to tell the student and to work on only those one or two. My experience with young instructors is they try to work on too many things at once with a rider, or they just yell "heels down", which is an entirely different problem.
It takes time for a young instructor to learn what information, or what focus moves the student forward the most at the moment. That is why an apprenticeship with an experienced instructor is so important. A young instructor can save a lot of time learning how to prioritize the lesson information from a seasoned teacher.
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Leads
Nov 22, 2015 14:48:36 GMT
Post by horseguy on Nov 22, 2015 14:48:36 GMT
Yes, Bill Dorrance's book is the best on addressing feel. I am teaching some beginner adults to ride. I have yet to begin to teach then what a lead is. I am wondering how I am going to approach this. It has been so long since I didn't know what a lead is, I can't remember what that is like or how I learned. Except I remember looking down at their shoulder moving. What are some good ways to teach a beginner how to tell they are on a correct lead?
Before I teach leads, I teach trot to canter transitions to the point that the rider/student feels the "egg" shape of the horse's movement at the canter. This feel for the shape of the movement of the horse cantering under them 1-2-3 goes right to feeling footfalls.
1
2 3
The canter "shape" is an egg on its side. The first beat is the single outside hind (top of the fat part of the egg), followed by the diagonal 2 (bottom of the fat part), and then finally the 3rd (at thepoint of teh egg) is up to the point of the egg (I had graphic problems putting the 3 at the point of the egg). Our seat, if it is in the saddle, not bouncing, moves in this egg shape. On the 1 beat we can feel the butt descending as it pushes the horse forward. This descending feeling goes to the 2 beat to where the energy and our butt in the saddle then goes up to the 3 beat at the point of the egg, followed by rotation back to the 1 beat again at the top of the fat part, and so on.
The 3 beat is the easy one to feel because it is the longest beat by feel. I tell students that the 1 beat always follows the 3 beat. So I say feel the 3 and then be ready to feel the 1. Most riders who can sit a canter can first feel the 3, and then from the 3 they can feel the 1. The 2 is the hard one to feel at the beginning.
After they can feel the 3 and 1 beats, I will begin to teach leads because this is when they can look down and see the leading foot fly forward in the 3beat. If they cannot feel the foot falls at all, they look down and just see legs randomly flying around. I will put a brightly colored warp on each fore foot, left and right colors being different. This helps the see the foot reaching.
But I try not to get too deep into seeing the leading foot. I want them to feel it. They must learn to sit the canter, to feel the egg shaped movement of the canter, and ultimately to feel which leg is pushing off (the 1 beat) in the stride, not just to see the 3rd beat foot flying, to truly get canter leads.
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