CWS Training Update October 2015 Foundations of Success Now Let s Talk About Engagement Engagement is one of those items that only pop up in your dressage test judges comments like: "your horse lacks engagement, or more engagement required," sounds familiar? Well the question is what is engagement? No one seems to tell you but it must be important as the judge said it is missing? You can never have enough engagement but you do knowingly or unknowingly know when it is missing. What is Engagement? Engagement is a component in itself and is a component of collection. Within engagement there are several other components. In your collective marks of your test sheet engagement applies to: Engagement of the hindquarters Desire to move freely forward Suppleness of the back Elasticity of the steps Engagement is not? When you feel you are being bounced harshly of the horses back, lacks impulsion, is lethargic to your leg and or seat aids, and is truly unbalanced falling in, this is the direct opposite of engagement. Feels like? The by-product of good engagement is suppleness of the back and elasticity of the steps all coming under the marks for impulsion. Engagement is where you feel you are one with the horse as if it is an extension of your body with the feel that you can do anything with this horse that is what engagement feels like! Engagement Equation POWER + BALANCE + COLLECTION = ENGAGEMENT! To have power you have to have balance and collection. You cannot have either element without one or the other! All elements are by way of progressive development all the way through to Grand Prix and beyond to fully develop and understand your horse. Power versus Half-Halt You cannot produce engagement without power, this is where by in large many riders and trainers
go wrong. The primary problem is that many riders and trainers slow the young or green newbie horses down for the sake of control with the half-halt. Big mistake as many horses lose that extra edge of willingness or it slows the development as remedial training has to be deployed to get that edge back. This all takes time and is not always successful. Keeping it simple: Develop power (forwardness) first to the point where you can apply and teach the half halt, and then you are developing balance collection with some baby exercises, giving you better engagement. This I can easily demonstrate for you, then you are on your way to developing the essential ingredient of engagement! From the Engagement Equation we have to work with Gymnastic exercises that will enhance engagement. Conversely Flashy horses with lots of flair are often not engaged as they are using pulling power not pushing power from the hindquarters they re dragging themselves along. DESIRE TO GO FORWARD FEI describes going forward as: "The horse shows proper balance and, remaining on the bit, goes forward with even, rhythmic "element no 1 in the scales of training" elastic steps and good hock action." For the established horse we expect a good underlying hock action and impulsion giving us expression of some degree relative to their fitness and training level all originating from the activity of the hindquarters. COMPENENTS OF ENGAGEMENT SUPPLENESS Engagement is all about balance not speed and the ability to take the weight on the hindquarters willingly and to do that successfully they have to be supple, "element no 2 in the scales of training." suppleness is about keep your horses mind and muscles relaxed all the time. Suppleness can be taught and we can demonstrate how to supple your horse correctly. to that end we cover the development and understanding of positive versus negative tension which has physical and mental advantages for your horse, longitudinal (top line) suppleness, and lateral (sideways physical) movements. Engagement is all about having the hindquarters take more weight over time developing the component of collection. For the horse to do that he/she has to be supple over the back and neck including the poll, hindlegs correctly, if you ask for more without suppleness you are asking for big trouble further down the track in the form of stiff joints and vulnerability to minor and major injuries. Training TIPS Engagement and suppleness are equally important and one goes with the other Never accept engagement without suppleness; never accept expression without suppleness The sensitivity and suppleness are primary, engagement and or collection are secondary. When I ride my horses, and the contact is not right, or the suppleness is not right, that s when mistakes creep in
It matters little if you ve got engagement, or collection, but have lost the suppleness it s not worth anything from a judges point of view or a training development point of view It s putting everything together, the suppleness, the activity, the collection, and then the reaction all together then you have engagement! ELASTICITY Elasticity works hand in hand with suppleness (by product of suppleness) and only if your horse is sufficiently strong enough over the back and in the joints can he/she be and fluently moving. This component is heavily related to collection and balance that enables all horses to articulate the joints fluently rhythmical. ARE YOU RIDING IN POSITION CORRECTLY Does the hen come first or does the egg is the question concerning rider position versus horse performance. Well like the hen versus egg to which the egg must come first (egg evolved from reptiles then to birds) the with dressage rider position must come first as it influences everything the horse does or can do. It is one of the components that is often overlooked by riders and some trainers especially if the rider does not have access to mirrors or an adviser who does not give the correct feedback re your riding position. The very basic essential quick Fix Checklists: Sit forward in the centre of you saddle Have your legs under your hips shoulders and Your back upright but not stiff and, Your head up and your heels are down. When if in doubt always work toward a balanced rider position which give your horse a chance as you are then balanced in your seat. See articles Dressage Deep Seat prt1 & 2 www.cwsperformancehorses.com/downloads IS THE HORSE SOFT OR LIKE A CONCRETE BLOCK ON THE BIT Many horses that have come to us here and in Denmark have mouths of varying degrees of feel. Some are so light that they are nearly impossible to create contact and work with. Some are medium to light making life a little easier for you and us. Some are like a brick in your hand whereby remedial training has to be given by way of more seat than hand is applied getting the horse to stretch more in its work. Essentially rein and mouth contact is a trained component it is subject that can be very taxing if not correct but our aim is to keep it very simple. We just develop the horse sensitivity to mouth by varying exercises using the power of rein give, flexion exercises, and positive tension with 1001 transitions. The end results are to make them more rideable and softer, light, responsive to your hand rein aids, which we do. IS HE/SHE FORWARD IN FRONT OF YOUR LEG?
The perennial question you often hear instructors say or hear "get your horse in front of your leg?" Sounds familiar, like engagement it has many components. Simply put it means you put your leg on and the horse goes forward in a more open frame with degrees of engagement looking freer and in a easy rounded but open frame. Remember Training frame versus competition frame are two very different components but are intrinsically related to each other. More on this later at the end of the e-book and in the lesson we can demonstrate this explicitly. EXERCISES FOR ENGAGEMENT TRANSITIONS A major key to engagement as mentioned previously is the half halt in which you can gradually develop the horse's ability to go and come back through transitions be they downward, upward, or within the gaits/paces of canter and or trot. To begin with your transition work will become progressively more direct and beneficial especially within the paces or gaits developing greater carrying capacity as well placing your horse more so, on the aids. As the engagement is more refined with transitions so does your collection which really starts to work within transition work, bearing in mind that this is still is very progressive and just does not happen overnight. Yet I'm sure you will be surprised how quickly all progresses go once you start transition work if done correctly. There a mountain of exercises that we have on board to help you through this training phase. Walk Rest Breaks Walk rest breaks is a key element of this component and any training whereby if you do 100 s of transitions within the warm-up and work phases then you have to deploy as many 8 or 10 walk rest breaks to that the horses mind and body can rejuvenate within that time frame. What you are demonstrating to the horse with transitions that through the promotion of engagement that he or she is working more so from behind which in turn lifts the horses shoulder giving the start of a more uphill tendency and the start of true self-carriage. Quality Always think about your transitions quality! This is also very important to do as the winners have minimal points lost with transitions. Transitions account a great number of points in your test, be it, preliminary or Grand Prix they are very important to have in your toolbox. Always shoot for 8's in your transition then when more so established you can start the more refinement and shoot for a higher scores of 9 and 10 s. Always build upon a result as your starting point. Unless you are riding shoulder-fore for the purpose of an ongoing straightness/collection exercise you must keep them very straight. Otherwise a horse can only take the weight on the hindlegs if they straight to have any benefits for engagement. CIRCLES Riding circles promotes suppleness weight carrying ability therefore engagement. Check the horse is supple in its back submission to the bend and forward from your leg. The smaller the circle the more the horse will have to step through more so with the inside hind creating more engagement but can only happen in a supple and in balance horse. Of course if you have a young horse smaller circle are out of the question only 20-15 metre circles apply here. LATERAL WORK
From circle we develop shoulder-fore the shoulder-in which is also a very useful tools for greater engagement as the horses inside hindleg steps and takes more weight further under the centre of gravity. Not only are these great exercise for the increases in engagement they are great exercises to help and develop suppleness, straightness and develops greater efficient contact from rider to horse. See the free e-book on shoulder fore and shoulder in... http://www.cwsperformancehorses.com/downloads/downloads_files/cws%20training%20update%20may %20Shoulder%20Fore-In%20June-01%202015.pdf These exercise also help with development of horses that little hotter than normal or the fizzier horse that finds it hard to wait for the next command. As well as teaching the horse acceptance of the leg without running through your hand or away. This is a great exercise to put in your toolbox and to develop engagement further. PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT Engagement and collection are now married and the progress of the two elements is a progressive gradual process which only comes from ongoing work every time you ride which builds and maintains engagement and collection. Once you establish the above components we can then demonstrate for you then engagement is not so mysterious and will come as a matter of fact and must do to get your horse going. Any problems with engagement then go back thorough the previous components and work through where you have a problem and once all is OK then engagement can only get better and better. TRAINING versus COMPETITION FRAME There is a persistent problem throughout the world and that is the degree of contact used when training versus competing. From the start of your training if you were to ride your horse with the contact as you would in competitions all the time your horse will break down. Simply put to ride around in your training session in a collected frame (competition frame) will only cause major problems for your horse in the short and long term. It is totally unnatural to put any horse under this physical and mental pressure without consequences in the form of physical or mental breakdowns from the horse. The horse was never designed to have a rider on its back. Its back muscle is a LOCOMOTION muscle, not a weight bearing muscle; therefore it is up to us to use our so-called superior intellect to allow for stress and relief muscle development in our training of the horse. It is impossible for a horse to ridden is such an unnatural contorted frame. We develop the horse s strength; collection, suppleness, and rideability in the training frame so we can for a short burst of competition ride the horse up to the contact as in the competition frame. Not the other way round! Competition frame more compressed Training Frame more open frame
In training, we only go up to the contact for specific exercises and only do it ever so briefly. All else is deployed in an open natural loose frame allowing the horses muscles to develop naturally not for and in an unnatural state. Try running around an oval bent over a little and you soon find out that this is a very unnatural damaging frame that your are running in. The same applies for the horse! See images below! For safety sake if a horse comes into the arena that is very fresh and or nervous we will ride them up to the contact and bypass the walk familarisation phase and go straight into trot with some degree of contact. Not over bent with too much contact. We work towards a looser frame even when coming up to the contact were possible. Safety first then we go for a more open frame. SUMMARY Excellent image of our horse dropping its hindquarters and coming up in front after each half halt. development of this simple element called engagement. Engagement is basic element and when worked up to gives you a great feeling lightness in the front end coming from the shoulder that premises your horse is now ready to perform the movements much more easily. Your horse easily steps through the corners with the inside hindleg really reaching engaging and taking more weight on the hind quarters creating that perfectly balanced fluent look form the horse as the top end trained horses do. Remember all top horse don't always have the reach and development that you see at the prime of their careers. They by in large are good to average horses that have been trained very well and developed in the gaits as well as their overall suppleness and collection. Good horses are born, great ones are made, and this comes from correct training and Horse that have good engagement trained into them sit down (lower haunches) easily in all upper level movement and this can be seen if piaffe where they really sit, lower their hindquarters lighten their forehand whilst maintaining rhythmical steps more or less on the spot with rhythm balance and energy! (Legs saying canter or trot hands saying walk for a short moment to increase the engagement.) (Often, getting a horse to accept a contact is a waiting game and, providing we do our bit - which is to keep a consistent contact, and use our legs and seat to keep the horse's hindquarters engaged - then it is only a matter of patience.) (When you are teaching your horse to become better in his mouth, make sure you include plenty of turns and circles, as it is easier for him to evade the contact on straight lines.) Best Regards Trevor Ibborsøn-Woodward Per www.cwsperformancehorses.com