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Author
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Topic: flying lead changes
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PizzazzandMe
Junior Member
Member # 1640
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posted May 14, 2004 08:29 PM
How do you teach a horse flying lead changes?
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Posts: 14 | From: Louisiana | Registered: Feb 2004
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ridegrrl
Member
Member # 1769
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posted May 14, 2004 09:37 PM
Check out this thread on Flying Lead Changes ... ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posts: 142 | From: B.C. Canada | Registered: Feb 2004
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slc
Member
Member # 1713
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posted May 15, 2004 07:00 AM
It depends on what type of riding it is. In dressage we do it a different way than say in hunters or Western riding. But we have a different kind of thing we are trying to do. The horse has to do counter canter and do flying lead changes, so we can't teach auto changes like hunters, and well, the dressage judge wants a different kind of change too. It has to be in one stride and the hind leg can't even be the littest bit slow, and it has to be big so the 'stepped' changes you see most of the time in other divisions won't work. We also have to do them in series and that changes things alot too. You can do one change with the horse not winding up straight after, and it's fine but if you have to do another change in 2 more steps there is a problem. They can't even go an inch to one side or the other on the change so we have our work cut out for us, and how we do it isn't how other riders do it.
We wait a long time before we teach them. We don't teach them til the horse is starting to get more collected, meaning getting his hind legs up under himself carrying himself more and is more balanced.
So about the time the horse is getting to be 3rd level. We don't teach it by leaning or by riding toward the rail and abruptly turning or by having them go over a jump. We have already taught them to canter on the counter lead and be able to do a lot of figures, and they are already able to half pass and shoulder in and renvers and haunches in. That isn't so much because we want to do it always from a half pass, but because it means the horse is to a point where he can half halt and bend and can actually half halt in the canter. Plus the rider has some control of the horse's shoulders from teaching him shoulder in and half pass, which is how you straighten the horse (not by moving the haunches but by controlling the shoulders). So if in the moment of the change the horse throws his shoulders to one side or the other if the rider is quick he can control that.
And they can half halt in the canter and do all the walk canter transitions. If we do all that right one day we just get on a 20 m. circle on the counter lead, ask for a flying change and they just do it.
Some of the top dressage riders in the world have enough skill to teach the horse to do it when they are younger, but they also are able to get the horse more balanced earlier on and just bring it along quicker in general, they will teach a horse up to Grand Prix level in 3-4 years without any drilling just like playing a game. Most people can't do that and they have to wait on the flying changes til about 3rd level type work.
The best way for the person who doesn't have a lot of experience is to counter canter on a 20 m. circle and ask the horse. It doesn't even matter at first if all the horse does is trot and canter as long as he tries to do SOMETHING, and over a couple days we just work it out. If he has learned simple changes (3 walk steps) and quick changes (1/2 a walk step) the flying changes usually go fine.
You don't see that method much because the pro's can pretty much teach in from any figure or sort of movement and still have the horse stay straight and...well...in books and videos, they don't usually show the easiest way to do something, or the way they would teach someone starting out to do it, they show the professional's way, mostly because if one is starting out it is better if a coach is there helping.
But most people can't ride the way a professional does, or if they do try it that way, they need the professional there helping them alot to get through it. Like my friend said of a famous dressage book, LOL, ''These methods are great, if I was the author they would even work for me!'' LOL.
Most people will wind up with a crooked change if they try to do it from a half pass or other thing like that; they can't ride the change well enough.
The circle method teaches both the horse and rider. The other way the circle is good is that you have all the time in the world. If the horse doesn't get the change right away you just keep going around and neither the rider or horse gets as upset as if they are coming to the rail in half pass thinking, ''i have to get this, i have to, i have to get it right at this spot!'' Most riders aren't going to get a flying change anywhere near on the stride they ask it for quite some time so doing it off a figure other than a circle winds up a mess. The horse stays steadier and more relaxed on the circle. What I do when the circle doesn't work is figure out why, because any other way I try to get it is going to fail if there is a basic problem there.
Alot of horses don't really half halt well in canter and the way we think of it is a flying lead change is just another kind of canter transition so if you can't half halt (or cant do a canter walk transition or a medium canter collected canter transition) the change won't work.
The hardest sort of horse to teach the flying change is a big long horse that has more of a low balance and moves with his hind legs more out behind him and his neck low.
Alot of times he will have one flying change and not the other, because he will have one whole canter lead that is flatter, longer and more soft, and one canter lead that is more upright, stiffer and harder, and he will change onto the stiff lead better. But they have to have two same canter leads before they will have two same flying lead changes. For the dressage the two changes, right and left, need to be the same. Alot of times one is flatter or stepped because that is how the canter lead is on that side.
[ May 15, 2004, 07:23 AM: Message edited by: slc ]
Posts: 297 | From: ohio | Registered: Feb 2004
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ridegrrl
Member
Member # 1769
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posted May 15, 2004 09:10 AM
So Pizzazzandme, now you've heard the two opposite approaches to lead changes. What discipline do you ride?
Posts: 142 | From: B.C. Canada | Registered: Feb 2004
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Shimmer62
Member
Member # 2299
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posted May 16, 2004 10:55 PM
Many of the horses I have trained had a natural lead change that I just had to nudge when I needed it I is however harder to get a horses that wont change naturally to change on command. I ride reining and cutting plus some west pleasure and leads are crucial. How old is your horse?
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Posts: 244 | From: Porterville California | Registered: Apr 2004
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littlecelticpony
Member
Member # 1480
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posted May 17, 2004 08:14 AM
All horses can change "naturally" when not under saddle, unless there are health problems and/or pain. watch your horse play sometime, you'll see.
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Posts: 1225 | Registered: Jan 2004
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