You can't say you've never done these things! Still, we make mistakes and then we learn from them!
As horse riders, one of the first things we learn to do is ride on turns or circles. That's likely because many of us ride in enclosed rings or arenas, but also, we begin to learn about the value of "lateral suppleness", which essentially begins with the horse bending left and right.
Initially, we learn that the horse needs to assume a "banana-like curve" in his body - that's the bend. We learn the aids for bend, and then we proceed to apply them. Sounds so simple!
Along the way, we learn through mistakes all about the NOT bends that can happen, and what we have to do to avoid them! Here are some that I'm familiar with (!), from (what I think of as) the least problematic, to the most.
8. Looking too far into the turn
If you're a hunter/jumper, or a western competition trail rider, or if you ride in any kind of obstacle-based event, then yes, your head should turn long before you need the horse to. That is because you have to gauge distances, arcs, strides and balance - all very important things that need to fall into place between obstacles.
However.
If you are doing "flat work" or dressage, and you're interested in developing bend for the sake of suppleness, then it actually helps to limit how far you turn your head. All you need to do is to look through your horse's ears. That's because if your horse is ON a bend, he will already have his head and neck slightly turned in, equal to the arc of the circle.
That's all the rider has to do as well, because too much turn will actually change the rider's position, weight and balance - right down to the pelvis. If you are on a particular circle, all you need to do is look ahead just enough to see the next quarter of the circle.
7. Bend just the horse's head and neck
It's SO EASY to just pull the horse's head around. All we have to do is pull in the direction of the turn, right?!
Over time, we learn that pulling on the rein causes the horse to lose balance, encourages the horse to drift out and bulge his outside shoulder, and even blocks the inside hind leg stride.
The problem is, we often can't tell that we're doing it. On some horses, it's so easy to get that neck into a pretty arc. Then we get tricked into thinking that we have such a great bend going on, but it turns out that the bend doesn't go through the body.
An observer on the ground is very helpful, so they can tell you the actual amount of bend through the body. They can also see how your horse tracks up as he travels over a circle.
6. Not bending into the turn ourselves
Much like horses, we have our "hollow side" and our "stiff side". We tend to overturn on the side that is easiest for us to turn into. Then we (usually) don't turn at all on our stiff side. Watch carefully and you might notice that most riders stay bent in one direction (most often to the left) and they stay bent that way in the other direction too!
As riders, we need to be ambidextrous - not just in our hands, but in our entire body! Ideally, we would turn into the circles equally well on both sides. This means that we need to turn our body from the seat - when we turn right, our right shoulder goes back as our left shoulder comes forward. Our head and neck look in the direction of the turn, and our hands AND legs follow the seat. When we turn left, we change everything to the left side. Here is a great exercise for you to try off the horse.
5. No half-halts
It's so easy to forget the half-halts when we begin a new bend! We eagerly look where we want to go, and then... well, we GO!
But your horse often gets to scramble to stay with you because he had no idea he was going to turn in that moment. He might have been leaning onto the inside shoulder, or heavy on the forehand, or simply just trucking along with the understanding that he was going to follow that rail... forever!
You can use the half-halt to rebalance the horse if he's off balance, or just to give him a small "heads up" that you want him to turn. Do it a few strides before the turn to give your horse time to understand and adjust.
4. Uneven hands/reins
This is a very common mistake that we all make.
It's easy and very tempting to just pull back on the inside rein to turn, or to get that bend! So when we pull, our inside hand goes further back than the outside hand, and thus begins a vicious cycle of crookedness in our own body.
Some people raise one hand, others take a rein wide to their knee, others take a rein across the horse's withers, some twist the rein... in any case, the hands and reins become uneven. As soon as there's unevenness in the rider, there will be unevenness in the horse. It's very important to keep the hands in front of the pommel and in line with each other.
Turn using your body aids (not your hands only) and the outside rein, and bend using the same aids too.
Now we're coming down to the most common errors.
3. Collapse through the body
It's also easy to collapse on a bend or turn.
If you look at a rider from behind, the rider's back should be equally tall on both sides. If you see that one side is shorter, or there's a bend in their side, we call that "collapsed" to that side. Many of us have a tendency to collapse because that's how we sit in a chair or in the car. It's an easy problem to be unconscious about since it's hard to feel the collapse in your body.
Once way you can tell if you've collapsed is to look at your knee bends. Is one knee bent more than the other? Fix the knee bend by fixing the position of your seat - maybe bump your seat to the left. You will have to straighten through your side to compensate. Everything else will correct itself along with it, including the angle of your knees!
2. Lean into the turns
Most beginner riders tend to lean going into turns. This is because we're so used to leaning into a turn in a car, on a bicycle or motorcycle, that we automatically do the same thing on the horse.
Unfortunately, the horse doesn't respond the same way as our vehicles, and when we lean, the horse will have to drift out or fall in (depending on the horse's stronger and weaker sides). And so we spend quite some time wondering why the horse makes smaller circles in one direction, and larger circles in the other!
But once we know how to stay upright in our body even while we're on a turn, most of the leaning problems dissolve away on their own.
1. Hands only!
And finally, the number 1 mistake we ALL make, especially early in our riding career, is to try to turn the horse by pulling his nose in one direction. Because, if we just pull him around, the rest of his body will follow, right?
Well, after some experience, we realize that no, it doesn't work that way! Horses can surely turn their heads one way and carry on in the opposite direction - much to our initial surprise! Oh, what to do?!
Over time, we learn all about the other aids. We learn how to keep the horse "between the legs and reins" and we realize that we don't need to use our hands as much as we thought! In fact, the less we pull, the better the horse can go.
We can rely less on our hands and more on the other aids.
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And that rounds up the 8 most common rider errors when it comes to circles and bends.
One of the biggest recommendations I can make for all these errors is to get videos of yourself! It can be quite eye-opening compared to what you feel while you're riding. Of course, there's also no replacement to an educated eye on the ground as well.
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The shoulder-fore is the like the little sibling that always plays second fiddle to the shoulder-in. But don't discount its power.
