Book review: The USDF Guide to Dressage by Jennifer O. Bryant

The USDF Guide to Dressage: The Official Guide of the United States Dressage Federation

The Short Version

5/5 Excellent from-the-basics introduction for absolute beginners, covering a wide range of topics including the attire, instructor searching, basic dressage discussion, tips for showing, off-saddle exercises...

The Long Version

To be completely honest, I felt a bit leery about a book published by an Organization, which are often big faceless (and potentially soulless) entities; I've been burned by crummy official literature before. I am happy to report that I was completely wrong in this instance.

The USDF Guide to Dressage was exactly what I needed.

As a fumbling beginner, sometimes I felt overwhelmed by all the new information that everyone around me at the barn seemed to have just magically absorbed from birth. Luckily, The Guide broke it all down from the top.

The book starts out with a little history lesson which I admittedly skimmed. Then it moved onto practical matters; the attire. It goes over helmets, boots, breeches, including astonishingly illuminating details such as breeches vs. tights and knee patches vs. full seat and "what the heck is the difference between dressage/dress/field boots?" (I literally exclaimed an ooooooh! out loud when I read that part). It also goes into different types of saddles and bridles for your horse as well. Finally, it also contains some very good suggestions for finding an instructor. (My post How to Find a Riding Instructor has some more!) Of the books I've read so far, this was the only one that contained answers to these all-important beginner questions.

The Guide then moves onto a description of the basics of dressage; posture, the aids, the three gaits (walk, trot and canter) and a discussion of some lateral work to cap it off. (Note that it does not include more advanced dressage movements such as flying lead changes.) The entire book is accompanied by an absolute wealth of full-colour pictures and diagrams as well!

I also love that the book has chapters devoted to showing and a guide for navigating the bureaucratic maze of signing up for a USDF sanctioned show, even though the latter was a deathly dry section.

More useful was chapter 17, where the book discusses rider fitness and offered exercises to build core strength and improve flexibility. Again, this was all accompanied by excellent pictures.

Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about this book for an adult beginner like myself. It answered many of the questions that I was too self-conscious to ask. Definitely strongly recommended!

Beginner riding tips #3: Crookedness in your body and how it affects your riding

We are all crooked in small ways.

For example, I'm right-handed. If you practice yoga, you might notice that it's harder for you to bend in one direction than another.

Normally, these are invisible in our daily lives, but when you ride, all of our flaws come rushing to the fore. Some of the effects are easy to notice immediately; when we first swing onto a horse, our stirrups tend to feel uneven for a few minutes. But what about all the myriad other unevenness in our bodies? How can we correct for our problems if we are unaware of them?

Inspired after reading "Balance in Movement," I have been carefully monitoring my body over the past several weeks and matching it up with problems I experienced in the saddle. I'm fairly confident in the resulting observations, so I wanted to share some tips in hopes that they will help in a small way. 

Hands

This is an easy one. You tend to write/brush your teeth/do everything with one hand. This tends to make your dominant hand the stronger of the two and consequently, you pull on the rein harder with your dominant hand.

Leaning

When standing, people rarely stand with their weight square, i.e. evenly distributed over both feet. We lean on one foot or another. (I tend to lean on my right foot most of the time.) This carries over to the saddle and you tend have more weight on the seat bone that you lean towards.

Legs

This was was hardest for me to notice, despite the help of my instructor. Early on, she noted that my right heel tends to creep up more than my left. I nodded and moved on. What I didn't realize until recently was that my right leg is weaker than my left in general. Giving a leg aid for turning right takes significantly more thought and effort for me than turning left. I corroborated this feeling with physical evidence: the wear marks on my half chaps. There were stronger wear marks on my left half chap than my right.

Final Thoughts

Beyond the three tips mentioned in this post, another great way for riders to notice unevenness would be through a body-introspective activity like yoga or pilates. These exercises also help you build core strength which is key for good riding!

In terms what to do about the crookedness, the book mentioned earlier in the post, Balance in Movement, has great list of exercises. Other than that, just knowing your enemy is half the battle, right?

How to Find a (Dressage) Riding Instructor

When at the age of 26 I decided that horses were the missing piece of my childhood, I set out to look for riding instructors who could guide me to the land of the equine. Unfortunately, I essentially had zero friends that were into this sort of thing and had no idea where to start. In dire straits, I had to resort to Googling "horseback riding lessons in Pittsburgh".

Spoilers: I did eventually find a riding instructor from this rough start and now I know a lot more about the topic. I'm writing this post in hopes that it will help someone else in my situation find the promise land of horsey joy!

More after the break.

Product Review: TuffRider Women's Starter Front Zip Paddock Boots

TuffRider Women's Starter Front Zip Paddock Boots

The Short Version

4/5, comfortable, easy care and even easier on the wallet but be careful about manufacturing defects. Recommended.

The Long Version

I ordered these boots before I had even decided on an instructor. I was that excited about riding. However, the saner part of me decided that just in case I would turn out to hate this whole horse/riding/dressage thing (haha), I would buy cheaper gear. 

I have the mocha color which is a very nice dark brown/havana. It's dark enough that it looks almost black in certain lighting and does not have any reddish or orangish undertones. The texture is matte and it's definitely not as shiny as some of the pictures make it out to be. Initially, the boot felt very stiff around the ankle and the top edge of the heel cup kept digging into the heel in awkward ways. I had to use some force with my hands to encourage the boots to bend at the ankle at a better place occasionally and a few weeks later it has broken in perfectly. I would say it took around 10 hours or so of walking/riding about in them. It's now comfortable with no rubbing anywhere in the ankle.

Synthetic construction means it's easy to clean (just wipe down with damp cloth) and I don't feel particularly bad about tramping around in them everywhere. The zipper is perhaps not as heavy duty as it could and I feel they could be the first thing to break. So far okay, though!

On the other hand, my left boot is suffering an issue where the synthetic surface has cracked along the punched toe cap. Issue is mostly cosmetic seems to be a manufacturing defect. Too bad I didn't notice until 2 months after I ordered.

Oh and the boot runs very true to size. I initially ordered the 6.5 based on other reviews I saw online and returned them for the 6, my regular size. If I had to comment on width, I would the boot is on the slightly narrow-ish side, although not excessively.

Overall, it's a nice starter paddock boot and a peace-of-mind option if you don't want to get your nice expensive Ariats dirty. Recommended.

Beginner riding tips: #2 Ignore your instincts

Today's bite-sized tip is brought to you by my first panic moment on saddle.

My regular partner in schooling is the type of horse that falls back to a walk at the slightest hint of "whoa", so I never realized that I was tensing my leg while giving the downward transition cue. So when in my recent lesson I was paired instead with Seymour, who likes to trot, trouble ensued. At my instructor's behest, I tried to transition from a trot to a walk, but instead Seymour happily sped up his trot.

My fore-brain went blank.

The animal instincts of my hind brain immediately screamed at me to hang on by raising my knees and leaning forward (losing seat contact), squeezing my legs (asking Seymour to go even faster), and tensing and raising my hands (losing rein contact).

Folks, seriously, ignore your hind-brain instincts. They suck at riding horses.

As for me, after a few seconds (of my instructor's desperate shouting) the more sensible part of my brain came back online and I eventually slowed to a walk. Oh yeah, and I don't do the leg tensing thing anymore.

Beginner riding tips: #1 Stop looking down!

This is the first in a series of posts I plan to make on short, bite-sized riding advice that improved my riding.

Stop looking down!

One of the easiest mistakes to make for a beginner while riding is to look down at the horse.

You may already know why looking down is bad. When you look down, your head, which is a very heavy part of your body, moves forward and upsets your balance. You either begin to slouch or you subtly shift your weight forward off of your seat bones to compensate. Either way, you lose contact with the horse through your seat. Your desires are communicated less clearly the horse becomes unsure and less confident.

I had an instructor tell me that "He's not going to turn purple!" and "Stop looking down!" a million times during one lesson. However, the temptation is very strong! Half of it is marvelling at this immensely powerful animal that is (sort of) doing as you bid and rest is trying to figure out why this immensely powerful animal is only sort of doing what you want him to. (Well, unfortunately, looking down isn't helping.) Despite my instructor's exasperation, I couldn't stop!

The thing that actually changed my desire to look down was learning when it was appropriate to look down. First is to make sure that you are on the right diagonal when posting to a trot or the right lead when you're cantering. Second is to check that your horse is not overly flexed in the neck during a lateral movement. That's it! If you're not doing that, you have no excuse to look down.

So stop looking down, he's not going to turn purple on you, I promise. :)

Book Review: Balance in Movement: The Seat of the Rider by Susanne von Dietze

The Short Version

5/5, strongly recommended!

The Long Version

This was the first book on riding that I read, based on USDF's recommended reading list. The book was originally written in German and was translated into English. Because of this, there are a few places in the book where the prose is a little awkward, but nothing that would impair understanding.

And what great understanding this book imparts!

The author, Susanne is a rider and a physiotherapist and uses her unique background to explain exactly how your instructor wants your body to change when he or she tells you "heels down!" or "sit up straight!". The book contains abundant illustrations about the human body and how the various bones, joints and muscles react when we act in a certain way (e.g. looking down) and how this translates in our seat and communication to the horse.

Best of all, it contains information about different body types and how they impact riding. No one size fits all approach here! Furthermore, it contains many physiotherapy exercises that the rider can do off-saddle to improve the flexibility of key muscles.

It's a fairly slim volume that focuses almost solely on the fundamentals of rider posture rather than specific how-to advice for various dressage movements, but it does this extremely well and in great detail, and as a beginner to riding, this was exactly what I needed. No doubt more advanced riders can benefit as well.

If only I could find a volume to buy! I am tempted to steal this one from the library...