>>He also gave me some pointer for asking for
the tolt and now we can go from tolt to trot and from trot to tolt
quite nicely. <<
>What pointers? We all want to know!!
I had Drifa on a fairly lose rein through this, only tightened up to
change direction or speed (and a lot of that doesn't come from the
reins)
Trot to tolt - ask the hindquarters to move over a little - and she
stepped right into the tolt. He also said that working in fairly deep
sand helps them find the tolt and then you just work on letting them
know that's what you want (every time they start even thinking about
getting out of tolt, move the hindquarters over and help them find tolt
again). Now, I don't know how far "you" might have to move your
horse's hip over or what to do if that didn't work...
Any gait to trot is a little difficult to explain. I feel the trot
rhythm in my body and she trots (assuming that we are going into or are
at "trot speed"). So - I slightly pick up my legs (by thinking that I
have a rope pulling my knee up) and think R L R L R L 1 2 1 2
1 . It's actually my pelvis that moves. Some people lift up on their
ankles a little but thinking about lifting my knee helps to keep my
hips open. When I discussed this with David he seemed happy about how
I do it, and we talked about feel and rhythm but I don't know if this
is how he teaches it. This is just how I figured out how to make this
work for Drifa and I.
Liz Graves had me lift up on the reins slightly and shift my weight
back a little to find tolt. I don't like to do it this way because I
don't want to have to hold her head up at all (personal preference).
Dave's way worked better for us - but I had only had Drifa for a couple
of months at Liz's clinic so there's been a whole lot of learning by
both Drifa and I since then which might have a lot to do with it.
Penny
