# Teaching Leg Yield



## Joyous70 (13 October 2011)

Can you lovely people please help me?

I want to try and teach my boy to leg yield and eventually move on to other lateral moves.  Can someone please tell me the correct aids for this, and also the easiset way to teach my boy, he moves off my leg lovely when we are out hacking and have to stop at gates etc., so im hoping he should pick it up fairly easy.


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## Elfen (13 October 2011)

I recently had a fab lesson with Jane Bartle Wilson - I struggle with leg yield as my big horse has arthritis. She had me zig zagging down the centre line - two steps turn on the forehand then two steps turn on the haunches - then I'd ask for - in quick succession - turn  on forehand, turn on haunches, turn on forehand etc etc - ended up leg yeilding  gave me the tools to quickly put it right if I needed to move his shoulders or his quarters


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## kerilli (13 October 2011)

the easiest way with a clueless/baby one is to use the natural pull of the outside track, so come off the short side early in walk (to end up on a line say 2m from track), put inside leg back a little turn your shoulders to the outside track, look that way, and hopefully the horse will sort of step (or fall!) towards the outside track. praise, repeat. weight the outside seatbone a tiny bit if you can, this helps.
keep doing this until the horse realises that's what you want, then do it from 3rd track, 4th track, etc, concentrating on keeping him parallel to the track, make sure he's not cheating by leading with his shoulders, feel for the inside hind leg stepping across underneath you and taking his weight more.
when he's got the idea of both reins, i'd be a bit stricter about maintaining inside bend and contact, and then leg yield to track, change bend, leg yield away (more tricky usually), change bend, leg yield back, etc. 
then work on it in trot etc etc.


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## SpottedCat (13 October 2011)

Surely you weight the inside (ie closest to the CL) seatbone to give the horse space to move into?


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## kerilli (13 October 2011)

SpottedCat said:



			Surely you weight the inside (ie closest to the CL) seatbone to give the horse space to move into?
		
Click to expand...

but most horses will try to move across under the side you are weighting more, no? i know what you mean though...  and i've tried both. lots.  
but it's the same with the canter aid (uh oh, here we go again), isn't it? weighting the inside seatbone more (and the only GP horse i've ever ridden, who came from a top European yard owned by a multiple gold-medal winner, so i suspect he'd been taught 'correctly', would only canter from this aid, totally ignored leg aids, to my consternation) gives less room for the inside hind to engage up into, it actually makes more sense to lighten the inside seat bone i think, to let the horse lift you with inside hind, but that's not what people do...
sorry if i'm confusing anyone here!


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## Joyous70 (13 October 2011)

I had read in a book weight to the inside, but to me it makes more sense to have a little more weight in the direction you want the horse to travel??? so what Kerilli says makes perfect sense to me 

If im riding head on towards a gate and want to stand sidewasy on to it, to open it, i ride at it, then put my weight into the outside seatbone, and ask him to flex to the inside and step under to the outside, this works for me, although i must admit i haven't tried weight to the inside


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## BBP (13 October 2011)

I'm a muppet rider, but having regular lessons with a classical trainer now.  He moves into pressure (just like when they stand on your foot and you lean on them, they just lean right back into you) so I weight the side I want him to move to, so outside seatbone for leg yield.  If I want him to turn I turn shoulders and weight into inside seatbone on the turn.  This way obviously makes sense to my young horse as it works every time, as he doesn't know the rules!  I also use inside seatbone as an aid for canter.  So I follow Kerellis line of thought.


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## ecrozier (13 October 2011)

This is one I have been playing around with recently -'my poor older horse acts as a guinea pig! I've always been told weight on inside, but although he can do it, older boy's leg yield has never been great and I get myself into a bit of a muddle I think, overthinking the whole thing and trying too hard. After reading something On here not that king ago, and aware that I needed to start teaching youngster to leg yield properly, I had a bit more of a play with it and conciously tried it with my older horse in the 'into pressure' way and 'away from pressure'. The difference was astounding, not sure if it's my riding or my horse but into pressure seemed a lot more natural, I didn't get myself in nearly such a muddle, and allowing space with my inside  seatbone for his hindleg to stepup and under seemed to work! 
So will be interested to follow this post, I've never been taught how to use my seat etc so it's all a bit of a journey of discovery ATM mainly via this forum!


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## suzied (13 October 2011)

My horse was trained to respond to weight aids as his first job was herding bulls and he was ridden with one (light) hand.  He responds to weight on inside seat bone for canter - increasing the pressure to ask for walk to canter and increasing it even more for halt to canter.  For all turns and lateral work, both in trot & canter, weight on the seat bone in the direction of travel.  By weight on the seat bone I mean also dropping more weight into that stirrup as though you were stepping down into it, so that leg acts as a steady, supporting pillar whilst the other leg behind the girth asks for sideways movement by nudging or canter strike off by a gentle brushing movement.   For lateral work, look at the point you want to reach - except for shoulder in, when you keep looking between your horse's ears.  The basic theory for all lateral work - and turns - is your hips & shoulders should mirror the position of your horse's hips & shoulders.  Hope this makes sense!!!


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## TigerWoo (13 October 2011)

I don't ride at a high level but have found fairly recently that if I 'lengthen' my outside leg, drop it right down and really relax from the hip (I assume this is layman terms for increased weight to outside! ), I barely even have to move my inside leg back to get leg yield. And I have just recently started having dressage lessons with GP rider and she was rather surprised when we floated across from the 3/4 line (15hh fat cob under me!)

I love these technical discussions though, very enlightening for numpties like me!!


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## Winklepoker (13 October 2011)

And if your horse falls out to the outside track through the shoulder.. then what (what is the correction for this?)

Thanks


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## ScratchyMooMoo (13 October 2011)

I like this little demo of leg yielding, although my horse and me would never look as good as this!! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HcA5bw2Pqs


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## kerilli (13 October 2011)

that's super leg yielding on the vid, although v v straight, doesn't look flexed to me. super though.
Winkelpoker, to answer your question, i'd say that with a clueless baby the first few times i wouldn't mind as long as there's some sideways-ness, i wouldn't really correct in case it confused things. once horse has the clear idea of sideways though, i'd do one or a few of: check slightly with outside rein, bring front end back in line with back end if necessary for a few steps (straighten & ride fwd), use outside leg more strongly on the girth, flex slightly less, play around really until horse understood and kept balance better. 
sorry, that all sounds a bit vague but it's a bit trial and error!


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## MrsMozart (13 October 2011)

Others better with the aid instructions, but I've always found that starting to teach it out hacking is pretty painless . Ride along the side of the road, when you get close to a parked car, give your aids and ask for the yield to go out past the car, and then to move back to the roadside again. Has worked well so far


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## ecrozier (13 October 2011)

Winklepoker I have done as kerrilli suggests above, if they start to fall through shoulder I straighten up for a few strides and start again!


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## trina1982 (13 October 2011)

The best arguments I have seen regarding weighting is to imagine carrying a large child on your shoulders. If they tip (ie weight) to the left, you yourself go left to get back underneath them. If you didn't you'd both be very unbalanced and come crashing down.

Another way to imagine it is to think of standing on one of those swiss balls. If you weight your left leg, the ball must go to the left. 

All of the science behind this is in Phillipe Karls book Twisted Truths of Modern Dressage. The book makes a whole lot of sense (to me at least). 

Trina x


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## kerilli (13 October 2011)

that's a really good analogy, the 'kid on shoulders' one,  ta.
the whole thing about horses being 'interpressure animals' by nature, which have to be taught to move away from pressure, is really interesting. i can't remember who it was who explained it, it was a NH person (gasp), either Richard Maxwell, Pat Parelli or Monty Roberts, but when it's been explained you think "gosh yes, of course"... well, i did!


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## bananas_22 (14 October 2011)

I tend to think of it more along Trina's lines....rather than moving into or away from pressure, it is more moving into balance.  If you sit to the outside, the horse will move itself to be more under the centre of your weight, thereby moving to the outside in order to carry you as comfortably as possible and maintain its balance.  If you sit to the inside and ask the horse to move to the outside, you are effectively asking the horse to drag your weight sideways, rather than comfortably carry it sideways which is bound to restrict the amount of correct sideways movement and lift required to perform leg yield.


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## Prince33Sp4rkle (14 October 2011)

for the sake of continuity, weighting the outside seatbone makes most sense and helps the rest of the lateral work later on......if you weight the inside seatbone in LY you would have to continue that theme and......................if you try and weight the inside seatbone in SI you get a rider leaning down and back and slouching, and if they try and weight the outside seatbone in HP they end up crooked to the outside and behind the lateral movement.

so for me, weighting in the direction of movement makes more sense as you go up the levels.


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