05/08/2024
A little revisit on the all too important shoulder-in 😁😁
Our first Q+A for 2023 with Janine, hope everyone enjoys! We'll do these as often as we can depending on Janine's schedule, please feel free to message us with any questions you would like answered (any and all topics equine welcome!)
Q: Any tips to help a rider who has an ongoing struggle with riding shoulder-in?
A: First of all I know for a fact that you are not the first nor the last person to struggle with shoulder in!! I’m pretty confident that every dressage rider on the planet has felt your pain! Let’s start this topic by breaking down the concept of the shoulder in-it’s a three track movement where the outside shoulder lines up with the inside hind leg, it’s also a lateral movement in which the horse travels away from the direction of bend and flexion. The purpose of the shoulder in is to help educate the horse further about the carriage over the inside hindleg and the suppleness through the body. Speaking of suppleness, we can’t honestly address the topic of shoulder in without addressing the topic of travers-the two are like love and marriage you can’t have one without the other! The reason being that the two movements compliment each other to create true bend and curvature of the body from tail to poll which is why they are both introduced at Second Level (everything in dressage is an equation where one step leads to the next so it’s important to consider the order in which these things appear and I’ll explain more below about why exactly the travers is so important to the shoulder in and vice versa). That’s the basic breakdown of what the shoulder in should look like and why it’s important to our training, now let’s discuss how the rider’s aids are going to make all of that happen. The inside leg should be draped around the girth creating a “pillar” for which the horse will bend around, the outside rein is connected and bringing the shoulders to the inside whilst keeping a steady connection to maintain the uphill carriage and half halt as necessary, the outside leg is draped back of the girth and supporting the hindlegs so that they don’t swing out (no windshield wipers here) and finally the inside rein is keeping a soft flexion of the jaw (the jaw not the neck!!) to the inside, having your legs in the right position will help you to keep your weight softly over the inside hind leg (not leaning inside just slightly more weight to the inside seat bone) and your shoulders should be aligned with where you want the horse’s shoulders to be. The most common mistake that we see in the shoulder in is that the rider ends up pushing the haunches out and the most common mistake we see in the travers is that the rider ends up bulging the shoulder out-both of these mistakes result in the loss of true bend. Whenever I teach riders about a movement I always direct their attention to the opposite side of the horse-that’s to say if you’re focusing on a shoulder in you better be paying attention to the outside hind and if you’re focusing on a travers you better be paying attention to the outside shoulder-horses are fantastic at pointing out holes in the riders aids and most riders neglect the opposite corner, when this happens instead of bending the horse truly through the body you just end up turning them at the middle and making them crooked-this is why the shoulder in and travers working as complimentary exercises are so important. Key things you want to look out for: the hindlegs should be traveling straight and not crossing out-if they are crossing you are leg yielding and need to add more outside leg (think one degree of travers while riding your shoulder in this will help you to control the direction of the hindlegs), if your horse is falling in off the track you likely need a more effective inside leg-when your outside rein is turning the shoulder in it’s very important that the inside leg is communicating to the horse not to come in off the track-if you wait until they’ve fallen off the track you were too late applying your effective inside leg aid, the flexion should be to the inside (you should be able to see the corner of the inside eye of your horse) but we are talking only the flexion of the jaw and not bending the neck which will only serve to pull the horse down onto the inside shoulder and out of balance (get off your inside rein people!!), the outside rein should have a steady connection with access to a half halt but the horse must not be hanging on the outside rein either (we are still searching for an equal contact-a simple way to check if your contact is staying equal is to pay attention to your horse’s ears-the ears should stay level, if one ears is lower than the other then you have a head tilt which means there is an unequal contact (and this is most likely the result of losing the haunches to the outside or overbending the neck). The impulsion of the gait should stay carrying the horse freely forward to the front (imagine that there is a fishing rod at the end of the long side connected to your horse’s inside hindleg and outside foreleg and it’s reeling you in down the long side. To test out your aids and their effectiveness don’t just stay in a shoulder in forever aimlessly going down the longside, go shoulder in for 10 meters, straighten for 10 meters and go back and forth like this until it gets easier, being able to effectively straighten out of the shoulder in is as important as being able to go into it, most people fidget through a bad shoulder in for 20 meters before they get anything sort of good,….don’t do this!! You have to think of the entry into the shoulder in like a transition it has to be secure from the first step you enter, it should not take 15 meters of wobbling to establish, the first step must be as good as the last, quality before quantity always!! I hope that is somewhat helpful to anyone out there struggling with the dreaded shoulder in!😁😁😁
