09/23/2024
This exercise is really the beginning of all your training. When your horse will seek the bit on the way down and stay engaged with his hind on the way back up you are well on your way to contact. A horse that rides in your finger tips, and steps deeply underneath his belly is starting collection. Ride on!
Lengthening to the bit ♾️ with our young star Viva la Vida who is doing so well under the saddle! What an amazing mount this smart mare is turning into! ✨💫🤎 but let’s take a deeper dive:
Lengthening 〰️
• Lengthening involves the relaxation and elongation of muscles, often as part of a natural, fluid movement. It occurs when the horse extends its body without tension, creating a longer posture without pulling the muscles actively.
• This is a passive process, where the muscle fibers relax, allowing for a more extended range of motion. For instance, when a horse lowers its neck and extends its body in a relaxed, forward-downward stretch, the muscles are gently lengthening without resistance. This process improves flexibility, alignment, and balance, promoting elasticity and suppleness.
• Lengthening encourages the horse to engage its body in a relaxed manner, allowing the horse to move more freely and with less restriction.
Stretching 🌊
• Stretching typically involves the active pulling or elongation of muscles, where tension is applied to the muscle fibers to increase their length. This can be either active or passive, but the key element is the pulling force exerted on the muscles to stretch them.
• In stretching, the horse may experience a feeling of tension in the muscles, as the goal is to extend the muscle fibers to their maximum length. This kind of stretching usually focuses on improving flexibility and range of motion by increasing tension within the muscles or tendons.
• For example, when a rider asks the horse to stretch its stride or lengthen its frame under saddle, the muscles stretch under slight resistance or pull, enhancing flexibility but with more active engagement.
🔑 Key Difference:
Lengthening involves relaxation and elongation of the muscles without tension or force, promoting fluid, extended movement, while stretching involves pull to the muscles to extend their length under resistance occurring in the muscles that work in opposite direction.
In the typical dressage training we aim for the lengthening, not stretching, however stretching is the word thoically used to describe the phenomenon of the horse lengthening to the bit.
