This content was created by Mary Wanless. This content was uploaded by Mary Wanless. This is a YouTube video titled "3 Mistakes In Upward Transitions - Dressage" containing a detailed instructional monologue by Mary Wanless recorded in November 2018. Mary Wanless explains common rider errors during upward transitions in dressage, focusing on rider posture, seat use, leg aids, and hand positioning to improve horse responsiveness and comfort.
The very first thing that I see people do is to try and drive their horse into trot. The rider will lean back, they'll push with their seat in the saddle and. And then they'll use the legs and often kind of start pushing with the seat as well. This can sometimes work for people, which is why so many people do it. But the reality is that, that you are pushing the saddle into the horse's back, causing it discomfort and causing it to lengthen its underneath and speed off like that. It's actually running away from your seat. For people that do lean back, first of all, you need to learn to keep sitting still. Do not do anything extra with the seat to make the transition happen. The way I describe it is imagine you have a plank stuck on the front of your body, a vertical plank. And your job is to keep your pubic bone, belly button, sternum pushed forwards up to that plank of wood. So let's say you're the kind of rider that collapses. Well, you've taken your belly button away. If you're the kind of rider that leans back like this, then your sternum has come away from that vertical plank. If you're the kind of person that tips forwards, you know, then your belly button and your pubic bone have come back. It's really important to keep everything else the same and apply the legs to get the horse to trot on. The other thing that can help as well is to keep thinking of pushing the hands forward as if against resistance. Put your hands in front of their hands like this to provide resistance and say push against that resistance. And when I let go, see if you can still keep that feeling as pushing the hands forward against resistance. This is really good for riders as well that tend to pull their tummies in and draw the hands back. Make sure that when you apply your leg aids that you get results. You know, really avoid squeezing and pushing and all that kind of stuff. Really just like tap and then you expect the result from the horse. Frequently people that use their heels end up taking the thigh away and then suddenly all the weights in the back of the horse's back and, and that could cause it to sort of hollow and speed away that way or just not make the transition at all. If you keep using your leg all the time and there's no consequence for the horse, then it will just continue to ignore Sam.
