hi it's josie and today i would like with the help of spider to explain trot diagonals somebody asked
me in the comments of one of my other videos if i would do some trot diagonals and try to explain it
so that's what we're doing today so hopefully by the end of this video you'll understand what the
trot diagonals are why they're important and how you can go about making sure you're on the correct
diagonal and when you're not how to correct it so i'm going to start off very basic here for the
people that don't know much at all and then i'll build on it a little bit and we'll see how we go
what are trot diagonals the horse trots in diagonal pairs so when his right front is
forward his left hind is forward then when his right right hind is forward his left front is
forward so they are diagonal pairs they go across the body and they swing forward in diagonal
pairs people talk about the trot diagonals as are looking at the shoulder to make sure you're on the
correct diagonal and yes when you can't feel them when you're learning this you need to look to see
where the shoulder is to help you work out where the hind foot is but the reality of a diagonal is
is that we want to sit when the inside hind leg is on the ground in the trot stride and why do we do
that it helps the horse with balance it helps with bend if you're riding on a long straight
line doesn't matter what diagonal you're on but on a bend and a curved line you should sit when the
inside hind leg is on the ground why is that well if you just look at spider walking now it
doesn't matter what gait he's in if you look at him walking on a circle and you think about the
line of the circle being right down the middle of him his outside legs are having to make a slightly
bigger circle than his inside leg so if you got two prongs and drag them around on my arena you
would see one circle on the inside one circle on the outside the outside circle's diameter
is going to be slightly bigger than the inside so therefore the horse actually has to use his
two hind legs a little differently on a circle usually the inside hind leg will make a higher
and a slightly shorter step and the outside hind leg will make a shorter and a slightly longer step
not um seeable to the eye but that's what they have to do so also on a circle or a bent line
therefore the horse's hind leg takes a little bit more weight as he's coming through the corner
now i want you to think about yourself and if you're at home stand up and do this
put your weight on your right leg so i stand tall with weight on both legs put your weight on your
right leg and then bend to the right you'll find that it's you'll feel all your weight going down
through that leg now stand with your weight on your left leg and bend to the right and even on
here my leg this feels awkward so just try that and you'll see why we like to add our weight to
the horse's weight when his inside hind leg is on the ground it's also a little bit like if you
imagine you had someone sitting on your shoulders and you were doing small circle and they sat all
their weight on the inside it's easier for you to come that way because our bodies naturally
want to follow the weight if the if you're trying to go this way and they're sitting on the outside
your outside shoulder you're going to be falling out i hope that helps you a little bit there
and when we get sit on the inside hind and our horse is coming around then we can use our inside
leg sorry spids to actually keep yep on his girth line and ask him to bend around it so that's why
the correct diagonal is important on circle lines if i'm riding out in the paddock and i'm doing
really long straight lines with my horse that i will change diagonals regularly
because when you're sitting all your weight on that hind leg it's actually having to push a
little bit more weight off the ground as it goes into its trot stride sorry so therefore you're
working that particular leg a little bit harder than the other one so he's doing a squat almost
with you on one leg and not the other so you should regularly swap your diagonals so now that
you've got the mechanics straight in your head you realize why we need to sit on that inside hind leg
when you're learning to ride i did this too when you're learning to ride you need to find a way to
know that you're on the correct diagonal and we use the shoulders to help us with that because
we can visually see them and when you can't feel your hind legs which you will be able to later
on down the track as you develop more as a rider you need something visually to see so if you think
about the fact that the horse has diagonal pairs when this hind leg is on the ground it makes sense
that the opposite front hind leg has to be on the ground because it's a diagonal pair and vice versa
when his inside front leg is on the ground his outside back leg must be on the ground
so i want to sit on my horse when the inside hind legs on the ground so i would like to be sitting
then when the outside shoulder is on the ground because they're a pair and they do the same thing
i learnt to be coming out of the saddle so rising as the front leg was coming forward so i could see
the shoulder because if i'm up when it's coming forward that means i must be down when it's in
when it's on the ground so if i'm up when it's forward i must be down when it's on the ground
and that leg correlates to that leg if you're at the very beginning of your journey here
and you are just learning trot and you don't have a rising trot sorry and you don't have
a good stable rise trot that you can do without thinking about it don't worry about diagonals
i'm a big believer in just learning one thing at a time because otherwise you make it too hard for
yourself and it takes you three or four times as long whereas if you get one thing right in
your head and then move on and build on that's the same way we train the horse one thing at a
time one letter then we put words together then we put phrases then we tell a story
so if you're at the very beginning and you're nice and stable in rise trot and you
can go up down up down up down in trot without actually having to consciously think about it
then you can look down and what you can do if you can't work out where the shoulder is or the front
leg in relation to what you can see trust me i actually did struggle with this you can just pop
your hand there and you can feel when his left shoulder goes forward forward forward and see
what you can see and imprint that little bit on your brain so i know now that it's forward
forward forward forward forward so that means the hind leg is coming forward forward forward
so once you know what the shoulder looks like you i come up remember when the shoulder is coming
forward because that then means that when i sit down the shoulders the
foots underneath him which correlates to his inside hind leg being on the ground
so i you what you do is look literally look so when you look down to see where you where the
shoulder is don't try not to anyway look like this because if you look what happens to my sadder seat
as soon as i've done that i've tipped myself out of the saddle i'm falling forward i've lost all
my balance i'm in the ejector seat position god forbid should i spiders shy i'll be just ejected
out of the saddle so you need to get in the habit of just literally looking down your nose you can
tip your head down a little but even that will change your seat but in the beginning you'll need
to probably have a good look so tip down and look at where the shoulder is so that you can work out
which diagonal you need to be on so you i've said that you need to be sitting on the inside
hind leg when that touches the ground which means you need to be sitting when the outside
front leg touches the ground the diagonal pair so i learnt it that i would come up as the outside
front leg would come up and the shoulder would be going forward therefore i would be sitting when
the shoulder was underneath the horse and that meant the hind leg was on the ground so let's
see what that looks like so now you can see i'm coming up and we're going to concentrate on the
shoulder because that's what you can see but just know that it's actually all about the hind leg
not the shoulder but we use what we can see so i'm coming up as it comes up and i'm down
as it touches the ground if i were to be on the incorrect diagonal i would be sitting on
the ground when the outside hind leg touches the ground so i'll show you what that would look like
so now i'm on the incorrect diagonal so if you look you will see that i'm sitting in the saddle
as the outside hind leg touches the ground and therefore the inside front leg
you just need to practice this until you get it right and if you're anything like
me it might take you a little while to get it because i certainly didn't get it initially i
couldn't actually see what was going on with the shoulder it didn't make any sense to me
if you're on the incorrect diagonal like i am how do you then get on to the correct diagonal
well you need to sit for two bumps because you're going to sit on the outside hind leg
and then you're going to sit on the inside hind leg as you go bump bump and then you rise and
that puts you on the correct diagonal so what i would do while you're learning to do that
is i would just go around and learn to sit for two bumps before you even worry
are you correct incorrect this will help you get the feeling of going sit sit because what
you'll find is you'll sit for three sit for four you won't have sat for one you think you will
and it just takes a little while to get the whole um feeling of it so you can count if
you like make up one and in the saddle the number two so you go one two one two one two
then when you want to change you can go one two two one two one two one
two one two two one two one two one two that might make a little bit easier for you
so make sure you get that and you can do that okay and then you can worry about your diagonals
and they come into play when you're doing serpentines or changing in and out of the circle
so to change onto another circle you come to where your circles intercept and you sit
for two and then you rise and that has put me on the correct diagonal for this circle to the left
i really hope that helps if you've got any questions pop them in the
comments and i'll be sure and answer them for you and thanks for watching