hi it's josie and today i'd like to speak to you about leg yield and by the end of this video you
should understand how we ask a horse to leg yield and how he should actually leg yield
leg yielding is an exercise we use to ensure our horses are obedient to our sideways pushing aid
but it helps a lot i found it personally as a rider to help me understand how to coordinate
aids sideways stopping shoulders falling out stopping horses rushing off because it's quite an
intricate movement and you need to be quite subtle with it so it should teach you subtlety as well
leg yielding for my horses always starts on the ground
in the very beginning i hated doing groundwork i'm going to be really honest with you i used to think
ain't nobody got time for that i just want to get on and ride my horse but i've learned the value of
them over the years in not only explaining to the horse what i want him to do by being able to break
it right down but it's also where i learnt the most about how to break things down to a horse so
if you'd like to see that video and if your horse can't leg yield i promise you you're better off
starting there and then coming here and watching this a bit later because you will get further
faster even though it feels like slower in the beginning so i'll link that video just up here
this video is going to cross over with the end of that video a little bit anyway
so we're going to start with some theory boring old theory but if you
don't understand that you have limited chance of teaching your horse except by accident
so in a leg yield the horse only has flexion he does not have any bend
and his inside feet should step across and in front of the outside set of feet
it should be done in a nice even rhythm with a nice soft supple step now that said it doesn't
always start like that okay i don't know any um person that started doing any sort of gymnastic
move elegantly to start with everybody starts i think a little bit rough and tumble and so does
your horse so allow him to learn so the horse is flexed and not bent if you don't understand those
concepts i'll link that video up here i've done a flexion and bend one so go and watch that because
that's important to understand what we're looking for so flexion is just from the poll remember
the horse from the poll to the tail should be straight in leg yield he's now the inside we're
going to talk about inside and outside here and this is the same in anything to do in dressage
the inside of a horse has nothing to do with your arena okay i know this is inside and the
paddock's outside but when we're talking about a dressage horse inside is only pertaining to
which way the horse is flexed and bent if there is no bend in the horse such as leg yield it's
only pertaining to how he's flexed so the horse is flexed away from the direction he's traveling in
and if that doesn't make sense to you he's flexed towards the leg you're pushing him away from
so the aids for leg yield are inside rein gets a nice soft flexion remember flexion not bend
outside rein stops the horse from bending his neck too much to the inside so he's flexed now spiders
flexed i can see the corner of his eye and his nostril and he was trying to bend his neck too far
there that was my outside reins job to stop that so inside rein bend and flexion outside rein stops
the bend too much and also if the horse starts falling out through the shoulder it helps control
the shoulder inside leg sits slightly behind the girth up on the girth is a forward driving aid so
it is slightly behind the girth outside leg acts as a bit of a guarding leg in case he tries to
tip his haunches out as well you keep him that way and outside leg also keeps the horse going forward
along with the inside leg so now i'm going to show you the steps i teach the horse to leg yield in
once i've done the ground work so when i first start to teach a horse to leg you once he's
got it on the ground i use the fence to help me because it's going to help slow him down
and take one of his options away so I tip his nose in take my inside leg back and ask him to step off
of it now remember that inside leg was this leg because it pertains to where he's flexed nothing
to do with the arena if you're going to ride dressage you need to get your head around that
so tip his nose in and leg on so the angle for the leg yield should be about 30 degrees no more than
45 we're not doing a side pass or a full pass on a horse so flex in a leg on leg on leg on now when
i said leg on it went on and then off and he came off as he picked his foot up and moved underneath
him why because horses learned from the release of the pressure he was doing what i wanted him
to do so i took the pressure off they don't learn from when you put it on learn when you take it off
i'm going to do it going away from you now so it's going to be he's going to be from my right leg
so flex him in back on off on off now his angle is pretty damn close to 45
there you can see flexion right on off on off on off now he's very responsive to my right leg and
not so responsive to my left leg so that was a big learning curve for me then i just realized that
spider's a bit lazy off my left leg which is going to affect his bending to the left on circles so
flexion to the left and leg on off on off on off on off on off straighten him up and let him walk
on when i'm on a really green young horse it might only be one step and then pat him and walk on
i think i better clarify that for you once you can do that and walk you can do it in trot tip
his nose in push him off off off right so i'm flexing him to the right and moving him off
my right leg now in rise trot the timing for that sort of movement is as you're coming up out of the
saddle you should be putting your inside leg on to ask him to go forward sideways because
that's when that inside hind leg is coming up if you're sitting on the correct diagonal
from the other direction flexion over flexion over flexion over flexion over and when i said
flexion i was just checking him on my inside rein to make sure he was soft you can come from here
and come all the way over i like to go over and make sure i can ride him straight
and then come over really checks the obedience of your horse to your outside aids
also do one this way out it feels quite stiff in the left bar that's better flexion to me straight
flex him right and ask him off my right leg
thanks for watching guys i'm really enjoying doing these