My own medicine

If you scroll down my blog page, you will see a post I wrote about writing down what aids you need for each movement at your level.

Imagine my surprise when Barb asked me to explain the difference between shoulder and haunches in just the other day. (Hint: We ride them with the same aids, it is just a matter how much pressure you apply on each aid).

Which leads me to my newest thought: Once you have confirmed that you know the aids for all of your movements, write down common mistakes your body makes when trying to apply the correct aids and how to get from movement 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and so on through the test. This will allow you to really know what you need to do and also NOT do through the test.

These 3 activities allow you to ride a cleaner test.

For example in shoulder to haunches in, instead of thinking about aids for the shoulder in to all of the aids for haunches in, I can simply think:

Shoulder-in = inside leg at the girth, weight inside seatbone, outside knee and calf, reins softly hold the inside bend.

Shoulder-in to haunches-in = less outside knee, more outside calf. NOT all aids above, with that illusive "thinking" haunches-in instead of shoulder-in aid.