Quick tips and facts about the new Freestyle requirements!
1. There is a maximum time limit but NO minimum time. Maximum time limit for all USDF freestyles is 5 minutes. Your time begins when your horse moves off after the entry salute and ends at the final salute.
2. One point will be deducted from the total artistic score for exceeding the time limit.
3. Movements done above your level will be penalized by a four point deduction from the technical score for each “clearly forbidden” movement done.
4. The rider must enter the arena within 45 seconds of the signal from the judge and within 20 seconds of the start of the music or will be eliminated.
5. Halt and salute are now judged at the beginning and end of a freestyle. The halt with a salute must be facing “c”.
Marsha Kulak and last week's judges at Dressage under the Stars. Photo Credit: Top Shelf Dressage
Wellington, FL – March 9, 2011 – Tonight marks the sixth week for the exciting Dressage under the Stars, held at the world famous Players Club in Wellington, Florida. Festivities begin tonight 7:00pm, with delicious drinks and fine dining available both patio-side, upstairs on the porch and as always inside the Players Club. The beautiful event will continue for two more weeks and is held each Wednesday at the luxurious venue. This week’s performances will feature top international judge Anne Gribbons and choreographer Ruth Hogan-Poulsen.
Last week’s Dressage under the Stars was great event featuring three Eventing riders performing musical freestyles. Eventing riders do not usually perform freestyles, but their incredible efforts did not disappoint. Last week’s Dressage under the Stars, sponsored by PRO aligned with the Derby Cross event held Saturday night, March 5, during Nations Cup week. Riders from last week included Marsha Kulak, Sara Kozumplik and Ronald Zabala-Goetschel. Olympian Karen O’Connor served as one of the judges for the evening, alongside Mason Phelps, Jr.
“Tonight was a great event for our event riders,” noted O’Connor. “The evening was very interesting, exciting and enthusiastic. They do a wonderful job presenting different disciplines to the public and the music is just so much fun.”
Yes, they are finally done! I have just finished the new Riding with Soul(TM) CDs. It has been quite a month with the World Equestrian Games and moving the horses and crew to Florida for the competition season, but now they are ready! I have been getting so many emails from you about when the new CDs are coming out and what type of music you want. Thanks!
Due to popular demand, I have made a second Jazz and Big Band CD. In my first batch, the Jazz and Big Band CD flew out of my inventory faster than I could make them! So for all you Jazz enthusiasts, ballroom dancers, and big band swingers, this one’s for YOU!
So many riders find it hard to keep their seat and pelvis in the correct position on their horse. Your own conformation and the conformation of your saddle plays a huge role in allowing your seat to be in the correct position.
Your Seat and Your Saddle
Do you find it hard to keep your seat and pelvis in the correct position on your horse? Your own conformation and the conformation of your saddle play a huge role in allowing your seat to be in the correct position.
Take a look at the conformation of your saddle. Even if your saddle fits your horse, it doesn’t mean it fits you. Make sure that your saddle allows you to find a neutral pelvic position.
My New Years resolution is to improve my riding. If you share a similar goal or resolution, I can recommend an incredible tool that I have been using, Program Your Position. This is an amazingly effective “program”, and I can honestly say it has helped my position immensely.
The program, developed by Ruth Hogan-Poulsen and Jane Savoie, has three components. These include 5 DVDs, 3 audio CDs and an illustrated pocket guide.
No matter how you absorb information most effectively, Program Your Position has you covered. Personally, I like all the audios and illustrated pocket guide the best. But I must add that the DVD segments are like attending a clinic.
For me, Program Your Position is better than a clinic because the series teaches you to use a simple set of buzz words to “program” your position corrections. I ride around saying the buzzwords and correct my riding position almost effortlessly. The buzzwords are easy to remember and effective and the program also encourages you to add your personal buzzwords too. Read more> http://www.horsesinthesouth.com/article/article_detail.aspx?id=9632
1. Treat you horse’s feet like your hands. For example, if your hands are dry, you would put on a moisturizer; if they are not dry you would not. Your horse’s feet are the same. If they are dry and cracked and brittle, put on a product that increases the moisture content of the hoof. If the hoof capsule is wet and soft, use a product that shields the hoof from environmental moisture. Environmental moisture can come from a wet stall, wet grass, the wash rack, too many baths, or a wet soggy pasture.
2. Pick your horse’s feet before and after you ride. Pick your horse’s feet before you ride to examine the health of hoof and to remove dirt, stones and any debris. You should also pick them after you ride to make sure you haven’t picked up any foreign objects such as rocks, nails or hard packed footing.
3. Always pick the horse’s hoof from heel to toe. In other words, pick in the direction toward the point of the frog.
4. Be sure to clean in the clefts next to the frog where thrush can be most prominent.
5. When examining the hoof while grooming, check for sharp clinches which can cut your horse and may also indicate a loose or twisted shoe.
6. Keep your horse on a regular shoeing schedule, even if he just needs a trim or reset. Keeping your horse on a regular shoeing schedule can prevent many costly and damaging lameness issues.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me about the best way to listen and ride to music. There are a number of factors to consider.
1. Your safety and the safety of others riding with you is the number one priority, so be sure that your horse and the other horses around you are aware that the music will be on and that you don’t start it in full volume. An unannounced drum roll at the wrong moment can surprise any horse or rider, so be thoughtful about the start of the music. You should consider starting at low volume and then turning it up make sure your horse and everyone around you is OK with the music. Once the music is going, most horses will enjoy it as much as you will!
2. Where are you riding when you want to listen to music? Are you in an indoor or outdoor ring, or are you hacking out? If you are in an indoor arena with a convenient power supply, most any sound system or boom box will work. (If no power supply, get a big stash of batteries!) Many of the newer boom boxes come with a small remote control you can put in your pocket so you don’t have to get off or have an assistant to change the music or volume. Although headphones used with an iPod or Walkman type gadget is more private they can present problems. It is NOT safe to ride in an arena with other horses and riders with headphones on. If another rider has a problem or a loose horse comes running into the ring, you may not be aware of a potential problem because you can’t hear what is going on around you. Think of riding like driving your car. You should be completely aware of what is going on around you to avoid a potentially dangerous situation.
The second reason I don’t like my riders to use headphones is that the horse cannot hear the music! Yes, in fact the music does influence your horse. Many horses will know when “their” music comes on and quite remarkably adjust their gait into the tempo of the music.
3. There are some products that have been made for small speakers to go into your saddle pad, so that both you and your horse can hear the music. I think this is a great compromise for hacking and riding to music for pleasure without the danger of using headphones. However, if you are riding to music on a daily basis with the goal of competing to music, then you need to use a sound system where the music is louder and around you as it will be at a show. You and your horse need to experience the sound and fullness of the music as it will be at a show, many times before you go down the centerline. In doing this, you will help your horse adjust to the music, volume and depth of the sound. This will help eliminate spooking or getting nervous when the music comes on. Many horses will become more “alive” when their music comes on. Try not to squash this enthusiasm, but rather use it and recycle it for more expression and brilliance! After all, it’s FREESTYLE! GO FOR IT!
Hi everyone. A lot of you have been asking me about how I begin to diagram a pattern or how I start to memorize a test.
I start with these blank arena diagrams. I find them useful for a number of things.
1. Memorizing regulation tests.
2. Learning the exact geometry of the arena.
3. Learning my exact tangent points for movements such as circles and serpentines.
4. Drawing my tests from beginning to end.
5. Drawing each movement according to where the judges are judging (this way I know when the judge begins judging a new movement).
6. Showing a student where a movement begins and ends exactly.
7. Mapping out individual movements when I start to create choreography for a freestyle.
8. Looking at the pattern from beginning to end of a new freestyle, to see if I have used the arena wisely.
9. Checking to see if I have included all required movements for a competitive freestyle.
10. Mapping out each movement of a new freestyle so my clients and students have something to study that is very visual.
11. Checking to see if I have been inventive with the pattern.
12. Checking to see if my movements are equally used from the left and the right.
…and many more!
So I though I would give these diagrams to you guys for your use. Feel free to print them off and use them any time you want, and while you are on my site, sign up for the newsletter if you have not already! You will automatically get the link for the diagrams in the welcome letter of my newsletter, so you don’t have to go looking for it! Ruth
You’d probably agree that having a balanced, centered position plays a huge role in being an effective rider. And you’d probably also agree that it seems like you’ve been picking away at your faults for years but still struggle to find an independent seat and an elegant position.
How do we know that? We know because we’ve been in the same boat and know how frustrating it can be to ride around for years with the same old position problems and crooked bodies.
So we put our heads together and developed our unique program based on two very powerful sports psychology techniques.
Those two techniques are:
Programming the subconscious mind
Anchoring
Programming The Subconscious Mind
First, you should know that one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to try to improve your position with iron-jawed determination. The reason iron-jawed determination doesn’t work is that you can only make short-term, temporary changes to your skills when you direct your effort and energy to your conscious mind through will power.
However, when you direct your efforts to your subconscious mind, the changes are permanent.
Next,you need to know a couple of things about the subconscious mind. It operates, in part, as a goal striving mechanism. It’s kind of like the genie in the bottle. It’s just waiting for your instructions. It hears and believes everything you say and visualize, sees it as the goal, and like a guided missile zeroes in on that goal.
Finally,the exciting thing about programming your subconscious mind is that it’s a lot easier to do than using will power. All you have to know is two things:
Vivid visualization
Self-talk
Program Your Position uses both visualization and self-talk to change the “software” in your mental computer.
You get very vivid images as well as illustrations of those images to adjust every part of your body. You’ll start at your seat—your core—and from there, you’ll work down to your toes, up to your head, and right through your fingertips.
Anchoring
Once you have the vivid images in your mind’s eye, you’re given specific “buzzwords” that anchor those images in your subconscious mind.
The buzzwords act as a shorthand cue to trigger position corrections. You don’t have to actively “do” anything. Your subconscious mind causes your muscles to fire in the right way so that you automatically “self-correct”.
For example, let’s say you tend to collapse the left side of your waist. Visualize that you have a toothpick on each side of your body. Each toothpick rests between your last rib and your waist. If you collapse on the left side, you’ll get jabbed by the toothpick on the left, and the toothpick on the right will end up on the ground.
You want to stretch up through your left side so your toothpicks stay in place without sticking you. Plus, when you stretch up, you create the right muscle memory. Once you’re sitting correctly, you’ll anchor that feeling with the buzzword “toothpicks”.
The entire Programming Your Position process is fun and effective. And the best part is, once you know the details of how the system works, you can use your own images and buzzwords in the same way to get amazing results without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears!
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