Janet Aungier, Dressage

Excellent website on feed, condition

2012-01-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.shady-acres.com/susan/conditionscore.shtml I have linked to her page on condition scoring but don't miss the other articles on this site. Dressage horses are not endurance athletes, rather more weight lifter types at the upper levels anyway but I still find her information relevant. I have put a link to it on the right side of my blog for future ease of access see LINKS. happy reading!

2012-01-05T22:24:00.000-08:00

Nathalie's 2nd lesson on Charles in the outdoor in January! Originally from Germany, Nathalie goes to school with Sarah at OHSU. Her prior lessons have been on big lazy warmbloods and she loves how easily Charley responds to subtle changes in her seat. She has just started a partial lease. Say hi when you see her at the barn.

a you tube clip on why we all need to MOVE

2011-12-29T16:33:00.000-08:00

this funny and enlightening clip was sent to me by one of the Alexander School graduates, Ruth Alpert. It explains why sometimes we have to move a lot in order to become "still". Invisible aids come from easy, subtle movement which comes from very "unfuzzy" bodies. Enjoy!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FtSP-tkSug&feature=share

2011-12-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

Hawaii vacation pics Dec 2011 NON HORSY

2011-12-15T20:02:00.000-08:00

https://picasaweb.google.com/JanetAungier/HawaiiDec122011?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Keihanna and Buddy at BR show Devonwood Oct 2011 high point winners!

2011-11-27T17:35:00.001-08:00

team buddy! maryanne, janet,amy,sylvia and judy

High point winners of 2 day show with a 71+% at 1st level t 2

keihanna's little buns getting buddy's giant ones to sit

coach janet "more forward!"

now that is forward! nicely balanced lengthening

well earned praise : 12 yr old girl to a 25yr old schoolmaster

discussion of a lesson: trying too hard vs. the zone

2011-05-31T13:44:00.000-07:00

As an instructor I learn the most from the lessons that begin with a regression from the previous lesson. this happens to everyone regardless of level and is an important part of how our brains learn to repattern but there can be a fair bit of anxiety on the part of the rider who knows she has lost some essential tools and can't find them. I believe that when things go awry it is first the instructors responsibility, then the riders, then the horses!

"Anxiety simply means you are about to learn something really important" is one of my favorite quotes. Learning happens when mistakes are corrected and a lot of learning happened yesterday!

My student really wanted to show me and her little audience how well she was doing based on some super breakthroughs that she had in her previous lesson. She was proud of how well she had gotten her horse to go and her eagerness to show it off was understandable and set her up for a slide. She is now "trying harder" which blocks her feel (muscles that are sending messages to tighten can't receive any feeling messages) and she tightens her buttocks and thighs and eliminates her ability to finding any real base of support. Without a wide full base of support in her pelvic bowl she is unstable so all of her "twisty fixy" things that she thought she had eliminated popped their little selves right up! . When the rider is that tense the horse hears a lot of "static on the line" with only snippets of what she actually wants him to do coming though so he just guesses and regresses to whatever he does when he is on his own.....he goes into his bad habits causing the rider to be more desparate, tense and get in her own way! After the audience left, we had a good conversation about how to avoid "trying too hard aka show nerves" and practiced 2 skills that got her back into "the Zone":

#1. Remembering to carry her eyes up and out in soft focus (this put her into her right/feeling side of her brain) helped a bunch. #2 feeling something in present time, In this case we went to her psoas muscles contracting and pushing into the inside of her sacrum ( and then she could relax her buttocks, dropping and resting in her pelvic floor and voila she was stabilized.
This "mindfulness" aka "being in the present moment and feeling what is happening now" is required by riding precise figures In addition to #1 and #2, having the student do exacting leg yields at walk would likely have gotten her to fall into her pelvic floor and tone her psoas much faster and is how we had started her last lesson.

How does the rider create "up"

2011-05-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

You asked me awhile ago about what I meant when I said a rider could initiate UP. I should clarify that we don't so much initiate it but simply allow it and take the ride! (to a degree we do "catch" the UP using our psoas muscles to move the base of our spine also called tipping the pelvis) but the trickier part is allowing the up which is available on our planet.....Newton's 2nd law states that for every movement there is an equal and opposite movement. First we allow the movement of down by falling (relaxing) into our pelvic floors and feet and then, through our aligned and supported spine we are able to channel the resulting wave up though us and take the ride. A really good down results in a really good up and Down is a trainable skill :->. Wave energy falls and rises with gravity and is greatly effected by the shape the earth provides for it to move through. So when the rider allows herself to relax aka "fall" into her pelvic bowl and then her feet she then can just ride the resulting up. Like a steep beach or a headland can cause the waves to build energy and change direction, the rider uses her skeletal alignment and her psoas muscles to channel the resulting wave up the front of her spine and out the top aka it moves "through" her exactly like the dressage horse moves from his hind feet "through" his spine and out his poll.

the next wave is always coming and we can choose to take the ride or not......... pure alexander

thank you for your question!

muffin grazing at Sherwood Stables new outdoor arena

2011-02-08T23:00:00.000-08:00

Photos of Sarah and Slick Regional Sporthorse Champions

2010-08-24T20:39:00.000-07:00

photo marcus

2010-08-12T21:44:00.000-07:00

more history

2010-07-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

My horses have been completely trained by me and have been very competitive, for the most part.... and for the best part they have taught me a great deal over the last few decades. eg: Huge movers are much harder to ride well and they also break more easily ;->)
My current horse, Marcus has a lovely piaffe, passage and 1/2 pass (see photos posted last winter) sadly he has incurred collateral ligament damage, has had stem cells etc....and then as he was looking pretty ready to start back he damaged muscles during a fall in turnout .......so he is at summer camp (out on 40 acres with 12 other camp buddies eating grass). I hope to get him back as a schoolmaster at end of summer! Marc was ODS futurity winner (combined tr and 1st scores at ODS championships). He has always been explosive , launching several European World Class riders onto his neck: Christine Traurig, Henk Glinn(a great teacher), Barbara Koot. (another great teacher) and so I last showed him several years ago, 3rd level at DW (68%) but he was challenging to show and my love has become teaching and coaching so I didn't spend the time and money to compaign him but used the time to learn from him.
I showed Dani whom I have trained for years off and on for a student -reserve CH 1st L, at the sporthorse arab regionals, in lo 70%s. She has lovely changes and has started on tempis for me.
Prior to Marcus, I had Frederick, also imported as a 3yr. (a Florestan) and he was ODS Training level champion lo 70s before I sold him to California.
Claivoyant was also from Europe, my friend and long time trainer Carol Lavall (Olympian)selected him as 2yr for me on her way home from the Barcelona Olympics. Unfortunately he developed juvenile onset arthritis so I had his hocks fused, trained him up to his capacity and I sold him as a solid 2nd level horse with good flying changes as a schoolmaster at 8yrs old.
Prior to Clair, I had an 18h, Akzent I gelding, Auspicious, who was responsible for my rise from am to pro. I bought him as a 3 yo from my good friend Sandy Howard, with whom I have trained for over 20 years (she was USET team member 1981. "Otto" and were very competitive regionally and always ranked well nationally eg : USDF HOY we were 7th Place at 3rd level and 2nd Pl at 3rd level freestyle. My long time instructor, and very conservative trainer, Dieterich von Hofgarten announced that
'Otto' and I we were "ready for PSG" but sadly, Otto died of a presumed aortic anuerysm rupture. Some would say the "horse of a lifetime", but I believe that with every challenge there is a door which opens. I joined the nascent Califiornia organization APTI, which was dedicated to educating dressage instuctors. I worked with Sandy Howard (Olympian) and Mary Wanless (author) and have been to hundreds of hours of cont. ed watching Balkekhol, Schumacher, etc.....APTI has been replaced now with the more dogmatic USDF program
Before Auspicious I had leased Giselle who was a very tense, very talented but challenging 2nd level mare. I trained and showed her through 4th level winning Oregon CH at both 2nd ,3rd and 4th levels in two years with scores all in the high 60s. I decided to buy young rather than keep leasing her but the gal I sold her to took that little mare to I 1.
Prior to Giselle, I bought a horse off the track, Cadenza, he was successful for me winning the 2nd L ODS championships and as his hocks were not the best after a young career on the track I sold him and he was a good 2nd level schoomaster thoughout his career.

.........which brings me to my current situation: I have a torn labrum in my hip I am trying steroid injections, but these will eventually fail and I will need a hiatus from riding for a few months ...So if you want a ready to go show rider I am not that person right now- If you are interested in learning to ride for your self, I am very good on the ground. Another option: I have a couple of very talented riders who are interested in parital leases and one or both of them might be a fit, depending on your needs.

Thank you for asking about my history. There are trips to Europe to buy for clients, several bronze medal students, and lots of other stuff that I have likely forgotten. My competitive success always seemed easy in comparison to teaching well so I guess that is why I haven't given it much air time on my blog!

may you live with ease ;-)

Sherwood Stables!

2010-06-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

We are very really excited to have moved the program to Sherwood Stables. We are in a gorgeous old growth forest setting near Scholls. Eric Tobar owns SS and he is a great guy to work with. We will miss all of the wonderful trainers and boarders at Sherwood Forest. See link on right of blog to Sherwood Stables web page www.sherwood-stables.com

News from the World Cup

2009-04-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

Stephan finally WON a leg of the WC The GP - the freestyle is yet to be decided! This is the first time an American has won either the GP or the Freestyle on American soil as the announcer says in his western drawl :->. He beat Anky and Isabell who had mistakes and tension without controversy - even the Dutch contingent in the audience said at the end of his ride - "he is going to win today!" Anky's horse Painted Back is THE horse by a good margin with a walk and a halt to boot but she had flaws today.

Shopping with Carmi of RP: New "club member", Cormac enjoys being fitted for a custom bridle with lots of help from his mom Alana, janet, and Sylvia

2009-03-07T13:13:00.000-08:00

Slide show: first 4 photos by Mary Cornelius at Arab Regionals, the rest taken by John (Andrea's s.o.) on a sunday in early January: Slick, Charles,

2009-03-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

Core strength, "dinosaur tails"

2009-01-27T18:11:00.000-08:00

Core strength is what creates "stillness" in the rider from the inside (and yes the horse!)and allows the suppleness which I discussed in my earlier post. Rigidity is what happens if you don't have enough core strength to balance on the moving horse (owners who moved up from their little TB and QHorses to giant moving warmbloods can attest!) Without core muscles to stabilize you, you have to seize up every other muscle in your body in a futile attempt to achieve a "still" and "deep" seat. The stillness is the attachment of your sitz bones to the saddle, the suppleness is in your hip joints which rotate around a good inch higher than your sitz bones which are the bottom of your pelvis. To find your hip joints push your fingers into the crease created by your upper leg folding up against your pelvis( this is called the groin),ok about 1/2 way between your pubic bone and the bony knobble that pokes out on the side of your leg (the one that gets sore if you lay on your side for too long on a hard surface!)you will feel your hip sockets. Note how free they are to move when you are sitting in the saddle on your sitz bones. Find these by sitting on your hands and rolling around a bit - hard bony knobbles which form the bottom of your pelvic bowl (the "outer bowl")

Entire classes are taught on just this topic with many ideas about how to best create a program of movement for the student that encourages symmetrical core stability. These are your "self carriage" muscles and without them your horse won't have them either. The psoas and iliopsoas are the two big players and the good news is you don't need to remember the names, only how to engage them! Following my Alexander training I often describe the "outer bowl": this is your pelvic bowl with the, all important seat bones on the bottom, a sacrum behind, illiac crests(hip bones) at the top and an open front with your pubic bone at the bottom of the front opening. It is lined with a sheet of muscle called the "inner bowl" and it is this tricky muscle that is the key! You can engage it by attempting to bring your top, front 'hip bones'(the ones you prop a bag of groceries on) together toward each other. You are not using your outer bowl muscles and "pinching your cheeks", quite the contrary, for riding you want relatively open and relaxed buttocks, and you are using your inner bowl or deep abdominal muscles to move your pelvic bowl with it's sitz bone bottoms. It is this motion of pelvic bowl/sitz bones that enables you to first follow and then direct your horse - this is the key to a "good seat". there are lots of other ways to help you to identify and strengthen these muscles, and I have included below a link to yet another tool.

I must also point out that the outer bowl has a tail and if you pretend that it is a nice long dinosaur tail(instead of the little vestige of a stub that you actually have) Your "dino tail" hangs down to the ground a couple of feet behind you and helps you to maintain a level balance with your pelvis.

I have, not often enough, told students to practice standing on one leg to improve their core strength, or to use my Balimo chair (in my tackroom under my desk). Now I have found a new piece of equipment in my favorite store, Costco! (I took my shoes off and played on the demo for a good 15 min before shelling out the $95.00 for this little gem) click here to link to the website. I will bring this out to the barn when Alexander training is over and you can play around with it but I encourage anyone who wants to improve their balance for any reason, to go run to Costco and play for a while - just the one leg at a time standing is a challenge, and using the elastic stabilizer hand pulls is perfect for riders as it encourages you to keep your arms down by your hips - a phrase often heard by all of you "elbows on the front of your hips and ride him/her forward through them with your seat and leg". With core strength you can be supple and quiet while directing the dance! Simple not easy. j

"Suppleness"

2009-01-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Suppleness is one of the must have basics on the Dressage training scale and it seems to be the least understood. The steps of the 'Training scale' are all interelated and if the horse isn't laterally and longitudinally Supple, he can't be Through, which is to say the rider has little influence over the hind legs, so there can be no 'Forward', no 'Rhythm' no 'Contact'... no dressage.

Alright! We agree that suppleness is necessary. How do we get it? Much of the time I see riders attempting to "supple" their horses by bending the neck, often in extreme ways. This results in the neck disconnecting from the body and any forward that is achieved is lost out the shoulder, or shoots off the top of the overflexed neck while the withers fall onto a heavy forehand. Much more often the horses loin is a better place to look for restrictions as it is closer to the engine of the hind legs and the connection of haunch to spine. Next time you want to bend the neck off, try a haunches in, or on a younger horse a simple leg yield or turn on the shoulder.

In my overview I discussed the horse as a mirror for his rider and so it follows that if we want to supple any part of the horse, it is most useful to be supple in that place in our own bodies! I have spent much of my teaching career thinking that the rider only needed supple hips and not a supple spine but I have been mistaken. "Stillness", a worthy riding goal for all disciplines is only possible if you are supple to the forces upon you. Be a palm tree not an oak. It is possible to lack suppleness and ride, just as we see thousands of not very supple or through horses at the FEI but it isn't what we want to see and certainly not what we want to feel.

What do I mean by a "supple back"? This lovely rider (click to go to video clip)shows this spinal movement very well. Note the wave like action of her back, which I see as a snake coming up out of a charmer's basket, except in this case the "basket" is a moving stallion!
She is clearly accomplishing the goal of a supple backed horse who is allowing her to swing his hind leg power through his spine to her hands which then direct his energy back through her spine to his spine and back to his hind legs "the circle of aids" is only possible if both horse and rider have supple backs. I sometimes refer to this "circle of aids" as "the conveyor belt". Our hip action flexes and reaches back then drops on the conveyor belt engaging the hind leg energy and then with hip extension, rolls the conveyor belt forward, along the spine through to the hands where supple elbows return the energy to our flexing hips and his.

Collection is merely asking the conveyor belt to elevate at the withers. Simple, not easy.

Yes, it is a lovely stallion, but imagine him now with a stiff backed rider, his front legs flinging forth, back held tight, hind legs disconnected ....well you get the picture.

Ride like a snake! janet

the importance of saddle fit!

2008-12-26T14:24:00.001-08:00

I'll start with my 2 cents worth on game stopper #1. Oh, the murky world of saddle fitting...... it is riddled with myth, and avarice. Some horses will "go" in just about anything and some riders are so talented as to ride effectively in just about anything but for the rest of us, saddle fit for both partners is really important. We all have to compromise a little and over the years I find that I can get the job done in most anything that doesn't hurt the horse but I am in no way getting it done as well as I would in a correctly fitted saddle (for me and for the horse). Horses backs are unique and riders seats are too. Two 130lb 5.6" women do not necessarily share the same seat shape and in fact rarely do they.
I have ridden in Kieffers, Passiers (nice for a traditional saddle), several custom Schlesses air and not, and now I ride in Reactor Panels (RP)

I have used RP saddles for 6 years and have over a dozen students riding in them. No it is not a requirement!! Folks borrow them and their horses almost always move better, so naturally they want one of their own. I believe that they are the best option on the market today. They are a gift to the horse's backs, spreading our weight over a large area like a western saddle. I have had several vets and chiropractors look at them with excitment. One vet looked at my RP and remarked that he almost never diagnosed sore backs from saddle fit issues on Western horses and he thought the wide distribution of weight was way. Finally the "english" saddle offers this comfort and weight distribution without losing any of the communication. In fact it is so much easier to feel when you are both comfortable:-> I also like them because as the horse developes and needs to have the saddle refitted, RPs are easily adjusted. Lisa Jordon of RP Saddlery is a brilliant saddle fitter and although she comes up at least once a year, I find that I have to adjust saddles in between and when I get stuck, she patiently coaches me via Bluetooth. There is a link to their site to the right if you are curious.

2008-12-23T17:14:00.000-08:00

Holiday Kisses to all from Marcus
"What's she so happy about it's cold out here" Marc and Slick with Sarah on their way out to romp in the indoor arena.

Coaching vs riding technique, Alexander work and saddle fitting

2008-12-21T19:24:00.000-08:00

I would estimate that "dressage", at least the kind with self carriage and throughness, is 99% rider effectiveness and 1% horse. Certainly, if you want to be competitive, you have to have a suitable horse but if you don't ride him well you won't win in todays competitive arenas. And even if you never care to compete(certainly understandable), it is hugely more fun to ride well:->.

There are a lot of approaches to teaching dressage: "Coaching" i.e., 'get your horse to do "Z"', is the most common. This assumes that the rider is riding/communicating at a high level. If it becomes apparent that the rider is not.... then if you're lucky, a "teaching riding" i.e.,'sit deep, heels down, sit tall, look up, shorten your reins' type of lesson will ensue. All of which can be excellent suggestions and sometimes work well IF the rider doesn't have a more fundamental issue in her body that is preventing her from being able to comply. There are some master coaches who use precise horse exercises to teach the rider how to ride and firmly hold that the instructor should not be sharing the details or biomechanics with the rider, Conrad Schumacher is one of these. Other masters use only rider exercises, Eckart Meyners, Mary Wanless, Sandy Howard, Sally Swift all teach the rider directly and the majority of the rest use some combination. What distiguishes the "masters" from the majority of trainers that I see is that they do know that it is the rider and they have a plan to address that. My concern is with those who do not either understand the basic problem is the rider or have no idea how to address it. To expect the horse to leap up and offer the correct movement just because the coach on the ground keeps asking for it is silly and rather rude. So how do I choose to teach riding skills so that I get correct results when I start "coaching" again? I start by explaining to the rider what we want the horse to do and why using simple biomechanics and the training scale. Once the rider and I agree then I use an easy mirroring exercise e.g., the horse is tight and hovering over the ground so I help the rider to "ground", have them walk off and watch the mirroring by the horse. The riders almost always feel it so then we have a basis for communication. We feel the horse and decide on what would work better, then we help the rider to feel that change in her body. Simple, but not always easy. 1. improve her awareness of what she is doing, 2. why it isn't working the way she wants, 3.what to do about it. Simple steps if you have a good guide/teacher. I have mentioned above some masters that I have directly or indirectly studied with and in particular Mary Wanless has used Alexander work.

The "Alexander technique" knows nothing about riding horses (nor ballet or singing for that matter and it has been used in these fields for many years. Alexander work, on one of it's levels, is a "users guide to your body". Just the simple understanding of how our bodies were biomechanically designed to function is hugely useful, regardless of what you want to actually do! Every day I see the rider make a tiny change and I am still astounded at how quickly the horse can hear you and mirror the change. Pretty soon (sometime hours) you get pretty clever and when the "coach" says more bend, they see more bend. I have a number of students who are to this place and it is sooo easy to teach "dressage" to them! Knowing how the horse moves most efficiently, is a much better understood body of knowledge than how the human moves best (odd really there are a heck of lot more humans than horses).

2008-12-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

"Hold on here, are you sure you want to ride OUTSIDE today?", Dani asks Eliza.

Dani to Eliza, "well, it was COLD out there but I forgive you :->"