Teaching Sideways, Yay, Nay or Why

newforest

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Mar 15, 2008
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I stumbled upon sideways whilst I had an nh trainer, it pops up as being a move that you teach them. It comes up in western and it pops up in Trec.
Now I am not a pupil from hell but I wasn't far off it in my refusal to do it! I was definitely in the nay camp and I scraped a minimum mark when I did my tests.
To this day I don't teach it or ride it. I do lateral which allows me to open and shut a gate. But the do not like the movement, going forwards and sideways isn't the same thing, I don't mean a leg yield.

What do you feel? Think? Teach?
Had I not done nh/western I wouldn't ever have come across it. The bhs doesn't include it, so why not?
 
I'm not sure what you mean NF. What's the difference between sideways and lateral? Like you I can do a lateral move to open/close a gate or get near the wall of the school to pick my gloves up, but I'm guessing you mean something different?
 
I'm not sure either? We do sideways to open and close gates and sideways to move over on the road if a car is coming etc, are you meaning like turn on the haunches or forehand? Or pirouette?
 
It is important. It teaches your horse to move away from the leg, to bend, to listen, to supple/flexion and to achieve an unforced natural outline. This is one of the foundations to everything else.

I spend hours not trotting or anything else just bending my horse because once he is doing lateral work like this, I know when we are outside on a trek, I have a relationship with him that is not just my bum on his saddle.
 
To improve straightness you have to be able to get the horse light in shoulder in , leg yield, side pass, and the more advanced renvers and travers, then half pass if you feel so inclined.

But at the very lowest level every horse expected to carry a rider ought to be able to do leg yield and shoulder in.

It strengthens the back end, it teaches them to shove the back end under them.
 
I think I know what you mean, but all sideways movement starts off on the ground teaching a horse to move awa y from pressure whether that be a hand leg or just a pointing action.Ridden refinement of that may involve forwards and sideways at the same time with different flections or just moving haunches or forehand. Half pass is a movement with forward, full pass is purely sideways but is not a modern dressage move but an old high school movement . My old Welsh x cob used to turn all lateral work into sideways movements as he found them so easy, great for loosing him up not too good for competitions!

Unless you wanted to work toward conventional dressage and it was an issue I cannot see why you would not accept it as a difficult or advanced but valuable for exercising flexing joints particularly.
 
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I am not too sure if this movement is what I do when I ask Dolly to move over at an exact spot to let vehicles by on our narrow lanes. Usually the area available for us to get over and out of the way is barely her length, so I require her to step sideways for about 2 or 3 sideways steps without any forward movement at all, and keeping both her bum and her head in a straight line, with no bits sticking out in the lane.

In fact thinking about it, it is a sideways movement I have done on almost all horses I ever owned to step out of the way of passing traffic from time to time,. when space is limited.

Not sure if that is the movement you are referring to though, I don't know the formal names unfortunately, just what I was taught as a child out and about.
 
We do lots of lateral on the ground, I do more turns on the forehand and leg yields ridden.
But my previous instructor said we had to do sideways and doing it on a circle wasn't good enough. Surely on a circle is just as beneficial?
I dont want to teach it totally straight as per attached link but on a circle is useful and she finds it really easy.
 
I am not seeing the link?
I teach "side pass" I play with logs poles etc and it is totally sideways.
One thing that makes a really REALLY big difference is you have to look in the direction you want to go.
I was taught years ago to start facing a wall /fence or something so stop forward movement.
If its on a circle isn't it a "sprial in or out".?
 
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Ah ok I see now, yes we do it along a pole either in hand or ridden. Also out hacking if a car is coming we duck into the side of the road sideways, Guess I do do it but just wasn't sure what you meant.
 
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We are struggling enough with leg yielding just now, but I suppose it's the type if thing I expect him to do on the ground without thinking, simply as part of his 'manners'.

Why are you so against it NF?
 
I think sideways is a good move. And very useful. Why are you not keen?
The simple answer is you had the same instructor I had didn't you.
The fact was I had a pony who couldn't do it, nor could he do the turn on forehand without a little step forwards. It totally put me off as a "good thing to teach" having had an animal who couldn't do it and an instructor who was blind to that fact!
Its about reading and working with what you have.
The cob does leg yields, turn on the forehand, haunches, shoulder in, quarters in. But I never asked her to be totally straight and cross back and front together, apart from on a circle.

@Laura_107 the above is why. She is an ex instructor for good reason.
 
I did wonder too - now I understand where you are coming from......Solly struggled with this on his rear end for all of his life, just the sort of big lumpy type he was, and I never pushed for it, it just wasn't that important to me then to make him do something that he clearly hadn't been designed to do. However, Dolly being more sprightly on her toes and actually needing to do this move at least twice on every ride, it has been a God send to us.

We all do what we do with our individual horses because we have knowledge of what they are capable of, what we feel they need to learn, and when to say this isn't for me or my horse.:)
 
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I tried this with Gem. She leg yields, turns on and about the forehand/haunches, does a cracking travers and shoulder in. Can I get her to do a side pass? No! She's stubborn and will explode if asked. It makes for interesting riding (or handling) and watching!

I started by attempting to teach it moving along the fence but it's very tricky to maintain straightness!
 
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