The shoulder-in can be a daunting new movement to learn! Sometimes it feels like you have to pull the horse’s shoulder over just to get in the right position, and as soon as you let go, the horse pings back to the original straight-ahead position. It’s hard to get a horse into the correct shoulder-in position and equally hard to keep him there! Keep reading to learn more about the shoulder-in and how to effectively set one up.
Benefits of the Almighty Shoulder-in
The shoulder-in is first introduced in second level dressage and is used all the way up the levels. This movement is one of the best tools a rider can have. Just like the leg yield, the shoulder-in can really help a rider to understand the feeling of riding a horse into the outside rein. Lean how to ride a perfect leg yield here! But the shoulder-in goes beyond the wonders of the leg yield and teaches the rider to ride inside leg to outside rein. With the leg-yield, you are essentially pushing the horse into the outside rein with little to no bend in the horse’s body. The shoulder-in requires activation of bend through the horse’s body, which is given by the rider’s inside leg up closer to the girth, rather than slightly behind the girth in the leg yield.
The shoulder-in is a massive tool that will be used all throughout your riding life. It is pretty much a cure-all! It can be used to fix all of the most common problems we face when riding. Straightens! Balance! Engagement! – Most problems fall within those three categories!
Shoulder-in Prerequisites
Before a horse can easily perform a should-in, he should be able to bend well in both direction and be fairly supply through the body. The horse must also be responsive to the rider’s inside leg. He must be able to move off of the rider’s inside leg to create bend through the ribcage. He must also be comfortable with the contact.
The rider needs to be able to apply these aids effectively. It is also a good idea that the rider knows the feeling of ‘having the horse in the outside rein.’ The concept of riding inside leg to outside rein couldn’t be more apparent in the shoulder-in.
The Aids For An Epic Shoulder-in
As with any movement, you want to first and foremost get your horse going nicely forward and on a good contact. The shoulder-in will fail without a good contact. You are going to be pushing the horse into the outside rein, so you need contact to first exist.
Explanation Of The Aids:
Once you are “in” the shoulder-in, your inside leg will be at the girth, creating bend. Your inside leg also asks the horse to keep moving forward with rhythm. In addition, the inside leg pushes the horse into the outside rein.
Your outside rein will ‘capture’ the horse’s outside shoulder and hold everything together. Essentially, the outside rein moves the shoulders over to the inside and keeps them in place.
Your outside leg will very very lightly remain slightly behind the girth to keep the haunches going straight down the wall. The outside leg may or may not be needed.
Your inside rein does NOTHING!!! No, it does have a small role. As with most things, it is ONLY used to keep the inside flexion. Also, as with everything else, the inside rein will ruin everything if you pull on it!
Setting It Up And Executing
Start by coming out of a corner, and plan to do the shoulder-in along the wall of the long side of the arena. Think of the corner as the last quarter of a circle. You will come out of the corner, (last quarter of a circle) and pretend you are about to start a new circle. Take the first step into a new circle, and PAUSE. (Mentally, don’t really pause your riding!)
Right there….The first step into a circle…That is the shape, essentially of your shoulder-in. That is where you want to be when you go into a shoulder-in. So now get ready to UN-PAUSE , but instead of continuing on the circle, you will keep the same position and go straight down the long side.
That is essentially a shoulder-in. There will be more tweaking to do, but that is the foundation. A circle, or a corner, can sometimes have the same amount of bend that is required of a shoulder-in. It depends on the size of the circle or corner. So after you get better at the shoulder-in, you can then shape you corners to properly set you up for the correct bend that you need in the shoulder-in. The shoulder-in should be about 30 degrees of an angle from the wall. (Just the shoulders!)
Putting It All Together
So let’s run through this in more detail…
You come out of the corner and pretend to start another circle out of that corner. Instead you only take the first step into the circle. PAUSE. Your upper body is slightly turned in because you were getting ready to go onto a circle. You are not leaning in, but your inside shoulder is back and your outside shoulder is forward. The same is true of your hands. Just like the handles on a bicycle. You turn the handle bars in. So basically, you are taking your shoulders and your hands and turning them together, in tandem, to the inside. As you do this, your lower body naturally falls where is should be. Your inside leg will move up a bit to the girth area, and your outside leg will naturally fall back a bit. Just hold that outside leg there, but do not press it into the horse.
Now your body is set up for the shoulder-in. And you didn’t even have to do anything! The corner/cirlce did it all for you! Now you just have to UN-PAUSE and ride the shoulder-in.
So you are in the position to start a circle, but you are going to go straight down the long side instead. Here is the moment where you need to press your inside leg into the horse to tell him to go straight down the wall. Apply your leg using ‘the inside’ of your inside leg. Push it as if you are actually pushing the horse down the wall. Like if there was a box on the floor that was too heavy to lift. You would use the inside of you calf and inside ankle to scoot it across the floor. This aid it what sends the horse straight down the wall.
Now, if you were to do only that, the horse’s shoulders and neck would ping back to the wall. But you want the shoulders at an angle of 30 degrees off the wall while the rest of the horse’s body is parallel to the wall. Here’s where you will catch the shoulders with your outside rein and hold everything together while you travel down the wall.
So as you use the inside of your inside leg yo push into the horse, you will then immediately catch the shoulders with your outside rein. You need good contact on the outside rein in order to do this! A floppy rein will not catch the horse’s shoulders. They will fall back to the wall. You may even need to pull back gently on the outside rein, in the form of a good firm half halt, in order to contain the shoulders. Learn how to ride a good half halt here!
Then just keep going down the wall and tweak as you go. Add more inside leg if needed, or lighten up. Give a more firm outside half halt if needed, or lighten it up. Just contain the movement, but don’t stiffen your whole body in order to keep it. Take and give, push and let go. only do as much as needed.
The Physics Of The Shoulder-in
When the horse moves along straight, he is moving on two tracks. Just like a car. The inside his follows behind the inside front. And the outside hind follows the outside front. In order to keep going straight on two tracks, the horse needs to push equally from each hind leg up to the corresponding front leg. This is the basic flow of energy on two tracks.
The shoulder-in is on three tracks. With the shoulder-in, the inside hind leg pushes up to the outside front leg. So if you are doing a shoulder-in to the left, the first track to the inside would be the inside front leg. That’s the only leg traveling on that track. The middle track is the inside hind and outside front. So that’s where all the energy is! The inside hind is pushing up into the outside front, where the rider then catches the energy with the outside rein. The third track is just the outside hind.
So you can see here that the shoulder-in engages the inside hind! It steps under the horses enter of gravity and pushes the energy to the outside front leg. Both the inside front leg and the outside hind leg have nowhere to push energy to. So the powerhouse of the shoulder-in is the inside hind leg.
Because of all this going on, the horse’s weight is distributed differently than if he were going along with a straight body on two tracks. Most of the front end weight is now shifted to the outside front leg, since the inside hind is pushing it there. With that in mind, you can see how the shoulder-in can be a beneficial tool when trying to manipulate the way the horse is carrying his weight. For example, when a horse is dropping his inside shoulder and falling in, this is due to the fact that he has too much weight on the inside leg. So you should put him into a shoulder-in to shift his weight off of the inside front leg and over to the outside front leg.
Common Problems In The Shoulder-in
Sometimes when we ‘try too hard’ at something, end up contorting our bodies, which ends up shutting the horse down somewhere. Relax your body as you apply your aids. A half halt is not a huge squeeze of your entire body to the point where you are not breathing and you’re turning blue in the face. Don’t squeeze. Create positive tension and then let it go. Check to make sure you have all the doors open for your horse to move freely. Are you pulling too hard on both reins? Are you pulling too hard on just the inside rein?
Problem #1 –The horse loses momentum and slows down: This will happen to many horses and riders when first learning this movement. The most obvious fix is that you need more leg to send the horse forward. If that’s not the culprit, you are probably blocking the horse in some way, and also having other coinciding issues. If the horse is lined up properly, he should only need leg to send him forward, as long as your are not putting up a wall in the front by pulling too hard on the reins. So check to see that you have enough leg, yet not too much pulling up in front. Pulling unnecessarily on the inside rein will shut down the inside hind leg.
Problem #2 -The horse’s shoulders won’t go in: Several things could be at play here.
First have look down at his neck and head. If his neck and head are in, but the shoulders are still parallel to the wall, it could be that you are jabbing his inside shoulder with your inside knee. If your knee is blocking the inside, the horse cannot move his shoulder’s over. There’s nowhere for him to move his shoulders. Take your knee off the saddle to see if that helps.
Next, check your inside rein. Are you pulling on it? Remember, the inside rein is very minimal. It should be used for flexion ONLY. In fact, you should be able to completely let go of the inside rein at any time during a shoulder-in, and nothing should change. So, if you are pulling on the inside rein, you could be popping the outside shoulder out towards the wall. But we want both shoulders IN! So let go of the inside rein!
Even if you aren’t pulling on the inside rein, the horse’s outside shoulder could still be popping out. In this case, you need more outside rein to pop it back in and hold it there. Just remember that if you don’t have enough outside rein, then only the head and neck will go in. The outside rein connects the head and neck to the shoulders and moves it all together in one piece.
Problem #3 -The horse drifts off the wall and comes inward: First of all, make sure you are not pushing the horse in with your outside leg. That would be a lovely half-pass. But we are trying to do shoulder-in!
Most likely the horse is not listening to your inside leg. And so, he is not bending. And all of that combined is making it feel like you have to haul on the inside rein, because if you don’t, his head will slingshot back to the wall.
These are all symptoms of your inside leg not working. It’s not effective, or the horse isn’t listening. Anytime you feel like you need to pull the inside rein back and across the withers, DON’T! I know, I know, I know you want to! But you need to use your inside leg effectively instead. Key word: EFFECTIVELY!
Try adding inside leg. If the horse is very unresponsive, you may need a quick, sharp BOP with the spur to get your point across. And once you make your point, the horse will finally bend, and it will feel like magic. He’ll wrap around your inside leg and his head will stay to the inside on it’s own, and you won’t have to even think about even touching that inside rein!
Problem #4 -The shoulder-in is actually a leg yield:
Remember, a leg yield has no bend, and a shoulder-in DOES have bend. So if you are actually leg yielding along the wall at a 30 degree angle, it probably means the horse’s haunches have drifted out, basically flattening out any bend you once had. Try sliding your outside leg back to keep the haunches from falling out. At the same time, re-apply your inside leg to re-establish the bend.
Learn The Shoulder-in And Cherish It Always!
The shoulder-in is such an amazing tool. This article only touches upon all of the many intricacies of this fabulous movement. So practice hard to get this movement down pat. You will always find a reason to use this movement as a tool throughout your riding!
Keep Riding, Keep Refining!
The Refined Rider
