So you know how to ride a leg yield, but you can’t help thinking that it feels labored and dull. You try so hard to push the horse over from point A to B, and you barely make it over in time.
It sounds like you need to refine your leg yield! And I have the absolute best exercise for just that! When I incorporate this exercise into my training, I can make it from point A to B in half the amount of time, (a steeper leg yield with more crossing) and my horse is straight and flowing with great hind end engagement.
My labored leg yield becomes the leg yield of my dreams!
If you need a refresher about how to ride a leg yield, read my article How to Ride a Perfect Leg Yield. And once you can ride a decent leg yield, it’s time to try the following exercise to completely give it a make over!
The Exercise to Fix Your Leg Yield
Ok. Here we go!
For this exercise, you will come around the short side in trot, and once you start along the long side, you will start a normal leg yield off of your outside leg, coming off the wall.
Leg yield off the wall for a few strides, or to the quarter line, and then transition to walk while remaining in the leg yield. This is the key ingredient. You must keep leg yielding throughout your transition to and into the walk.
You will walk for a few strides, then transition back up to trot, again while maintaining the leg yield throughout the transition up to and into trot, which is the other key ingredient here.
Then you will continue this pattern all the way across the diagonal to the other side of the arena, or to the other quarter line. Take a look at this in a diagram:
How it All Works
So you are basically doing a leg yield off the wall and putting transitions into and out of the walk into the leg yield. The most important thing with this exercise is you remain leg yielding the entire time, in the midst of the transitions into and out of the walk.
The transitions are what makes the magic.
The Straightening Effect
When you transition to to the walk, make sure you create a good half halt with your outside rein, at the same time using your inside leg to keep the leg yield going sideways, which also pushes the horse into your outside rein half halt. (If you look at the above diagram, your outside rein is actually the right rein, and your inside leg is the left leg, because you are moving away from the wall.)
As you go into the walk, it is in fact your outside half halt, and the pushing of the horse into that outside rein, that straightens your horse. Most problems with the leg yield happen when the horse’s outside shoulder starts taking over and leading. The hind legs aren’t crossing over enough and the outside shoulder just goes for a joy ride. You need to slow that shoulder down while speeding up the hind end. The walk transition in this exercise helps you to do just that.
So the walk transition, when done properly, will re-straighten the horse, making him more parallel to the wall, as he should be. Then you will trot off again into an even straighter leg yield than you had before you started.
But sure enough, after a few more strides, that ugly shoulder will want to take over again, so that’s the moment to do another transition to walk to regroup. And then trot off again and so forth.
Again, it is important to keep both the sideways motion, along with the forward motion, the entire time. This might me tricky at first, so remember that you have two legs. One leg will push the horse over, from behind the girth, and the other leg keeps asking for forward, at or close to the girth.
The Engagement Effect
The big bonus with this exercise is that throughout all of those transitions to straighten your horse, you are also adding engagement! The transitions up to the trot are a re-energizer and the downward transitions to walk are even better. The build of this exercise sets you up for a forward downward transition because your inside driving leg never stops; it it busy keeping the leg yield going.
Many riders fail to do a proper transition to walk on the straightaway because they take off their leg when going down to the walk and then the horse plops onto the forehand. In this exercise you are forced to keep that leg on when going down to the walk because you are trying to keep the leg yield going.
So not only are you doing many transitions, you are doing good and effective transitions. This is what gets the hind end engaged.
Check out my article about My Favorite Exercise for Hind End Engagement.
The Magical Leg Yield Exercise with Many Benefits
This exercise is a win-win…win!
Being a good rider means you are constantly reassessing the situation, always refreshing your aids, never holding the horse together. You must adjust whatever needs to be adjusted in the moment without any notice.
This exercise puts you in a position to do that. As soon as you start this exercise, you are basically straightening then engaging, re-straightening…re-engaging…re-straightening…re-engaging…etc.
Try it out and let me know how it works for you in the comments section below!
Keep Riding, Keep Refining
The Refined Rider
