I thought a little more detail on performing the shoulders-in might be helpful. After all, it’s taken me since 1971 to even begin to understand it as well as the half halt. When we question why we are putting ourselves through this torture we have only to bring to mind that magical Olympic musical freestyle, or that reining horse who danced like a ballerina. When we have ridden a performance on a truly collected horse we get that silly grin and start to giggle – that’s so cool!

That springy, dancing movement is the result of your horse converting his forward movement to shifting his weight onto his springy hind legs and slowing his cadence,while exerting more effort to jump and elevate his shoulders and withers.To get this, walk your horse along a fence. Get a good energetic walk. Now, slowly turn your body away from the fence, facing inside the arena. You will turn your shoulders and also your rib cage. You and will look to the inside, even a little behind as though to see if you’re being followed. Along with your shoulders, your arms, hands and reins will come to the inside, holding the horse’s shoulders off the fence a little. This will give you the angle. The bend will come from the action of your seat bone. As you rotate, you will naturally increase weight in the inside seat bone. It may help a little more if you actually lift your outside seat bone! Finally, to keep forward movement, your thigh and calf will slide back away from the girth and press a little. Because you are pushing your own inside leg at the same time as the horse moves his inside leg, he will begin to cross over as he moves. This is the point of the shoulders in exercise, to help your horse to cross his legs and bear more weight on his hind legs. At the same time, your hands will need to squeeze ( not pull) to lift and reduce the movement of the outside shoulder. The mantra of dressage is “inside leg into outside rein!”.

“Two Tracking” was what they used to call it. It’s the process of getting a horse to move forward while at the same time stepping a little bit sideways, leaving two lines of hoof prints in the sand. To do this the horse should be “crossing over” with both front legs and hind legs. It turns out that this movement is the foundation of “collection”. That is, the horsemanship of actually “doing something” with a horse. Now, if all you want is to be a passenger on a horse going on a scenic trail ride you can stop reading here.

If you’re still reading, I assume you’ve taken an interest in dressage, reining, working equitation, or reined cow horse competition and the like. Or maybe you use horses for ranch work. In any event, you’ve discovered that you need improved mobility in your mount in order to put him in position to do a job.Nuno Oliveira, the 20th century dressage master, said “I do nothing before I do shoulders-in”. I’ve found his approach indispensable. “Shoulders-in” is essentially “Two-tracking”. It puts the horse’s hind feet more under his body and shifts more of his weight onto them, causing him to feel springier, and to be able to move in any direction easier. It’s basically what ballet dancers and football players do.

To do shoulders in do you need three things: forward movement, body angle, and body bend. He moves forward because he has learned to do so with a squeeze of your calves, or a tap of your stick. He angles about 45° inward, with his forehand or shoulder off the fence, because you turn your shoulders, rib cage, and reins inward a little. He bends because you sit on your seat bone on the inside (arena) side. Remember how you twisted when a friend poked his finger in your ribs? Your seatbone has a similar effect on your steed.

We attended another horsemanship clinic this weekend. Again we came away with our heads full of good useful knowledge, a bunch of rain-soaked clothes, and sore muscles! Now, I’m not totally against having a few crampy places after riding a lot, but this was on a whole different order. Our esteemed instructor brought along a Pilates coach. That’s right, there I was a “seventy-something” cowpoke, lying on a saddle pad on the floor exercising abdominal muscles that I haven’t used since the turn of the century! (Unless you consider the table muscle, from eating steak).

It put me in mind of those folks Who “Pooh Pooh” equitation as exercise. And it sure felt like I had been exercising when I tried to get out of bed this morning! I discovered that Joseph Pilates was a German who developed this technique in prison camps during World War II. I’m thinking maybe this is his revenge? However I will continue to do his exercises, because I could immediately feel the improvement in my communication with my old pony. My balance, and my position were improved. I thought to myself “this stuff actually works!”No, my all-time favorite exercise has always been dancing. You exercise to music that you like, while holding a woman in your arms. But I am beginning to see that equitation runs a close second, as you use even more muscles, and you get experiences that are exhilarating, kind of like flying! (Well, sometimes you are flying, but we try to keep those to a minimum). It really does seem like when you see a group of horsemen, and women, that they appear unusually fit for their age. That is unless you consider old bronc stompers!