What's the difference between Contact and Connection?! 

Thank you for your wonderful training videos, I show this to my son who is a beginner in Horse Riding. From Tamilnadu, India

It is really a beautiful thing when you can ride your horse like this. I am working on this right now. So my horse isn't feeling the connection in the transitions. Thank you ! Huge help !

Thank you Amelia. I love the "buttery" description on collection!

Thank you Amelia, this WAS helpful.

Love your videos Amelia .. so helpful. But just some constructive criticism, look at the place on you camera that looks like you are talking to us instead of looking at the person on our shoulders. Keep up the great info please!

Thank you Amelia!!! Kajsa Sweden

Fabulous, thank you!

Beautiful ride and horse Amelia! How did you score in that test?

Thank you Amelia for talking about this subject. It was very useful. You are talking about to get that with an young horse in a good developmental condition but I really want to know if the exercises are the same in the case of a older horse(i.e. 10 years-old) which doesn't have good muscle mass in the hind legs and neck. Are we proceeding in the same way? How many working sessions in the week and the duration of the sessions until to reach a good nutritional state? I can feel that the horse is unable to sustain the connection.

I have been fooled by the soft feeling that could be mistaken for a "buttery" connection. Coming from a Western background, if my horse was cantering along in a steady rhythm and contact and I could just sit and enjoy the ride, I thought I had "connection". But could I ride from this comfortable place to anything else I wanted........say a transition, a serpentine, a leg yield or shoulder in? Do I lose the connection because of the new movement or did I never have it at all? Connection IS comfortable but with more depth of purpose...... which is what accounts for the continuous control of the quality of the gait from change of pace or direction or from movement to movement. There are so many ways to break the connection....... by the rider, by the horse.....or both, and the issue is getting it back again while at the same time riding the movement. In training, we stop asking for the movement if we lose the connection and instead, we rebuild the connection by riding half halts, probably on a circle, then go back to the movement. But if we're still not clear about how to get it (the connection) or don't know when or if we have it or have lost it, we are handicapped by mediocrity. I mention this, because I have conversations now and then, with fellow riders that reveal to me that they are deluding themselves as I did. I think it's important to know this distinction between dressage and ordinary riding. Just say'in.

Harvey 💗

Thankyou Amelia.. Such a fantastic explanation.. I have a young horse that feels like I'm holding up a house a times...very Occasionally I feel the lightness in my hands so is that's a little bit of connection coming through or is it just her excepting the bit and the contact getting softer.. I get very confused on what I should be feeling and when... I try doing lots of transitions but she frequently looses balace... Or throws her head... What would you do for these problems... Carry on with transitions and praise when correct... Or would you Halt and start again so confusing

Hola,muy buenos vídeos me gustaría subtitulado en español😅 tendría muchos más subscriptores

Could add your your email. Please

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