Serpentines and 15m circles :P

Hey all! Ok so I do a Novice 2A dressage test that has a serpentine and a 15m circle in it...the rest of the test is ok (except my canter leads argh) and I just need a few pointers on how to get the PERFECT serpentine and the PERFECT 15m circle...i tend to just zig-zag instead of doing circles in the serpentine and in the 15m circle, I tend to do a 20m circle lol....oh and all the test is at a sittin trot except for the extending of the trot across the arena.
So a few pointers on serpentines and 15m circles please? Any help will be greatly appreciated thanx !

I am not familiar with that test; NoviceA? Is this an eventing test?
To do extended trot in a very low level test, and 15 meter circles are usually at a slightly higher lever. Hm m mm . ..;
One idea might be to do your 15 meter circle thinking of "spiral in". Do you know spiral in? That would mean keeping a firm "wall" on with your outside leg and using the outside rein againsth the neck to kind of "push" the horse inward as it goes around. I say just think spiral in, not actually spiral in because of course then you circel would not be a real cirlce. It's just an idea.
As for Serpentines, make sure that you feel your horse take one or two steps on a straigth line (between bends) before he actually changes bend. Theoretically, the change is immediate, but since you say it comes out "zig-zaggy", then trying to imagine a little bit of straigt between the changes of bend might put greater emphasis on each loop being a complete semicircle.

Tinyliny - Novice is an Australian dressage level :)

PintoTess - When doing a serpentine I imagine that you are riding a half circle each time - focus on each loop instead of where you will be after three.

Is your 15m circle at A or C? Remember that your arena is 20m wide, so ride a circle that comes in about 2.5m from each long side :)

The circles are at E and B...thanx heaps for the tips :P
P.s we won our last test with 63.3% ( could be a bit higher) but im happy :P

How many loops?

3 loops...start at A. End at C

This is a good site to see where you should be for any figure..

Arena Diagrams : Dressage Directory

Three loops......

http://www.dressage.net.au/arenaserpentinea.pdf

Thanks for that link Spyder that website is really helpful, I don't compete or anything but it's nice to see where my mistakes are. I turn my serpertines far too tight compared to this diagram I need to make them a lot softer on the corners.

I tend to zig-zag grrr

PintoTess, just think of riding 20m circles when you ride your 3 loop. 3's are quite simple, it's when you start adding more loops that you have to put more thought into them. Ride accurate 20m circles, and join them with a brief moment of being parallel to the short side, before changing bend/rein for the next circle. That moment of straightness is important as it clearly shows the judge the change of bend.