Gymnastics

I was wondering how many people do gymnastics with your horse and how often you do it. We do all differnt kinds of gymnastics at least once a month.

Some that I do

-oxer/one stride with pole in the middle/vertical/one stride with pole in the middle/vertical

-xrail/bounce/xrail/bounce/xrail/bounce/xrail/one stride oxer

I don't really know what you mean, but we used to go over jumps cantering with no stirrups and no hands!

.....gymnastics?

Do you mean jumping?

I try to do gymnastics once a week, really small stuff though. They help Danny and I with our dressage, and it's really good for his back and mind.
We do lots of bounces and one strides, and trot poles trot poles trot poles! Ha.

Yes, gymnastics are applicable to jumping - they're series of jumps in one line, usually one-strides or bounces.


I like starting with all trot poles, then start to make the end trot poles into jumps :)

Lol my trainer made me jump 3 foot oxers on a jumper pony with no stirrups and no hands to stregthen me up....ive only jumped that high with no sturrips or hands on a comfy eq horse....not a uncomfy fast pony you needed to keep undercontrol! It was soooo fun tho!!!!!

I love gymnastics!! I'm a firm believer that it's one of the best ways to teach a horse to use its body over fences and teach a rider to stay still. We always have a gymnastic of some sort up in one of our rings so depending on the horse I usually do them several times a week.

So I haven't jumped 3" without stirrups/reins with a little pony... but once I was working with a jumper (with a habit of stopping) over a gymnastic that was:
2"9 vertical (one stride) 3" vertical (two strides) 3"6 oxer
And over the first he landed really hard and my helmet fell completely over my eyes! Apparently the padding was worn out... I did the rest of the gymnastic in completely darkness! I cussed really loud (fortunately there weren't any kids around!) and went home and ordered a new helmet!

^lol that's funny, but yeah this little pony was one tough ride haha

Hehehe!

I LOVE gymnastics. When I was showing, we did them almost every ride all summer, so at least 4-5 times a week. It was great for the horses and great for the riders. We even did the entire gymnastic line without hands; the best strengthening and balance exercise ever.

We tended to use the gymnastics for warm up (building them up slowly one element at a time), and then using it as a springboard into coursework. The gymnastic would be the first "jump" of the course.

For anyone who isn't familiar with gymnastic exercises, there's an overview and some discussion of gymnastics in this thread http://www.horseforum.com/viewtopic....035&highlight=. I also gave an overview and posted some video samples on my blog at http://regardinghorses.com/2007/11/2...tic-exercises/.