Pirouettes are for me one of the most difficult exercises to master, mainly because they not only require a great deal of collection and balance, but also because the rider must understand and have the ability to not only prepare and sit out the pirouette, but also to ride the pirouette within the movement.
Particularly when you begin the pirouette work you can’t just set everything up and then abandon the horse, as he needs you to balance and relax him during the exercise until he learns and has the strength to carry it out himself. This does not mean that you haul on the reins, lean back on his bum, and pull him around. This means that as you begin the work on the pirouettes you must ask little and then relax. Then ask a bit more, and not just walk or canter in and expect him to just pop himself around first go.
My hero Nuno Oliveira always stressed the importance of being happy with little, and in the preparation and work for the pirouettes, both walk and canter, you must expect that it will take time and so reward each little step, not ask for the sprint right out of the starting gate.
The most important thing in the beginning is that you can collect the walk and the canter with the use of your seat and leg, and not by pulling on the reins. You must be able to walk with the horse on a loose rein and have him come into an active collected walk, while remaining in a long and stretched out frame. If you begin to ask him to slow and activate the walk and he shortens his neck, changes the rhythm, becomes hollow, falls on the shoulders, or all of the above, you are not ready to start the pirouette work.
Once I could come back into a collected walk without the attitude of my horse changing in any way and once I could bring the canter on the spot without using the reins, I was ready to start the very beginning of pirouette work. I would begin doing squares in the walk or canter, turning the shoulder of my horse around 90 degrees and maintaining a connection on the outside rein to straighten him on each side. I would also gently tease the inside rein during these times, not letting it go, but asking my horse to soften his neck to keep him relaxed and slightly bent to the inside.
I have to admit, Batialo doesn’t love Pirouettes. He can do them on his ear, but he quite often makes a fairly big fuss about it and lets out a huge sigh of relief after doing a good one, as if to say, “oh man that was lots of effort there!” However, as with most things in dressage training, the problem wasn’t him, it was me. I would come into the pirouette and either not prepare in fear that he might lose the impulsion, or tighten unconsciously to keep him going, or screw myself up into a ball and override it, thinking that the more I did the easier it would be. Wrong!
“The secret in riding is to do few things right. The more one does, the less one succeeds. The less one does, the more one succeeds," said Nuno Oliveira.
The key to the pirouette is understanding how to keep an active hind leg without interfering with the horse's balance and natural ability, and without restricting him in anyway. You can’t just fly in and pray, but you also can’t tense up and force it.
I was invited to a clinic in Portugal recently with Rick Klaassen and when Rick stopped me to ask what I needed help with, I very quickly said, “pirouettes”! He began at the walk, asking me to walk on a circle with the horse stretching out into quite a long contact and asked me to make the circle smaller bending Batialo’s neck around him as he stood in the centre of the circle. He would then ask me to keep that bend and the same line on the circle and bring the quarters in, so I was walking in travers on a small circle. Then he told me to change from bend to the inside and ask Batialo’s quarters to come in on the circle, while keeping the bend. This helped me get a sense of what my inside leg needed, and was not doing. We often think that it’s the outside leg that asks the pirouette, but we forget that the inside leg guides the horse and keeps the impulsion. If you forget your inside leg the horse can fall onto the inside shoulder, or lose the balance.
Once I had mastered that, I began walking up the long side and would come off the wall into a tiny circle around my inside leg, keeping the activity and the bend on the circle. Then as I hit the wall I would simply turn Batialo’s shoulders around and complete the half pirouette. I had never done such amazing walk pirouettes! It was of course because the small circle helped me establish the bend and activity that I needed, and also helped me organise my inside leg, so that when I turned Batialo’s shoulders around I was helping him to balance. It was easy for him; no sigh required on his part!
In the canter we did exactly the same, coming up the long side into a small canter circle, keeping the bend and keeping the impulsion with my inside leg. Then as we hit the wall turning the shoulders around into the half pirouette. I cannot tell you how much easier this made the whole process and for the first time I was actually keeping the corridor or rider’s rhelm during the pirouette, and not just saying a prayer and putting my outside leg back. Gradually as we got the feel of the pirouette I was able to learn how to prepare and ride it. Batialo went from a sigh, to a “well that is easy cause Sarah knows what she is doing!”
by Sarah Warne - Photo © Rui Pedro Godinho