News

Please review and update your rider profiles.  Have a new picture, or would like another one put on your page, just click the link below:

2008 MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL

Click Here to Download Membership Application

Heidemann Clinic

April 9, 10, 11, 2008

Registrations must be submitted by April 1, 2008

Clinic Registration Download

The BCYR  Battle of the bottles!

Which side of the river can raise more funds in bottle returns? 

Accounts have been set up under BCYR-Dressage at the following locations. 

• Encorp bottle recycling on Kingsway Avenue, Port Coquitlam

• Langley Bottle Depot

• Ladner Bottle Depot

Didn't make it to the February 15th Meeting?

FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED.

A great website for those of you who haven't explored it!

http://www.nickernetwork.com/cs_piaffe.htm
 

January 18, 2008 BCYR General Meeting

2008 NAJRC Criteria FINAL February 5.pdf

 

2008- NAYRC-Criteria FINAL Feb 5.pdf

 

2008 National Championships Criteria FINAL.pdf

A link to a sample letter is embedded within this request.  Jacqueline Sauve has been sending out these letters requesting donations for our BCYR 2008 Fundraiser.  She has requested:

• A Whistler Pan Pacific Accommodation with Golf Course Package

• Chateau Whistler and Chateau Whistler Golf Course Package

• Westwood Plateau Golf Package including Cart stocked with Beverages, Dinner & 4 Rounds of Golf

• Donated:  Champion Rain Sheet

In order to make this fundraiser successful, more donations are needed.  If you go out for dinner, please ask for a gift certificate.  Also, if anyone has any ideas for raffle items or has something they would like to donate, please let Jacqueline know as she would like to have the raffle tickets ready for the February 15th BCYR Meeting.

Thank you for your help in making our 2008 Fundraiser the best one yet!

 Focus with Erika Urff

January 6, 2008

Life is continuing in Germany. This week we started Jumping ..it was not so bad...and yes I actually jumped, me the chicken!
Focus is VERY good, she has become christians new favorite horse, I can hardly get a ride in without him  asking if he can ride her. We have the flying changes both directions now and the halfpasses are a breeze(As Chritian puts it). Christian fiinds her to be very intelligent. He also thinks that she will be able to do GP, not international but for gymnastic exercise at home and national level. I will try and get a video clip of him riding her to send and one of her jumping next week!!!
 

  Focus with Erika December

Last week my dad made a surprise visit from Canada. He stayed for one week. During this time I managed to have two days off from work. One day we made a day trip to Munster, one and a half hours from where I live and work. We got to see the Westphalian stallion licensing and auction. It was a very neat experience. The auction was also very interesting. Several horses sold for over 100.000 Euros. There were some very nice horses. We ran into fellow Canadians Jennifer and Armin Arnoldt. What a small world it is. Just when you think you are the only Canadian in the country you run into another. Two days later we drove over two hours to Kassel, the home town of my father.  I actually got to see the very house he was born in. We also went to an old castle called Herkules, Very cool. Then we went to the “Zentrum” (aka city centre) for a little souvenir shopping. By the time we were finished it was time to drive home and have dinner. All in all, the entire visit from my dad was very refreshing. Finally I could speak proper English again and have a nice visit from home.

                As for Focus she is continuing to work hard. She is getting more and more spunk as she gets fitter and fitter. The big lesson this week was more for me than the horse. It sounds so simple and easy but let me tell you it’s easier said the done, How to Use the leg properly. Instead of using both legs simultaneously use one leg a fraction of a second faster than the other. So the rhythm of your legs becomes right then left or vice versa. This way, your legs still encourage the forward movement of the horse, but also work to establish lateral suppleness. When both legs come at the same time they counter act each other and the rib cage cannot bend either way. The only thing the legs can promote is the forward movement of the horse. Timing is everything, and when this way of working the leg is used you achieve forward movement, lateral suppleness and also longitudinal suppleness with the raising of the back and the hind legs coming more under the horse’s center of gravity (schwer punkt). Also the leg should be used in Impulses rather than with steady pressure.

                When one wants to achieve collection, never should it be done for long periods of time, especially on a young horse just learning it. Instead take the horse FORWARD into a very collected gait for a few moments or even strides and then let them out again. Proper collection is reflected in a good medium or extended. The transitions within the gait make the horse have to sit and develop the push power needed for the upper levels where steady collection is required. When the horse runs through the medium, slow the horse and make a volte using the outside leg. The outside leg collects the horses outside hind leg. When the collection is good let the horse go out into the medium. If you had the horse collected properly the movement should just roll out of the horse and the rhythm of the horse should not change.  Just because the wind in rushing past your ears and you have to work more to sit does not mean the horse is in the proper medium gait. The only thing that should change is the tempo, but only because the stride length has increased. Use the mediums to check that the collection is correct.

                This week I also started to teach. There is a lady here who spent one year riding in Whales.  So her English is very good and she is able to understand me. Teaching is very fun but can also be very frustrating. The most difficult thing is to put what you know the rider is feeling into words fast enough for the rider to make the correction. Your mind must always be working thinking of new ways to make things happen when the other way no longer works. Teaching riding is not something that you can learn by having someone tell you how to do it. You must physically be able and mentally understand exactly what you are trying to convey to the students in words. It is an activity for the quick minded person. It no wonder some of the best teachers in the world have had years of experience. Teaching a lesson is about trial and error. You must look at each rider with fresh eyes and each time you teach them. You should also keep the previous lesson in mind, but also start a fresh page. A bad lesson should not impact your teaching for the next lesson.

                Christmas is fast approaching. Next week is the barn Christmas Party. As part of the celebration eight riders from the stable will be riding a quadrille, one of the riders is myself on a boarder’s horse. We have already had two practises and only have two more before the actual performance. Let me tell you it is not easy to ride with so many other riders, especially when your success is dependent on each of the other riders. Hopefully everything will come together and we will all have the routine memorized by the 15^th of December.

Next week on Monday “Focus” will be a photo report of everything that has been happening in Germany thus far, including the quadrille happening on Saturday, day trips made to various places and horses and riders from the stable.

Until next week, Cheers.

  Focus with Erika Urff

2007-11-05 to 2007-11-05

                This week in Germany we continued to work on the development of Focus’ canter. Although the left lead canter is not yet perfect it has made significant improvements. Rome was not built in a day, and neither can you expect a horses gait to change overnight.

                Christian made a key point of how to help the improvement of a horse’s gait. It is imperative that the rider does not hold their “middle” tight in efforts to sit quietly and elegantly. In effect, what this does is actually cause the horses movement to shorten and become choppy. You must allow your core to act almost like a pivot point so you can use your seat to scoop in the saddle. You must also consider the intensity to which you use the muscles of your seat. The horse can feel your muscles contracting and relaxing in your legs, seat, arms and even the back. If you constantly have these muscles hard and “driven” into the horses back their natural reaction is to bring tension into the top line. This is not the positive tension you search for in a horse. Allow your body to move with the horse.

                If you have a horse that is strong in the top line or has trouble keeping a rhythm because they are difficult over the back you must do the opposite of what they naturally want to do. For example, in the beginning Focus takes longer to swing over the back in the trot. Naturally her instinct is to make the tempo higher. One may think that this is correct because she is going forward allowing the back to swing. This would only be correct should her strides be long and rhythmical. But really she is holding her back tight to make the legs go faster. In this instance I must slow her allowing the steps to become longer and more over the back. It is so important that with a difficulty such as this you do not sit into the horse to soon. This will only make the back tight again. You should not look to the clock and say “Oh, I have been trotting for ten minutes now, I should start to sit”. You must listen to what the horse tells you. Sometimes you may only be able to sit for five or ten minutes at the end of the ride. This should not worry you.  More important the showing how well you sit is showing that you understand and work with your horse. A feeling rider is more impressive than one who sits pretty on a horse.  When you ride at home, you must not be afraid to take your hands wide or move a little extreme in you torso. It is things like this that show you are working with the horse. And when people look at you and think “What is he/she doing”? , well it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that you understand your horse and are doing your best to make things work.

                When you work a horse, it is important that the horse gets breaks. A horse can only work straight for 15 to 20 minutes before the muscles can no longer get enough oxygen to work efficiently. Also do not work on the same thing every day for the entire ride. One day you may want to work the canter. This is acceptable, but the next days do not work the same thing again and again. Move onto something else like the development of the trot so then not only does the canter become stronger so does the trot, and the transitions between the gaits. It is very often that for horses who are finding difficulty in a particular transition, one of the gaits is struggling. Focus is very good in the trot to canter transition, but canter to trot in more difficult because the trot is not always strong enough to be obtained immediately after the canter. To help make this better, collect the canter and think of taking the trot when you want the transition. This makes your body ride the trot before it comes enabling the trot to be better from the first steps out of the transition.

 Focus with Erika Urff

September 1^st 2007 to October 29^th 2007

For the next year Focus with Erika will be coming from a new perspective. On September 1^st I made the big move to Neuss, Germany for one year. On October 4^th Focus made the even bigger move to join me at Kamberger Hof, Dresseur Stall Reisch. Once a week I will post an update, including pictures, of how Focus is progressing.

For the first month that I was here I lived in a small bed and breakfast while Christian and his wife helped to find me my apartment.  Now I live three kilometres from the stable. Every day I ride my bike to and from the barn. Once every two weeks a friend from the barn accompanies me to the grocery store. Riding a bike with two weeks of food is very difficult, especially when it is over five kilometres. The days are long and so there is often very little time to do anything in the evenings other then watch a little German TV and then go to sleep. The day starts for me at 5:30. I wake up and eat breakfast and get myself ready for the day ahead. By 7:10 I must leave in order to arrive at the stable a little early so I can look after Focus. At 7:30 we begin working. We start with feeding the horses, and then turn them out and then we “make the stable”. This includes putting new straw into the boxes and sweeping. The main barn consists of 24 stalls. There are three other barns which house another 13 horses. By 9:00 we begin riding the horses. A busy day is riding 38 horses between five of us. On Mondays all the workers and horses have free, therefore on Tuesday all the horses are ridden. This month a typical Tuesday is 26 to 35 horses. It depends on how many horses trailer in for lessons or riding. By Thursday, things begin to slow to about 25 horses as some horses have Thursday off and others Friday. Christian believes that five days a week of work in enough. Saturdays many of the horses’ owners come to ride. And Sunday we work only until 2:00 so there are only  horses to ride. From 9:00 until 18:00 I must ride anywhere from three to seven horses, everything from 13 HH ponies to giant warmbloods to andalusians. On top of this all the horses must be groomed twice a day. It is the belief of Christian that the horses must be cUntitled.ems lean while they are in there stalls. At 6:00PM we must begin to feed dinner hay and grain. We are usually finished by 6:30, and then we must sweep again. By 7:00 we are finished for the day and are free to go home. At this time I brush Focus and wrap her legs and blanket her for the night. The boxes are cleaned every two weeks with a tractor. I am not fond of manure and straw building up in Focus’ stall so I also clean it in the evening. Because I must work through the day, I have to do this extra care after hours. By the time I have completed the day I am home by 8:00PM. Enough time to make a quick dinner and watch part of a movie before I fall asleep.

                The weather is already getting cold. During the day it is about 10 degrees and at night it goes cold enough for frost to develop. Rainy season is also starting, but this does not stop the horses from being able to go out onto the fields. Up until the first week in October, every weekend we went to a show. In the next month or so, Fridays turn into jumping day. All the horses are jumped on Friday with the exception of the Grand Prix horses and the ones the owners say “no” to.  When someone buys a new horse, there is a party in the barn with Champagne and orange juice and chocolate. So far in October there have been two parties for two ladies who have both just bought young horses after selling their difficult horses.

For the first week with Focus we kept her work very back. Just allowing her to recover after her long journey. Then Mr.Reisch took a one week holiday, enough time for me to bring Focus back up to regular work.  So the past week was the first full week of training. Christian has ridden Focus a few times. The biggest struggle we are having is getting the left lead canter to roll forward. Too often Focus wants to keep the canter collected with short hops behind. Christian’s solution for this is spiral circles with moments of medium canter on the long walls. How it works is the large circle of the spiral is to allow the horse to regain her balance after the medium canter. As the circle becomes smaller the horse must collect herself more and more. Once the circle has reached 8-10 metres the horse should be collected. For Focus this works to keep the hind leg coming forward like in the medium cater rather than it taking short hops. Once it becomes too difficult for the horse to maintain the quality of the canter spiral out, gradually getting more forward. The most important things about this exercise in not to inhibit the horse’s forward movement, even in the collection. When it comes to the medium canter down the long side, you must always think of a shoulder-fore feeling, Otherwise the purpose of the exercise is foiled. The medium canter is to rejuvenate the hind leg jumping forward, up and through the top line. Going down the long side crooked halts any progress and then the movement is of no use.

                Another lesson that I have learned is correct whip use. During a lesson I used the whip in the trot with a simple double tap to make the hind legs more active.  Immediately Christian explained that it is not how hard or how many times you use the whip, it is your timing in the rhythm of the horse’s gait that makes the whip effective. Fast taps that razz the hind legs are not correct. They simply make the hind legs fast on the spot where you tapped. You want the hind leg to come under. This is why a tap at the right moment can “pull” the horses leg up, forward and under all the while making it quicker.

The next day is my lesson Christian explained shoulder-fore in a way that gave it a whole new meaning. Shoulder-fore is not brining the horses inside should off the track slightly nor is it the outside. You must think that the horse’s shoulders are wider than the horse’s hind end. When you ride shoulder-fore, you are using your inside leg to lift the inside hind leg forward and under to land between the horses two front feet, making the hind end narrower and more capable of coming under to achieve engagement. This is Shoulder-fore. It is not riding a faint or incorrect should-in.

The really nice thing about being here is that even though I am a working student, I still have time to ride without instruction. Christian is around to watch, either riding another horse or teaching someone else. But he believes that you should not learn to ride like you are in the army, always being told what to do and how to do it. You must ride on your own. This is how you learn to feel.