Do You Have Enough Impulsion?

In order to perform a dressage test or jump over fences, you need to make sure that you
can create, maintain and manage impulsion. You need this impulsion in order to perform a
multitude of functions necessary in any dressage test or to be able to negotiate technical
jumper courses with any height obstacles. Impulsion is the energy created by the horse’s hind end which propels him forward and it is regulated by the rider’s leg-hand dialog.

If you have already read some of my blogs and understand my training principles, you
should know that the Box is created by using the lateral aids and longitudinal connection to
create a soft feeling around the whole entire horse. Now that we have established this
connection, we have to be able to fill that Box with impulsion. We always want to have 100% of impulsion inside of that box. Who brings that impulsion changes depending on how much energy the horse brings himself, or how much needs to be created by the rider. This can be a little tricky sometimes since horses are flight animals and at one moment, he might want to be lazy and behind your leg with not enough of his own energy, and three strides later, some external stimuli has him dial up on the flight scale, which usually increases his energy.

That same thing goes for riding on a hot day versus a cold, windy day after the horse has
had a few days off. You might end up with a more energetic horse on the cold day than on the 98-degree summer day. It is our task and responsibility as riders to create, manage, maintain, increase, or decrease the impulsion in the Box in order to perform the task at hand, be that a piaffe, passage, lengthening or simply an accurate transition from the walk to the trot or schooling our jumper or hunter over any size fences.

A very important part of maintaining this impulsion is during transitions in or out of gaits
or within the gait. Only if you have that perfect balance of energy and impulsion within the Box can you ride proper transitions, lengthenings, shortenings, add strides, or leave strides out, and roll backs to a jump, or do a myriad of other exercises fluidly and without loss of impulsion.

As a rider, feeling the impulsion between your leg and hand right at that 100% level is crucial, and allows you that eloquent communication with your horse. Very often, mostly with beginner or novice riders, during transitions I see the horse falling behind the leg which basically means you just lost impulsion and connection, so instead of staying energetically engaged, the horse is now ambling along. Now the rider has to go through the task of regenerating more impulsion before the next transition or exercise can be done.

Should there be too much energy in the Box, whether it is created by the horse or
inadvertently by the rider, the energy has to go somewhere, and if not managed or redirected properly by the rider, it can easily result in bucking, bolting or rearing.

Creating impulsion and maintaining it is a very important part of understanding how to
keep your horse fluid and alive through everything you are asking him to do. Most of the time in teaching I see the greatest loss of impulsion during transitions, and mostly downward transitions. Very often riders don’t understand that the impulsion needs to stay at 100% even though the gait is changing from a three-beat canter to a two-beat trot to a four-beat walk, and maybe back to that three-beat canter again. Being able to shift through all those gears and all the nuances and lengths of stride within those gears effortlessly requires a great feeling and understanding of how to keep the Box filled with 100% impulsion. There will always be a give and take, and it is the rider’s responsibility to feel that when the horse’s energy level wants to drop, the rider has to ask from his leg for more energy from the horse’s hindquarters, and vice versa, if the horse’s energy level dials up, the rider should be able to dial down to bring the horse and rider combination back to homeostasis. Through all of this, the rider has to make sure the tempo, rhythm and balance are never sacrificed.

This is an ongoing process. Every day, and in every stride, the rider and horse work
together to accomplish the 100% of positive, energetic impulsion in the Box without overdoing it or underdoing it. This will result in effortless fluidity through all the movements be it dressage, show jumping, or perfect lines in the hunter ring.