What's your lunging routine?

[Dannii5691]

For those of you that lunge what is your routine?

June is lunged 2/3 times a week for about 25/30 mins

We have a 10 min warm up which consists of walk and trot and some transitions to get her off her forehand and listening and a circuit of canter on each rein, with a bit of stretching if she will play ball

We then do our "work" which is usually 10 mins in sidereins where she is asked to work correctly in walk and trot and a little bit of canter. Currently we do about 4 mins on her good rein and 6 on her bad.
We don't do alot of canter on the lunge. sometimes we incorporate poles and do transitions like Walk to canter if her canters good that day (it's a bit iffy!), trot to halt and halt to trot ect.

Then a 10 min cool down period where the side reins come back off and she does some stretching as she is always willing to stretch after her "work" - her side reins aren't tight, and when she works properly they do sag, it's just when they go on the head goes in!
We do a few more transitions and then walk her round the arena on each rein for a few mins


What is your routine? Are you structured of do you just wing it? I think as I don't ride her and she is quite rarely ridden ATM I structure it like I would
If I was schooling a horse under saddle.

 

[liz_scarlet]

We just wing it....I'm still new to lunging and its Scarlet that knows what she is doing :giggle: I am working on transitions and getting her listening.

 

[Trewsers]

Well, if last night was anything to go by!lol, Storm was lunged for the vet, we'd not lunged her for about four months so it was all very novel and thrilling! hahahaha, she cantered around for England and wouldn't stop! Think it was a combo of the mist and the snow!!!
Normally we warm up for about 2 mins in walk, then go up into trot for about 5 mins and then about 2 mins of canter. Doesn't sound very much but we do that on each rein, and I always try and move about the school as much as poss and keep the circles nice and big - mainly cos the vet advised me on this when she had her hock problems.
I find lunging a good solution when time is short - and also if I'm feeling brave enough for a hack, I give her 10 mins to just get any giddyness out of her system!!!!
I guess there are all kinds of lunge aids and training thingies but quite frankly I think I'd need a degree to work them all out - the Pessoa thing looks completely scary!lol, sure it does a great job though as many people on my old yard used it.

 

[Dreamster]

I much prefer to long line but if I do lunge it is usually for 15 minutes maximum and like Trewsers move around a lot rather than on one circle. Only ask for walk, trot and halt on the lunge, not canter. Use it specifically to help with voice responsiveness and getting some soft bending and flexing. Don't do this very often but find it very useful in conjunction with the other inhand work we do sometimes.

 

[Dannii5691]

Must add we don't stay in the same place we move about as much as possible and vary circle size and cantering is on a 20m circle

 

[crinklesb]

You could try teaching her to back up on the lunge? Start by saying back, wiggling the line to create a vibration and getting slightly in front of her on the circle. She'll soon get the idea and you can start trying it in walk, trot and canter. Make sure you don't do it while she has her side reins on though.

I use this after we have warmed up to get Bobs back up and working from behind and it does wonders for this.

I also only ever use a single side rein on the outside (single rein set) using the lunge line through the bit and onto the roller to control the bend of the neck. This way the side rein on the outside mimics the outside rein while riding and the inside lunge line determines the bend.

 

[sjp1]

Have only lunged Tobes once and he just seemed to go into over drive canter and bucking. And that was YO lungeing him. All seemed a bit pointless to me, he didn't want to stop and on one line she didn't seem to have the ability to make him stop til he had decided to.

Have dipped our toes in the long lineing and am going to try to build up to lungeing with long lines. Last time I long lined him, he bucked hugely high, but actually because I was a long way behind him, it really wasn't an issue.

But perhaps when you are good at lungeing you don't have these problems.