DressageArena.org

WOAH!! Ok, as you are JUST starting out in dressage, a number of the comments people have made are WAY ahead of where you will be at at the moment, especially on a horse who has never done dressage before! Just ignore any comments about words you have never heard before (Shoulder-in, traverse, half pass, counter canter, etc…), and DO NOT email that person claiming to train at grand prix who seems to think that a person who has never ridden dressage in their life on a horse who is much the same will be able to (without instruction, just an "explanation" of how to ride the movements) perform some of the higher movements STRAIGHT AWAY!! Please use some common sense! You are begining in dressage, so you must start at the begining, get all the basics down pat, practice some simple tests, and go from there. I am very surprised that no one has mentioned the 6 dressage principals! These are a hugely helpful guide when training and learning dressage! It is like a step by step guide, BUT it must be explained to you as to how to achieve each principal, but it is a feeling, and this is best taught with a qualified dressage instructor. Anyway, the principals are:

"Rhythm
Suppleness
Contact
Impulsion
Straightness
Collection"

Rythm is the tempo/speed of the horse, and this is where you should start! You can work on some suppleness and contact whilst you are learning the rythm, but make that your KEY FOCUS! That means forget "on the bit", roundness, EVERYTHING but the horses rythm, you want it forward, regular, not rushing or needing to be constantly kicked or chased forward.

You can start to ask for some bending and suppleness as your rythm starts to be more established and is regular and marching in the walk, trot and canter. This can be used on circles and in the corners of an arena. A 20m circle is great! Ride a 20m circle (as taught by a dressage instructor, the best way!), pushing your horse to the very outside of the circle with your inside leg but nudging with your inside rein (keep a nice steady contact on the outside rein) and ask your horses body to bend just a tiny bit on the circle. Not just the neck, but the whole body! You should just see the inside eye more then the outside, and if you look back, you should see the body is slightly curved around the circle. These are also explained here:
http://www.darrelpurdy.com/articlle.htm just scroll down a bit.

A very interesting video which may be a bit above you at the moment but will hopefully one day click into place with one of those lightbulb moments is:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=0kDmlWX8Mq8
It is all about the use of the outside rein, well worth a look! There are a few other videos but I really like this one!

A big thing you will hear about is a half halt, this will help with firstly rythm, but will really help for everything else down the track, and this is another thing a dressage instructor will teach you, but basically, when ever you want ot slow your horse down without losing the energy (which is the idea of a forward, marching pace) you BASICALLY do a very slight pull and release for 1 stride or 2 on both reins whilst keeping a good leg contact (not swinging them forward), but will change as you ask for collection, flexion, etc…

Another big think is possition! This video really helps explain some problems, shows what they look like and why you must address them (the problems it causes), and the exercises look like they will help however I think they more "give you the correct feeling" or say a tall straight body, or the correct possition of the legs, and you must aim for this feeling when you ride, and it is not as easilly fixed as they say on the video, just keep at it! http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sl6SeJEzOo&feature=related
You should try and sit up tall, shoulders back, stomach strong, legs down as far as they can (practice riding without stirrups HEAPS!), and allow your hips to relax. Easier said than done, but a riding instructor will help with all that!
Hope that helped open your eyes to a little bit of the world or dressage, definately a fantastic think to have a go at, and will help you in the long run with your riding!

Also, I have a connemara that I have just started training dressage, they are fantastic little ponies for it, strong, relaxed, lovely movement (great for pony dressage), learn well, I am sure you will have lots of fun on yours! And the 101 Dressage Exercises book is fantastic, but really only useful when you start training the higher movements as there are only a few exercises at the start which don’t need them, and buying a book where you will only use 5 of the 101 doesn’t sound very economical, maybe borrow it from a library!