Whoops, where has the time gone! Let’s just do a quick recap. Last Thursday was another workshop, and before it, I rode Maia for Karen—the first time I’ve ridden in something like 2-3 weeks. She was pretty standard—falling out her outside shoulder, rushing, pulling a little more on the inside rein than usual.
The workshop was after it, and I’ve just written a whole bunch of bullet-point notes. Overall, Maia was quite calm on the ground and is getting a lot clearer about things, which is great. She is understanding her jobs better, for example, to keep her feet still when I am walking around. Once she understands, she gives 110% and is quite happy about it. What is fascinating is that I really needed to firm up (on the space) a few times to get that clarity.
Meaning, she would tend to… just… waaaaaaaander…. forward when she was “supposed” to be standing still. Not a lot, but every few minutes she’d stick a foot forward. Finally, I felt the “block” in her mind and REALLY slapped my rope on the ground a little ways in front of her to super-sensitize her to that space. She got totally clear and got quite a nice expression.
It is fascinating that sometimes being excessively quiet, soft, and accepting can totally short-circuit clarity, and Maia actually hates it. For all her sensitivity, she is so much happier when I really crack down on the space and make it eminently clear what her job is than when
I try to just constantly just make her feel “loved” or “accepted,” if that makes sense. Quite a parallel to human relationships, too…
Anyway. The workshop notes.
Groundwork:
• Pass the rope under the neck and over the withers to your side so that there’s a line on either side of their neck. Now you can simulate inside/outside rein.
• Wave tail back and forth (not just rock the dock) to loosen root of neck
• I’ve been releasing the rope in time with her inside hind when lunging, but I can also do it in time with her inside shoulder to help with the bend and lateral flexion.
• The horse needs to know that they can put float back in the rope by moving their HIND feet (not their nose ;) ) forward when slack comes out. Start teaching this by releasing the rope in time with inside hind when leaving the horse to ASSOCIATE (not condition) a response of horse moving back feet up when float comes out (ie, they can move the foot up to get their float).Gradually move to taking float OUT so they learn to come up off it.
• Practice releasing the horse to lateral flexion on the opposite side you’re standing on.
Riding
• Right TOTALLY means left for her—pick up on inside rein, it blocks the inside shoulder, she shuts down her inside hind, her outside front pops out, it breaks the diagonal, and she falls out. This probably comes largely from being very stuck in her shoulders, using an inside side rein (albeit a loose one), and thus her turning with her nose while her shoulders skitter out to the outside and she doesn’t engage her inside hind. This effectively breaks her diagonal (inside hind/outside fore) which makes it hard for her to balance.
• The loose outside rein also means nothing to her, so we have to re-educate that. It’s possible this comes from riding with a loose outside rein while holding with the inside one to see if she’d get her balance.
• Because of those things, that’s why I kept having to release her repeatedly to the turn. I felt like I was “correcting” too much and thus wasn’t being clear about something—with feel/release, I’m finding that if I’m clear and the request is reasonable, I only have to “explain” it a few times for it to stick and tie right into the horse ’s feel and instincts. The turns won’t “stick” until we free up her shoulders laterally and re-educate her outside shoulder blade.
• Sliding the outside rein down the outside shoulder blade. should get the outside fore to step BACK and under the inside fore to power the shoulders over in the turn. The inside heel releases to “drive” the inside hind right under for a perfectly balanced diagonal turn. The inside rein gives to create lateral flexion.
• If the horse does NOT do it or counterbends or whatever, the lifted inside rein is lifted up almost vertically, pressing in against the “sweet spot” somewhere in the middle of the horse’s neck to get the release of the jaw. It’s NOT meant to turn the horse.
• She totally was desensitized to the leather reins I had, so I put the halter with rope reins back on to re-educate what the leather reins meant. She just started to get stepping under and lifting her shoulders into the turn—before she’d been dumping down. It was a totally different feeling—like she was rocking over into the turn versus dumping down.
• Her mouth got a lot quieter with Karen’s feel/release, riding, too, versus constant chomp-chomp-chomp. She started to check in, something she almost never has done under saddle (usually it’s an almost constant flight reflex, more or less).
• That constant flight is why, we think, she doesn’t get Crabby Face under saddle. Under saddle or at liberty in a big space, she doesn’t get crabby face because she feels like she can run away—so she gets VERY rushy. On line she shuts down (not freed up) and gets crabby face.
• It’s amazing how uncertain she feels under saddle. I’m starting to understand when she’s uncertain and it’s almost ALL the time. It’s amazing. I’m really working on breaking things down and getting some things really clear for her.
• Doing lateral flexion in movement (to the outside and/or inside) disconnects the head from the rest of the body—they have to drop the root of their neck to do it.
• Keeping the rein down on your leg (like a simulated side rein) is tricky, because too low and the horse will drop the root of the neck below it (?) (Deb Bennett talks about this).
• Maia really truly thinks right means left, so one strategy is as soon as she dumps off to the outside in the turn (meaning, when turning left, she constantly is trying to turn right and vice versa), SHOW her what that sort of turn feels like and go with it (ie, if she turns out to the left, do a solid left turn, say, SEE, this is what turning left feels like)
The workshop was after it, and I’ve just written a whole bunch of bullet-point notes. Overall, Maia was quite calm on the ground and is getting a lot clearer about things, which is great. She is understanding her jobs better, for example, to keep her feet still when I am walking around. Once she understands, she gives 110% and is quite happy about it. What is fascinating is that I really needed to firm up (on the space) a few times to get that clarity.
Meaning, she would tend to… just… waaaaaaaander…. forward when she was “supposed” to be standing still. Not a lot, but every few minutes she’d stick a foot forward. Finally, I felt the “block” in her mind and REALLY slapped my rope on the ground a little ways in front of her to super-sensitize her to that space. She got totally clear and got quite a nice expression.
It is fascinating that sometimes being excessively quiet, soft, and accepting can totally short-circuit clarity, and Maia actually hates it. For all her sensitivity, she is so much happier when I really crack down on the space and make it eminently clear what her job is than when
I try to just constantly just make her feel “loved” or “accepted,” if that makes sense. Quite a parallel to human relationships, too…
Anyway. The workshop notes.
Groundwork:
• Pass the rope under the neck and over the withers to your side so that there’s a line on either side of their neck. Now you can simulate inside/outside rein.
• Wave tail back and forth (not just rock the dock) to loosen root of neck
• I’ve been releasing the rope in time with her inside hind when lunging, but I can also do it in time with her inside shoulder to help with the bend and lateral flexion.
• The horse needs to know that they can put float back in the rope by moving their HIND feet (not their nose ;) ) forward when slack comes out. Start teaching this by releasing the rope in time with inside hind when leaving the horse to ASSOCIATE (not condition) a response of horse moving back feet up when float comes out (ie, they can move the foot up to get their float).Gradually move to taking float OUT so they learn to come up off it.
• Practice releasing the horse to lateral flexion on the opposite side you’re standing on.
Riding
• Right TOTALLY means left for her—pick up on inside rein, it blocks the inside shoulder, she shuts down her inside hind, her outside front pops out, it breaks the diagonal, and she falls out. This probably comes largely from being very stuck in her shoulders, using an inside side rein (albeit a loose one), and thus her turning with her nose while her shoulders skitter out to the outside and she doesn’t engage her inside hind. This effectively breaks her diagonal (inside hind/outside fore) which makes it hard for her to balance.
• The loose outside rein also means nothing to her, so we have to re-educate that. It’s possible this comes from riding with a loose outside rein while holding with the inside one to see if she’d get her balance.
• Because of those things, that’s why I kept having to release her repeatedly to the turn. I felt like I was “correcting” too much and thus wasn’t being clear about something—with feel/release, I’m finding that if I’m clear and the request is reasonable, I only have to “explain” it a few times for it to stick and tie right into the horse ’s feel and instincts. The turns won’t “stick” until we free up her shoulders laterally and re-educate her outside shoulder blade.
• Sliding the outside rein down the outside shoulder blade. should get the outside fore to step BACK and under the inside fore to power the shoulders over in the turn. The inside heel releases to “drive” the inside hind right under for a perfectly balanced diagonal turn. The inside rein gives to create lateral flexion.
• If the horse does NOT do it or counterbends or whatever, the lifted inside rein is lifted up almost vertically, pressing in against the “sweet spot” somewhere in the middle of the horse’s neck to get the release of the jaw. It’s NOT meant to turn the horse.
• She totally was desensitized to the leather reins I had, so I put the halter with rope reins back on to re-educate what the leather reins meant. She just started to get stepping under and lifting her shoulders into the turn—before she’d been dumping down. It was a totally different feeling—like she was rocking over into the turn versus dumping down.
 |
| Clearly, Maia is not at this point (but you knew that ;) ). However, it does illustrate the difference in what I felt her turns to be. Instead of turning forward and downward, she seemed to be rocking up and back and bringing her shoulders over, like this horse. |
• Her mouth got a lot quieter with Karen’s feel/release, riding, too, versus constant chomp-chomp-chomp. She started to check in, something she almost never has done under saddle (usually it’s an almost constant flight reflex, more or less).
• That constant flight is why, we think, she doesn’t get Crabby Face under saddle. Under saddle or at liberty in a big space, she doesn’t get crabby face because she feels like she can run away—so she gets VERY rushy. On line she shuts down (not freed up) and gets crabby face.
• It’s amazing how uncertain she feels under saddle. I’m starting to understand when she’s uncertain and it’s almost ALL the time. It’s amazing. I’m really working on breaking things down and getting some things really clear for her.
• Doing lateral flexion in movement (to the outside and/or inside) disconnects the head from the rest of the body—they have to drop the root of their neck to do it.
• Keeping the rein down on your leg (like a simulated side rein) is tricky, because too low and the horse will drop the root of the neck below it (?) (Deb Bennett talks about this).
• Maia really truly thinks right means left, so one strategy is as soon as she dumps off to the outside in the turn (meaning, when turning left, she constantly is trying to turn right and vice versa), SHOW her what that sort of turn feels like and go with it (ie, if she turns out to the left, do a solid left turn, say, SEE, this is what turning left feels like)
