7-23-2011: Releasing lateral flexion in movement

Karen and I were talking about why turning under saddle is so difficult for Maia when it’s so easy on the ground for her to come off that sliding outside rein. I said she has a very difficult time coming off the outside rein on the ground when I’m on the inside of the turn/bend. Karen said that she should really just glide her head right around into a released lateral flexion on the release of that outside rein. So I started playing with that, especially undersaddle, and found that, though a sliding outside rein is now starting to mean move the shoulders, it also often means counterbend (ie, she stiffens against it as she moves her shoulders away)! Oh dear oh dear. There are so many pieces to this.

So I worked for quite a while on having a really released lateral flexion—meaning, coming straight from the root of the neck, like the horse was going to scratch his tail, none of this twisty-bracey stuff off that outside rein. Once I explained it to her, more or less, using just that outside rein to re-educate at a halt that a slide means full lateral flexion, she started doing it quite well (definitely more twisty stuff to the right, however).

This is a bridle. It has two reins.

One on each side. Very handy.

It can be helpful to remember that you can use both of them.

But once we got in movement, she just couldn’t fathom it. We were both getting a little more muddled than we needed to be, when I was like, hey, I still have an inside rein. Imagine that. So I started feeling on my inside rein, not even really taking out the float and not, again, to get any sort of bend. Just a short rein, relatively vertical up against that sweet spot in her neck, saying, hey, hey, please come back, where’d you go, I know you’re there, please come back to me. And then I realized I could combine it with the feel that the outside fore needed to step to the inside.

So basically, I was sliding my outside rein, and giving a very very compassionate upward and slightly inside feel on the inside rein asking for both her inside fore to step to the inside and also to come back to me and release the root of her neck to the inside in lateral flexion.

She really seemed to connect to this and started doing some lovely lateral flexion at the walk while keeping her shoulders more or less all going in the right direction. Super!

7-21-2011: More on turning with the inside fore, also leading up free

Reaching with the inside fore progression—walk/trot on lunge and walk under saddle

I found today that her response the feel in the line on the lunge is all muddled up. I’ve had a bucketload of challenge in lunging her because she is constantly pulling to the outside. I suddenly saw today that she is all muddled and in response to the feel on the lunge, crosses her inside fore to the outside versus reaching it to the inside. Good grief, no wonder she keeps pulling on the line when lunging. A feel on the line, to her, means leave!!

Trying to lunge with the inside fore going to the outside. Yeah, let's see how well that goes for you, there. Ha. Not so much. Judging from her face, Maia thinks the same thing.

So I came up with my own little exercise to help fix that up: stand a little ways in front and slightly to the side (not in her blind spot) and in response to a feel/float on the halter rope to one side, asking her to step that front foot over—in essence begin the whole turn with that leading foot. Once I started fixing that up on the lunge, taking a feel on that rope and asking her to reach with her inside fore, she could suddenly she lunge just marvelously. Poor horse, she was like, “why didn’t you tell me you wanted me to turn in???!!” She must've really thought I'd lost my marbles, asking her to turn one way while her legs were going the other. ;)

When I got on and did the same exercise, I was astonished to find that when she turns from a halt (slowing things down to see what exactly she understands about everything), she was always beginning the turn with her outside fore. How mixed up is that? So we worked on shifting the weight over and beginning the turn with the inside fore and that seemed to help her quite a bit.

Leading up free and going straight

We have quite a struggle with leading up free—she never steps off with me and it’s always sucked back. I realized why, I think, when I slowed things down again to see just exactly what her response was to a release and to walking forward:

1. She doesn’t understand straight.
2. She doesn’t think forward.

For the latter, when I’d release her when I was next to her, she’d go backwards!! So now backwards means forwards and when I walk off she wants to go back. That’s not confusing at all. :P So I spent a while just playing with a lot of ways to release her forward while I was at her side facing her direction (ie, releasing from behind me—a tough thing to do, but a very good exercise).

When she’s walking with me, she constantly is thinking turn, mostly turn in front of me, like lunging. So we practiced walking straight together to various areas (kind of a point to point) with me behind her elbow a little bit and being very definite about now we’re going straight and now we’re turning.

The better she gets the feel of a turn and the feel of straight the better this will go. Interesting that her first response to a release is to go backwards, though—that’ll affect our ride and other work for sure.

7-20-2011: How to get the horse's mind back with feel

I can’t believe it’s July 20th already. That’s crazy. Only 9 days left here!

I had a beautiful ride on Maia—the slowest we’ve ever had. In fact, the wildest thing we did was walk an entire tiny circle. Once. ;) But it was so great to be able to be relaxed like that and not worry about Doing Lots of Things. We could both feel 100% successful and I know it went well.

Anyway, all we did was that exercise I explained in the previous post. It is amazing after I started getting the feel of it how much I could feel how her inside shoulder was stepping in FRONT of her chest (to the outside) versus away to the inside—no wonder the poor horse can’t turn. Imagine you trying to walk to the left while your legs kept going to the right. How frustrating would THAT be! So we just worked very quietly on stepping that inside front over and she was getting it and it was great.

Another fascinating revelation today was getting access to her mind and when to use “contact-feel” and when to use release. What I have been wondering about and was going to ask Karen (still will :) ) is that, though we talk about using “just release,” lots of times we do pick up on the rein or lead or something to ask for the horse to give to it. So what is that? Is that pressure? And when do we do it?

First, when do we do it? With Maia, I’m finding that I need to pick up on the rein (or touch her, or whatever, doing something that may look a tiny bit like “pressure”) when she is mentally disengaged, checked out, or braced. Sometimes pure release DOES work in that situation, but the whole thing with utilizing pure release is that it only really works when your horse is fully engaged with you and mentally and emotionally present. If she is not there with me, then I might need to take up on the rein to get her mind back.

I just need to get through the crack into the horse's mind...

Second, is that pressure? It was, I thought, before today. But today, after Karen mentioned that it was just getting “access to her mind,” I saw and applied it in a completely different way. If you’ve seen Karen work, when she’s looking to get the mind back in that way, she does all these little funny things on the rope—she might scratch it or twist it or flick it or squeeze it or wiggle it or do all these teeny tiny little things that aren’t annoying or pressuring at all—they’re just interesting, they get access to the horse’s mind and curiosity. And then she’ll offer a float right to them once she gets the mind. Now, I had always done those little funny twiddly things on the rope with a mind to get the behavior the horse is braced against (for example, lateral flexion). However, what I didn’t realize is that the movement only comes through release, not through those little scratchy things. That playing with the rein is simply done in a provocative way to re-access the mind. When I took that approach, it was suddenly far easier to do and I didn’t get the brace/tension in my mind.

Third, is release anywhere in there? Yes, absolutely. Because the moment you get the mind back with a feel on the tack, you release the float/tack to the horse so that there is now a float in your rein again and the horse can give to that release. For example, let’s say I’m asking Maia for lateral flexion and she’s braced in the opposite way. I take up a feel on the rein and do little things like scratching it, or squeezing it like a sponge, or any number of tiny little things that do NOT escalate, just to get a little crack of access to her mind. Once her mind comes back, I offer her all the float so she can come around into lateral flexion on a release.

So there you go! Interesting stuff. And I think I need to copyright the phrase, Little Scratchy Twiddly Things. That could become really famous, you know. ;)

7-19-2011: Getting clearer about riding turns

Riding was the most interesting, though. She was just all over and it was not working right -- she was pounding along at this stressed loud walk and I had to go back to the lifting inside rein again and again and was having to drill. So Karen got on and found a lot of interesting things.

1. I forget to turn obviously with my shoulders and my nose and LOOK UP!!! WAY UP!!!! and when I do, Maia turns a lot better. :)

2. I’ve had my releasing of my reins and legs a little mixed up. I thought you were supposed to do it each stride, so it’s turned into a little jerky drilling thing versus a release. However, what I should do instead is release my inside leg, and slide and keep on sliding that outside rein down while asking for softening with inside rein and waiting for her to give the turn, then letting her know that that was the job. I don’t have to lift the inside rein too high like I was doing—she should be able to soften from a more horizontal feel on the rein as well.

3. A turn is reach inside with inside front, reach outside with inside hind, reach inside with outside fore. Maia totally did not have the “reach inside with inside fore.” Instead, she pushes that fore to the outside, making her outside shoulder pop out and her inside one get in the way and her inside hind unable to come under. Ie, it is backing in an arc while going forward.

4. Karen found that out partly through that Maia would/could not step under with her inside hind at all for the turn. She didn’t want to get in there and kick her, so she did some fast releases, like “it’s an emergency you get this hind foot under!!!!” but even that didn’t quite do it (as we found out after that her inside fore was in the way).

5. Next, she braces on the inside rein. It’s not as bad as it used to be where she’d feel that inside rein and take her head 6” to the outside—now it’s just a stiffening of her jaw on it. However, this has a strong detrimental effect on the turn, as her shoulders pop out to the outside and her neck stiffens and straightens and doesn’t allow that inside hind to come under.



It's not much, but you can see her bracing on the inside rein in this picture from the spring, before I've even made contact with her mouth!



6. If you slide the outside rein down at the halt, she doesn’t do lateral flexion to the other side; in fact, sometimes she walks forward. This means she’s got it all mixed up, if she thinks that slide is forward!

7. To fix all this up, do a certain exercise: Stand at the halt with your life down. Take up a soft feel on one rein and turn your head that way, asking for a very soft and giving lateral flexion (this fixes up the brace on the inside rein), then get life in your core and slide the outside rein (fixing up the confusion about both lateral flexion on that slide and needing to move the shoulders away from the slide) while releasing the inside leg, then she starts walking a teeny circle (almost disengagement but with the front end moving) and as soon as you feel the inside fore step over, you stop and relax. Let her think and do it again on a fresh start. Karen did this multiple times then I got on and did it, and it was amazing how braced she was on that rein, but how good it felt when she released to it—at the end, she really released the root of her neck up and over and felt so beautiful. I stopped right away and she immediately began to yawn—such a good release!

What was fascinating is how upset Maia was to begin with when she couldn’t understand the turn. Karen was working on the turns in general and every time they stopped Maia would start frantically chewing on her slobber straps (something she does when stressed) like an obsession. It actually seemed to get worse until Karen realized what was happening with her inside fore, then went to that exercise that I described. After a few times of that, Maia got this stunning expression, completely quiet mouth, not even a thought of chewing on the slobber straps, lowered her head, and got this nearly drugged, “endorphin-state” look of total and complete happiness. It was so cute, but also such a good reminder of how incredibly stressful it is for her when she isn’t clear on how to do something—she loves to work with and for us, she just wants to know how!

7-17-11: The 50-50 relationship and the elimination of "bad days"

I'm not posting about every session with Maia -- there have been some great ones and she's really coming along. She's getting a lot more confident at liberty and her riding is getting lighter and lighter. She is turning almost on the buckle and came to a stop from the canter in ALMOST a stride just by setting the reins down!! Such a good girl.

But of course there are ups and downs, and I had a bad day riding today. I don’t need to hash it all out again, there was less to learn by what happened than by what it reminded me of afterwards. It is not difficult to understand why—I simply got into a pressure-based mindset that I was going to “work on” this and that, and I started drilling, and due to many reasons (although perhaps mostly a lack of knowledge about what to do and a lack of peace and clarity in my mind to come up with something that was not pressure) pressure got involved again. And Maia started flying along at a thousand miles an hour with her mind in complete orbit and mine probably wasn’t too far away. ;)

The best days with Maia are when I do not go to her to “train,” and the worst are when I do. It doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t expect progress—a trap I fell into when previously into training without any pressure/force—but it does mean my mindset needs to be flipped around. Meaning, the “training,” if I’m going to think of it that way, needs to be 50-50. Instead of going out to “train Maia,” I should go to her perhaps with the attitude that 50% of what we are helping develop is indeed her, but 50% of it is simply developing me, on my half of the relationship: on my becoming grounded, clear, Christ-like, empathetic. If nothing “gets done” in a session on her end, but I became a solidly better partner, learning to better control my movements, emotions, energy, etc., then everything was gained. Where did the idea come from that the only progress we are looking for or accept as “productive” in horsemanship is progress in the horse’s physical behavior? How twisted is that!

In fact, I find virtually every time I have a “bad” session with a horse, it is usually because the horse’s side of the relationship became 100% the focus and mine closer to 0%. It is then that my emotions come up, I lose any sense of groundedness, I become unclear, pressuring, frustrated, or begin to drill. However, if I can consistently keep my side of the relationship at 50% of the importance—or perhaps even more, more like 75%—I have a strong feeling that all of the “bad” sessions would quietly fade away. After all, a horse will never have a “bad” session if I never see it as one.