The head leads and the body follows

Within the Alexander Technique we have the expression "head leads and the body follows." The term itself was coined by researcher Rudolf Magnus (1873-1927) in his studies of posture in mammals he found that the head and neck reflexes of mammals cause the body to follow automatically when the head moves.

When we ride, or drive horses, we have control over the horse's head through the head stall. Depending on the task we want the horse to do, the head stall can be a halter or bridle with or without bit.

But the term "the head leads and the body follows" has also a psychological bearing, the brain leads and body follows. Training and education is a coin with two sides, a physiological and a psychological and to get the best effect of training and education these two needs to coincide.I found an image illustrating the two sides of the coin in Hans von Blixen Fineckes book The Art of Training. 

 

It is a simple image that contains a lot of information. Interesting to me as an Alexander teacher is that he's talking about the conscious brain of both horse and rider. He describes how the motoric action that constitutes our aids is recorded by the horse's sensory nervous system. The information from us to the horse goes through touch and the information from the horse is conveyed to us through feel.
 
Hans von Blixen-Finecke talking about riding as a language of touch and a prerequisite for this form of communication is calm, within both horse and rider. Calm and presence.

A friend who has vast experience of riding young  race horses think the most important thing in any form of training of horses is that the horse never gets frightened during the early training. It gets a positive attitude to the rider and the work it should do, it will feel safe and it makes the psychological side of the coin interact with the physiological in a beneficial manner. A calm horse can digest information from the rider, a scared and nervous horse is blocked.

 Another friend was at a jumping competition at the weekend and reported with a tired tone that few were actually riding, most engaged in trying to control flight responses with both bit, extra reins and BF&I (brute force and ignorance). The BF&I riders had certainly gained control over the horse's head mechanically but they had totally missed getting the horse mentally.
 
It is important for us as riders to be in a good balance within ourselves. As we sit on the horseback our own internal weight distribution (skewness) affects the horse's body. Somehow the horse must handle adding our weight to its own and distribute it over his feet. The more equilateral and straight we are aligned around our own spine, the more even our weight is distributed to the horse.

When we ride, and I assume that we are aware of our own bodies, it is the shift in the horse's balance we feel through both seat and hands. The shift signals to us if the horse is in a good self carriage in the current movement.. An untrained, uneducated or a horse that is under rehabilitation have more obvious shifts in the balance than a healthy and more educated horse. By being present in each step, we as riders are able to feel how the horse move and we can with our signals, our touch, give aids that help the horse to place the weight and regain balance.

A good education ultimately leads to an equipage that makes everything look easy, it's two brains joined in movement and although it is the rider who leads it is the sence of trust developed in the relationship that makes the horse participate without fear. At this point the rider can be said to ride the horse's conscious brain and in that context, the rider, if the he/she would like, can remove all the equipment from the horse and ride on.

Perception - to hear the unspoken

Easter holiday and wonderful northern spring means that the blog has had to wait until sunset. The challenge is to capture the good days as a buffer for days of another kind.
In August 2010, I was out riding my anglo-arabian mare. We were out in the woods and rode on nice, gallop friendly sandy pine moore paths and I was so happy. She was alert, responsive and felt wonderful. One day I climbed her up a slight slope, four steps, we took the little slope twice - eight steps all in all.
We walked home and she went from calm and at ease to toss her head and stepping, she became generally annoying. I halted and thought that she would come to her senses, but she began to back up, and in the middle of a forced step back I felt how she lost her left hind leg. I got off her back and started walking home. Confused.
A few years later an acquaintance told me that she, after having taken a course on horses and bits, realized that the bit she liked to use when riding caused the most pain in the horse's mouth. It was incomprehensible to her, she felt that the horse was so soft and smooth in riding.
Another told me that they had discovered that the horse had lesions in the mouth but in riding the horse had felt soft and flexible. Another told me that the horse worked like a dream just to show lameness the day after.
Once is once but twice, three times, four times ... I know that this is not a statistically significant number, but never the less it raises a question in me. How well can we read horse?
Horses have utilized silence as their survival strategy, they are experts at hiding pain and the effects pain have on their bodies. Could it be that all the horses in these examples had showed small signals that something was wrong and since we as riders did not notice them, they moved within their frame of pain, and we considered them pliable and soft?
In my own case, I had taken her outside her framework under and she became very vocal in her behavior.
Had it been possible to discover pain reactions of the horses in the examples above by using a heart rate monitor? Were there some small indications from the horses' side that we missed, were there some big?
It is said that before you judge a horse to be disobediet, you should ask yourself if it understands what you ask for, if it has been trained to do what you ask for, or if it is physically fit to do what you ask for. You can tell by my wording that the way I reasoned in 2010 was disobedience - she was annoying and needed to come to her senses. The fact that it was the pain became apparent to me later, but at the moment disobedience was a closer option.
I have learned a lesson from the incident with my mare. Now I strive to ask me if it can be any of the other reasons that prevent the horse to do what I want instead of disobedience. I'm trying to train my perception, my ability to read horses better.
My new mare, whose feet carried me to AEP, enjoys the benefit of my homework and is also a good teacher. She signals in an ascending scale if I get too close to the edge of her frame of pain. In our training I don't not ask for any gait other than those she chooses to take in the pasture (the scare canter is not included). She has just recently begun to take a trot based on self carriage rather than a trot she jumped into. So we have now added short trot repetitons in our walks. We can take walks up to 1.5 hours, when we started she wanted to turn around after 10 minutes which added up to 20 minutes walk.
When we worked from the ground in a shoulder-in like move one step with left hind was enough in the beginning, one more and she gently nibbled my hand. Now we can take a series of steps in the corners. I propose a move and she adopts or rejects. It is not a question of obedience or disobedience to me, I trust that she knows what she is capable of doing and if I ask for more than she can manage so she shows me.
I see that she trained when she moves in the pasture. She's doing nice rollbacks on the narrow path where the gelding, who can not, must detour into the deep snow. The trot she offers now I long to ride. I really long to ride her, but I'm willing to give her the time she needs to heal. We do this together, she and I, we are a team.

A short note on training

A short note on training as a response to a question ont he Swedish blog.

Anyone who can say with certainty how we can train our horses, for whatever purpose, without causing damage need not worry about their livelihood. There are as many training philosophies as there are trainers and what works for one horse do not necessarily fit another.

A horse can always move with their own weight on their legs, so to speak. A good paddock can encourage  and help horses to train themselves. In many training stables they build paddocks that are long and narrow and place them in a row next to each other. In this way, the horses gallop back and forth in the pasture and if one starts to run the others soon follow. Another way to encourage movement, be it at a slower pace, is to have food and water and shelter located far from each other. In this way, the horses must walk to satisfy their needs.

Training is basically about preparing a body for the work it is expected to do. In the body there are different tissues that require different amount of time to adapt to the loads it is subjected. Heart and lungs = condition, it is quick to respond, while the tendons, ligaments and bones take longer to adapt to an increased load.

The foundation for all training is walk, a walk with good impulsion works as stretching and strength training at the same time. The work in walk can be varied. It may be in hand walking, long reining, work over cavaletti, work in hand with sideways movements or a walk infront of a wagon /sleigh.

Walk is beneficial for all horses regardless of orientation. Other training varies with the chosen ara of competition or use. A good friend of mine has been a training rider at Janow in Poland. They worked the race horses under rider 6 days a week with fast job on Monday and then reduced the pace down to a ride in the woods the day before the day of rest. Each day, the horses was placed in a walker.

Something that I think is valuable when training horses is to have learned to feel the horse's muscles systematically. It makes it is easier to notice changes in muscle tone early, thus preventing injury. I use Equine Touch when I run through my horses. I also think a heart rate monitor can be useful, the horse's heart rate tells a lot about the state of fitness. Is there an infection in the body an light job gives a higher heart rate, an indication that you might need to take it easy.

Another relevant question is, am I too heavy for my horse? The answer to that question depends on how well balanced you are as a rider, how often and how long you ride, what you do when you are riding and the horse you have. Do you know that you are heavier that you figure your horse can handle pay attention to the horse's reactions during the ride. If the horse bevomes tired, lowers his back and raise its head (become U-shaped), it does not help to pull down the head with draw reins (something I actually seen) - it is much better to dismount and work the horse in hand for a while and gradually extend the time mounted. No matter how light or heavy we are as we mount we put pressure on the horse's muscles in the back and push away the blood from the tissue.

What we should keep in mind when we train our horses is to vary the work, switch between mounted and dismounted, vary surfaces and tempo and give the horse the opportunity to rest, preferably in a field that encourages movement in the gait the horse choose.

The myth of overall bend

“Bend your horse around your inside leg”. I'm sure you have heard this countless times, just as I have. What your instructor has asked of you is to bend your horse evenly from nose to tail around your inside leg.

Overall bend in the horse is explained as follows, according to official theory:

“The term 'overall bend' is used when a horse is bent throughout its whole longitudinal axis, the whole length of its spine.” (The Principles of Riding, page 88).

On the same page the explanation continues:

“A rider must avoid asking for too much bend of the head and the neck and must focus on correct costal flexion around his inside leg”.

There is, however, one major point missing in the official theory and that is the anatomy of the horse's spine. As explained in Twisted Truths Of Modern Dressage by Philippe Karl, most parts of the horse's spine have a very limited capacity for lateral bending. Specifically:

1. the five sacral vertebrae are welded together (the sacrum) = no lateral bending
2. the parts of the spine that make up the withers are strongly linked together by supra-spinal ligaments connecting the spinal apophyses, and also each vertebra are linked to the sternum via the sternal ribs = no lateral bending

There are few examples of photos showing a bird's eye view of horses performing a circle, volte or lateral movements in which, according to the official theory, the horse should have an equal overall bend from nose to tail. There are, however, photos of Harry Boldt, a German dressage rider and Olympic gold medal winner in the 60's and 70's, showing shoulder in where you can clearly see that the horse's spine is straight between the tail and the withers. Only the neck is bent, creating the movement we call shoulder in (photo from www.artisticdressage.com).

So what can I as a rider know for sure when riding a horse on a circle?

1. I can know in what direction the horse is looking (into the circle or to the outside) or if the horse is straight in the neck.
2. I can know if the horse is “falling” in the direction of motion by overloading the inside front leg (usually the horse turns faster and tighter than you asked for if this is the case)
3. I can know if the horse is “falling” to the outside by overloading the outside front leg (usually when this is the case the horse will bend more in the neck than you asked for)
4. I can know if the horse's croup is to the inside (the horse's hind feel are moving on a smaller circle than the front feet)
5. I can know if the horse's croup is to the outside (the horse's hind feet are moving on a larger circle than the front feet).

In my experience none of these problems can be solved by the rider simply pushing more with the inside leg. More efficient solutions require noticing the causes of deviations from the ideal:

1 has to do with how well the horse follows the bit (flexions)

2 and 3 have to do with where the horse has its weight and how you as the rider influence the weight distribution by the correct use of your hand (direct and indirect rein, and figure 8).

4 and 5 have to do with a combination of how well the horse follows the bit (#1), if the horse can maintain a desired weight distribution (2 and 3) as well as if the horse can maintain an equal use of both hind legs.

When you have educated your horse's mouth so that she stays light in hand with an equal contact on both reins and moves on the circle without increasing or decreasing it and maintains an equal use of both hind legs, I would suggest it then feels like the horse is bent around your inside leg. This feeling is a result of a correctly working horse, but not the way to get there.

Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for proof reading!

Flexions

Flexions are a way to introduce the bit to the horse, and also a way to supple the horse. Flexions include asking the horse to mobilise its jaw, raising and lowering its neck, bending laterally right and left and flexing the poll.

Suppleness and mental cooperation

We all want a supple horse, but what does it mean? A horse is supple when there are no unnecessary muscle tensions. This means when you ask your horse to bend to the right, the muscles on the left side of the neck can relax and allow the bending to the right. The horse is supple.

In order for your horse to perform flexions well, he also needs to be relaxed and calm. A horse that needs to scratch his belly can easily bend his head all the way around to his belly. This does not mean the same horse will bend when you ask for it. If your horse does not bend when you ask, he either does not understand your request, and/or his muscles are tense. You might think your horse is stiff, but I would like to suggest it is more of a mental “stiffness”, i.e. lack of understanding or willingness to follow your hand, rather than a physical stiffness in the muscles. A well schooled horse will easily follow your signals and requests while being both supple and relaxed.

Flexion is not just a means for schooling physical suppleness, but also for mental schooling of the horse. As described by the Father of Modern Equitation, de la Guérinière, a schooled horse should follow the bit wherever the rider places it and flexions are a way to train this.

From the ground or in the saddle

You can ask for flexions either from the ground or in the saddle. Here I will describe how to introduce flexions to your horse from the ground.

First flexion: flexions of the jaw, “cession de mâchoire”

As I already mentioned, flexions are a way to introduce the bit to the horse. The horse should neither fear the bit, nor lean or brace on it. The horse should calmly move the bit with its tongue and through relaxation of the lower jaw be able to swallow. Therefore it is imperative that the nose band be adjusted so you can fit two fingers between the nose band and the bridge of the horse's nose.  

How to ask for the flexion of the jaw

Stand in front of your horse, assuming your horse can stand calmly. Place your thumbs in each ring of the bit. Lift the bit into the corners of the horse's mouth. Lifting the bit avoids pressure on the tongue and the bars of the mouth. In the best of worlds, your horse now responds by lightly mobilising the lower jaw. If not, you can try to either increase the pressure in the corner of the mouth or vibrate. Different horses respond differently so try what works best for your horse. As soon as your horse mobilises the lower jaw and the tongue let the bit drop down and hang in the cheek pieces, i.e. release of the hand. The goal is for the horse to calmly mobilise the jaw whenever the horse feels a light presence of your hand through the bit or the reins.  

Second flexion: raising and lowering of the head

The first part of the second flexion is the raising of your horse's head and neck. You begin as you did for the first flexion by standing in front of your horse and asking your horse to raise his head and neck by gentle upward rhythmic circular actions of your hands in the corners of your horse's mouth (demi-ârret). The height of the head you are seeking is the height your horse would take when looking out over an open field.

When you try this for the first time, your horse might try to back up instead of raising the head. If this happens you might have acted on the tongue or the bars of the mouth instead of into the corners of the horse's mouth, or you might have asked your horse to continue to raise his head even after he is as high as when looking out over an open field.

When the horse has raised his head to the proper height, and he is not leaning or bracing against your hand, he is standing still and calmly mobilizing the jaw, you stop doing the demi-arrêt. With correct training your horse will maintain this position, but the first time you ask this of your horse you want to completely remove your hands from the bit as soon as the horse raises his head, stands still, is light in hand and calmly mobilises the jaw.

The purpose of this flexion is to have a signal when riding which will ask the horse to remain light in hand (not lean on the bit), and to raise the neck which will shift its weight to the hind legs.

The second part of the second flexion is the lowering of the horse's neck, known as neck extension. It is important to teach your horse when he lowers his head he should also take his nose forward, so in neck extensions the nose is always in front of the vertical.

Third flexion: lateral bending

Lateral bending is asking your horse to take his head right and left. When bending the horse to the right, stand on the horse's left side. Place your left index finger in the left ring of the bit, the right rein is placed over the horse's neck close to the withers. Hold this rein between the thumb and the index finger of your right hand. When you ask for the flexion with precision, have a light contact on both reins or if you find it hard in the beginning to control both reins you can loosen the right rein.

Prepare your horse for the actual bending by having the horse stand with a raised head as if he was looking out over an open field (second flexion) and also mobilising the mouth (first flexion). Now ask for the bending by gently pushing your horse's head to the right with your left hand. If your horse is resistant to bending his neck, most of the time, the horse will also have his jaws locked. If this happens just ask for the first flexion until the horse again mobilises the jaw. If you press too hard with you left hand or ask for too much bend (more than 90 degrees) you might cause the horse to move his feet. The goal is to have the horse bend his neck 90 degrees while standing still and gently mobilising the jaw.

When your horse has bent his neck, is standing still with the ears at more or less the same height and he is calmly mobilising the jaw, you should reward your horse by releasing the bit and taking a step back. Let your horse decide when he wants to straighten his neck. If he stays bent for a moment after you release the bit it is a good sign of suppleness.

Forth flexion: flexion of the poll

It is important that you first have flexion of the jaw (the first flexion) and the second flexion (neck extensions) well established before you ask for the flexion of the poll otherwise you risk your horse taking his nose behind the vertical. The first (flexion of the jaw) and the third flexions (lateral bending) is the preparation for flexion of the poll.

Differentiate between local and systemic effect

When you ask your horse to either bend or do a full flexion, all you want is a local effect on the horse's neck. When you apply a direct or indirect rein you want a systemic effect on the whole horse that affects the horse's balance. With a well schooled horse you can ask for either a local or a systemic effect, or a combination of the both. In practical riding this means you can bend the horse either in the direction of motion or away from the direction of motion, or bend the horse and continue on a straight line, or ask for shoulder in or half pass, renvers or travers.

I hope this will help you understand the practical benefits of flexions for refined riding. 


Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for checking my spelling and grammar! All other errors are my own.

The rein-back – To do or not to do?

When chatting with a friend at my local Swedish barn who competes in dressage, she said that the one movement that seem to cause the most difficulty is the rein back. She was talking about horses that in dressage tests perform lateral work in all gaits, counter canter and changes of lead in the canter. The rider of these horse apparently never or seldom know if their horses will rein back at all during a competition, or in what way.

I was very surprised to hear this and offered my opinion that the rein back is a more basic movement than either later work, counter canter or flying changes of lead. She agreed. After pondering this for a while I came to the conclusion that these riders likely don't practice reining-back very often. I've been told by various trainers that rein-back for the horse is a very difficult and demanding exercise and that horses perceive of it as a punishment so therefore it should not be performed too often.

But is it so? Horse's can back perfectly well all by themselves when they decide they need it, so why shouldn't I ask for it?

Mental aspect

In Natural Horsemanship, backing a horse is sometimes described as a way to inform the horse, in a way the horse could understand, that I want to be the leader. Leadership between horses, and also between human handler and horses are determined through movement and territorial dominance. So when you have you horse back away from you, and in so yielding the territory he/she just stood on to you, you have in fact informed the horse you are the leader again today. As I see it, first and foremost there seem to be a mental aspect to backing the horse: establishing leadership and communication with the horse.

When mounted

When reading Reflections on equestrian art by Nuno Oliveira I found this statement about rein back: “The practices of rein back is useful for certain horses who push against the bit and who weigh heavily against the hand.” Here I can only agree, rein back when mounted is an excellent tool for controlling the horse's balance. In this regard rein-back is not just mentally affecting your horse, but it is also a good overall gymnastic exercise if done correctly, and with this I mean there should be no pulling on the reins from either you or your horse.

How to

Official theory would like us to use our legs to push the horse forward, then letting the hand convert the forward energy into a backward movement. To use the legs and the hand in this way, is as far as I'm concerned not a good idea. Most likely the only thing you will achieve is to teach your horse that your legs doesn’t really mean go forward.

Another theory for the cues for rein back is to use only the hand. One argument for this is that “In terms of balance and locomotion, forwards movement and the rein-back are diametrically opposed. Common sense therefore means that the aids that ask for them must be strictly opposite” (Philippe Karl Twisted truths of modern dressage). As I already mentioned, this does not mean you should pull your horse backwards with the reins, but instead use a circular lifting action of the hand (the classical half halt as described by de la Gueriniere in School of horsemanship) to rebalance you horse so that he moves backwards.

In my experience rein back, both from the ground and when mounted, is a very useful exercise that I practise with all horses I handle, and that I teach all my students. It is not a exercises you need to, or should wait to ask of your horse until he/she can do flying lead changes a tempi. 

Hagens Yeats 2008-2011

A picture says more than a thousand words. At least that is how the saying goes. When I decided to write about the journey together with Yeats so far, the first thing I did was watch the video from the evaluation ride back in the summer of 2008. Moving pictures do capture a lot, in fact looking at the video from 2008 I'm surprised that I actually went ahead and bought Yeats in the first place! Knowing now how much time and effort we both have spent in overcoming his stiffness and resistance I would hesitate to take on a similar project. This stiffness and resistance is evident in the way he very reluctantly performed rein back. It is also evident when I asked for sideways moment and got pacing instead.

Our joint journey during our first two years together had mainly been focussed around establishing calm, trust and communication. I don't have any videos from our early days when he couldn't be left alone in the arena and would panic when asked to go into the wash rack or the trailer, but there is a damaged barn door that can tell you just exactly how it feels to be ploughed down by a Connemara determined not to get his feet wet. The fact that he now hardly flicks an ear when being washed brings me as much happiness as a nice ride in the forest or the execution of an (almost) perfect shoulder in.

Since the video is 10 minutes long I shall not write a complete novel about it. I will however offer a few more words. A picture says more than a thousand words, but at the same time it does not convey any of the feelings present in the moment. When I look at the videos of me riding Yeats, I can marvel at how light and easy a sequence can look when I have the memory of Yeats leaning on the hand and being anything but light. I can also look at some clips and wonder what I'm doing although at the time it felt absolutely right. The journey is never ending.

In the video I mention SixKeys to Harmony as well as Ecole deLégèreté and you can read more about those philosophies in previous blog entries.  

Am I changed by horses?

I have previously mentioned that every horse I meet is like a university of its own. No horse I've met have been the same and every horse I've ever met has left me with both new valuable insight and a changed personality.

In a good relationship, both parties receive and transmit, there is a give and take and mutual influence. I can still feel deep gratitude to the horses that in one way or another has given my relationship with horses a nudge in a different and in some cases a new direction.

The first and foremost is Sandina, my first horse, who patiently showed me that there was another way to communicate with a horse when mounted. I experimented with, among other things, the thoughts presented in Sally Swift's first book and took centered riding lessons for two years. Setif (Sandinas filly) took me to the next door. She showed me that my body and I needed to find each other and straighten out various twists and misunderstandings, she showed me the way to the Alexander Technique. Salvia (a true Thellwell pony!) led my husband and me towards Natural Horsemanship (NH). And once again Setif, opened a door, this time to Classical Equitation when she needed to be rehabilitated in a manner that was not soul-destroying for her. I would be able to continue with more examples - the point is that my horses leads me...

The universities I have in the pasture now makes sure that I continue my training and reflecting.

Amaretto has showed me that if something works on the first try, we can do something else. To repeat, for me to feel confident that he can (which he could indeed!) is nagging. And nagging is not appreciated neither by horses (nor children).

Shy Boy, who now should be called Unshy Boy, have thaught me that you can not train horses with slaps. Shy Boy has his own history and is perhaps the closest I will ever get to a "wild horse". In the beginning he was shy but had a sympathetic attitude to people.

NH is a general concept for training horses using methods of controlling each part of the horses' body and although the term is used as a generic term, there are differences between trainers. In the style I have trained in accordance with the last few years there is a so-called "three-stage rocket" in training of horses. I ask the horse with my body language to for example give the hind, I reinforce by swinging the end of the lead rope in the air and as the last step, I let the end of lead rope hit the horse.

Nota bene,if Shy Boy comes too close to me when I pour up water and I give him a thouch with my elbow, he takes it with equanimity. If he pushes on me, and I resume my space that also works without a hitch. But on one occasion as I would have him to give his hind (to cross a hind leg over the other) and went through all three steps and let the end of lead rope land on his loin he was really scared and we suffered a crisis of confidence.

This happened a while ago and I've carried it around me in my thoughts. One theory I have is that when my telling him off were associated with our respective bubbles/ personal space, Shy Boy has recognised that he crossed a border. When I wanted him to give his hind, there was no natural connection on his part as to why I should give him a flick with the lead rope - a slap. He was inattentive, but he was not "in my zone."

The incident has caused me to study how Amaretto react when I get to stage three and cause the end of lead rope to touch him and he responds, not with fear but with a grievance.

So this is a question that I, as a university student, currently is thinking about. Does slapping actually work in training and raising horses? A thought that in itself should not be awkward since slaps are not included in the upbringing of my children.

"Teachers open the door but you have to go inside."
Chinese proverb

Is the horse´s personality changed through schooling?

Now and then I'm caught in philosophical pondering concerning what the heck I'm doing in relation to my horse. What have I the right to ask of him? These ponderings can be fuelled by a day when my horse and I have had completely opposite ideas of what to do that day. But I can also be attacked by them after a day when my horse has been quiet, calm and responding to my every thought.

It is the dream of having such a light and close relationship with my horse that gets me out of bed all these early mornings. One would think that the days when the dream comes true that everything would be just fine. Apparently not. After a day like that, I sometimes take a step back and look at what I've accomplished with amazement mixed with horror at the extent to which the horse have given himself to me. The better leader I am, the better posture and balance I have when I ride, the more influence I seem to have.

Let me give you two examples.

The first is my mum's Arab, Pargon ^OX. Those of you who have been through the seat training with me know him as a very quiet and steady horse. He has not always been like this, very far from it. Today he is 16 years old. When he was 9 he still wasn't started under saddle. The previous owner said it couldn't be done. Pargon ^OX was afraid of everything and would take off in a complete panic,. He would not allow you to even brush him, let alone put a saddle on his back and mount. That was Pargon ^OX seven years ago. Today he is the most mentally stable horse I know. This change is visible, not only in his way of interacting with humans and the human world, but also towards other horses. He is more prone to defend his space instead of running away from other horses in the field. Has his personality changed? Has his soul been taken away from him? Or, deep down, has he always had these traits but the high level of stress he lived with made ​​him seem half crazy, spooky and unmanageable?

The other example is my Connemara, Hagens Yeats. He is a former school horse and has had some difficulties in adjusting to life as an individually and privately owned horse without the constant company of all the other horses in his herd of school horses. I vividly remember the first few weeks after I brought him home. He was fully aware of where all the other 20 horses in the new stable were at all time. Me he didn't notice. He walked on my feet,squashed me against the wall and dragged me around at the end of the lead rope. Not that he was trying to be mean, it was just that he did not see me and definitely did not understand that I was trying to communicate with him. Today it is very different. I have his attention and, although he probably still knows what all the other horses are doing, he communicates with me and can even leave the herd and be OK with being alone in the indoor arena or out on the trails. Since he is calm, I have been able to school him according to classical principles, giving him a whole new way to use his own body. Today, just as before, he occasionally runs around the hilly pasture playing happy, frisky horsey games. The difference is that, in the past, I used to close my eyes and pray that he would not take a tumble because his movements were so uncoordinated, heavy and clumsy. Today I enjoy just looking at him because he moves with such grace and ease. The stiff school horse has turned into a master of motion and posture. Have I changed his self-image and his use of himself? Or have I helped him to rediscover a way to be that he had as a foal? Even if I have changed his self-image, would that be a bad thing?

That horses are affected by the people that surround them has been shown by research. There are, for example, studies that have shown that a nervous rider makes the horse nervous. But this is a temporary emotional reaction. What I believe I see with my horses is a change that is there even when I'm not in the close vicinity. My intellect tells me that this change is positive. Is it not better for a horse to live without high levels of stress than with them? And even if both of my horses now interact with other horses in a different manner, and also use their own bodies differently, is there anything wrong with this? Yet, my heart trembles with the realisation of the incredible power of influence I seem to have.

Such possibilities. Such responsibilities. 

Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for checking my spelling and grammar! All other errors are my own.

Improve canter departs

The other week I was asked how to improve canter departs. Here are some thoughts on the subject.

First of all, improving the canter depart is related to whether the horse has a decent canter or not. In my work as a riding instructor I've met a lot of Icelandic horses and trotters who do not have a decent canter, even when the horse moves freely without a rider. It is not my goal to discuss this issue in this blog entry.

I assume therefore that the horse whose canter depart we seek to improve has a nice canter when, for example, he moves freely in the pasture. The first step then could be to have the horse strike off into canter from trot when given a signal to do so. Some horses can become very stressed when asked to canter in the beginning. One reason for this can be that canter is a gait the horse mainly uses for running away. If this is the case this is very important to deal with right away. But again, this is not an issue I'm going to linger on further here. Thus I assume the horse has a decent canter and does not get overly stressed about cantering.

One way to start building a cue for canter is to have the horse canter when lunging. The horse will only have to deal with its own body and not the rider's also. In the videos I've asked my horse Hagens Yeats to stay on a rather small circle (approx 15 m). If your horse is not used to cantering on the lunge when asked to, you will most likely be better off letting the horse move on a larger circle covering the whole with of the arena. Good footing and an enclosed area is always a good idea when introducing a horse to this kind of work. I've taught Yeats what the voice command “galopp” (Swedish for canter) means by simply asking him to increase the trot until he canters. As he now knows the spoken cue he don't have to speed up and can thus handle the smaller circle. As always you have to work the horse in both directions and on both leads.

As a little bonus, you can see in the first video how I switch direction in trot. I can ask Yeats to do this since I have attached the lunge line under his chin and I'm not using any side reins. A lunging cavesson where you attach the rope on the bridge of the nose would also work well.

When the horse can canter on command when lunging, in both directions of course, you can ask for the same when you ride the horse trotting on a large circle. To teach the horse to strike off in the canter lead you want on a straight line, you can use a broken line to help the horse find the right balance. For the horse to strike off into canter the horse needs to put weight on the outside legs, especially the outside hind leg. One way to put the horse in this balance is to ride a broken line along the long side of the arena. You bring the horse in from the track and as you ask the horse to return to the track (both hands to the track, your weight on the outside) the horse will shift his weight to the outside. This is when you ask for the canter. This exercise teaches the horse to listen to the rider's outside leg (which stays still against the horses side) as well as the rider's inside leg (which gives the impulse for canter by lightening its contact against the horse's side.)

To improve canter departs from walk the horse has to be in self carriage, that is light in the hand, and in proper balance that is elevated enough in the front. When the horse is in self carriage and in good balance you can ask for the canter with an reverse half halt on the inside rein. Reversed half halt means to start a half halt by lifting the hand, then lower it forwards, this will “open the door” for the horse's inside shoulder and the horse can step into the canter.

Reinforce with a light tap on the horse's inside shoulder if your horse needs clarification on what you're asking for when using the reverse half halt. To get the horse to understand a very small reverse half halt as Yeats does in the video, you must first offer such a small signal to the horse and support this small cue with a voice command or the whip on the shoulder as needed. The primary cue, in this case the reverse half halt with the inside hand, should never become large or heavy. Use a secondary supporting cue instead.

I suggest you also let your outside leg stay snugly against the horse's side for two reasons, the horse will recognise this as the preparatory cue for canter from the previous exercise, and as you progress into more advanced canter work like counter canter and two track in canter this snug outside leg will let the horse know which canter to strike off into and also which canter to stay in.

Some exercises that can improve the canter depart:

*) reining back – especially if the horse has a tendency to lean on the bit either in the depart to canter or in the downward transition after canter

*) shoulder in – to prepare the horse for a balanced canter depart from walk by strengthening the hind legs. In shoulder in the horse strengthens one leg a time

*) collected walk – will strengthen both hind legs at the same time

Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for checking my spelling and grammar! All other errors are my own.

Leg yield and shoulder in, part 2: the aids

The way I see it, the aids are the same for leg yield and shoulder in. In both movements the horse goes sideways with more or less angle, and with more or less pronounced flexion of the neck (see my previous post).

Order of priorities
When you teach your horse a new movement, or for that matter, when you introduce a new exercise to a rider you should follow this order:
1) The horse must be light in the hand (free to place its head and neck any way it wants), the rider must not hang or pull on the reins
2) The horse puts his feet more or less where you want (you have influence over the horse's balance), the rider can control the placement of the horse's feet
3) The horse, through the yielding of the jaw and relaxation of the poll and neck, lets its head fall into a more or less vertical position (the horse is in the form), the rider does know how to ask the horse for this yielding of the jaw and relaxation of the poll and neck

The hand is the primary aid
What I mean by the statement “the hand is the primary aid” is that the attention to the quality (ie lightness) in the contact between the rider´s hand and the horse´s mouth is always the top priority. It comes before everything else. To see the hand as the primary aid does not mean that I try to force the horse around with large uncoordinated gestures. Not at all, quite the opposite. To see the hand as the primary aid is to acknowledge that lightness between my hand and the horse's mouth is the main indication of the movement's quality in general.

I have previously written about how to educate the horse´s mouth and also how to influence the horse´s balance by the use of the hand.

The legs
Since the word “leg” is present in “leg yield”, it is of course easy to assume leg aids are necessary to perform the movement. Since only the angle in which the horse is travelling seems to differ between leg yield and shoulder in, the same could be true for the latter movement.

You can of course use your leg to ask the horse to move sideways. If you do, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
1) when you use both legs at the same time, it is a signal to the horse to move forwards
2) a single leg tells the horse that it will move sideways and not forwards
3) when using your legs, either together for forwards movement, or to move the horse to the side, the horse should not lean or push on the bit

A single leg can be used to ask the horse to move sideways. Spontaneously, I think most of us imagine that an increase in pressure from one leg will cause the horse to move away from that leg. This is one way to train the horse. But how much pressure is needed? A horse can feel a fly crawling on its skin, so the answer must be "not very much". Instead of focusing on increasing the pressure in the leg that is on the horse, you might be better off easing the pressure with the leg that the horse should move towards. If you pay close attention, you can feel the horse's barrel lifting your knee up in one sequence of the horse´s foot fall when stepping sideways. You can very easily lighten the contact of you leg against the horse´s side by aiding in the lifting of your knee at this very moment. Do not hold your leg up, but let it sink when the horse's barrel sinks and then lift it again in time with the horse's movements. If the horse does not perceive or understand your cue, stimulate the horse gently using a whip on the opposite side. And, of course, pay attention that your horse does not start to lean or push against the bit.

The weight
If you want to help your horse by using your weight, you want to place your weight in the direction of motion. This means that in a right shoulder in on a straight line where the horse moves to the left, your weight should also be placed to the left. Using your weight as an aid is done by extremely subtle means and it is easy to do too much.

Do nothing
Remember, when the horse does what you asked for, it is your job to do nothing, ie to be the best, non-interfering passenger you can be to your horse.

Thank You
Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for checking my spelling and grammar! All other errors are my own.

Leg yield vs Shoulder in

I received a question the other day: “I would very much like an explanation with videos of how leg yield is performed”. Thank you for your question, Johanna! I was about to write about leg yield and shoulder in anyway since, after I posted the two videos with me and my horse doing shoulder in, I've learned something very interesting about the modern perception of the difference between leg yield and shoulder in. This blog entry will deal with the performance of the horse, that is what the horse should do, and in my next blog entry on the 29 of December I will tackle the topic of how the rider should ask the horse to move sideways.

According to the modern theory of riding, a horse should be straight in the spine in leg yield except for a very small bend in the neck (away from the direction of motion). When the horse is straight in the trunk, it will cross the inner front leg in front of the outer front leg, and also the inner rear leg in front of the outside rear leg.



Video of leg yield


However, in a shoulder in, the horse should be evenly bent through the whole spine. The result of this will be that the horse is moving sideways only crossing the front legs, not the hind legs. The inner hind leg will not cross in front of and over the outer hind leg, but it will be placed forward and in front of the outside hind leg so that it is placed under the horse's body where it will carry a maximum amount of the horse's weight. What you can see is that the horse is moving on three tracks, i.e. the inner rear hoof and the outside front hoof are travelling on the same line.



Video of shoulder in


But wait a minute. Can the horse bend evenly through the whole spine? No. Anatomical studies of the horse's spine clearly show that the horse has very limited ability to bend through the spine any further back than the withers.

In times of confusion it is always a good idea to go back and read about the original ideas, so therefore I turned to de la Guérinière. He was the first person to describe how to ride a shoulder in on a straight line, he did so 1731:

“Thus, once a horse has learned to trot freely in both directions on the circle and on the straight line, to move at a calm and even walk on these same lines, has become accustomed to executing halts and half halts and to carrying the head to the inside, it is then necessary to take him at a slow and slightly collected walk along the wall and place him such that his haunches make one line and his shoulders make another. The line of the haunches must be near the wall and the line of the shoulder must be about a foot and a half to two feet away from the wall, while keeping the horse bent in the direction in which he is moving. In other words, to explain myself more simply, instead of keeping a horse completely straight in the shoulder and the haunches on the straight line along the wall, it is necessary to turn his head and shoulders slightly inward toward the centre of the school, as if one actually wanted to turn him, and when he has assumed this oblique and circular posture, one must make him move forward along the wall while aiding him with the inside rein and leg (he absolutely cannot go forward in this posture without stepping-over or “chevaler” - the front inside leg over the outside and, similarly, the inside hind leg over the outside). This is easily seen in the figure of the shoulder-in which will make this still more visible.”

Part of the figure referred to in the quote is shown here:



The text and pictures describe, as far as I can tell, a horse that crosses both the front and hind legs. So, the father of modern riding describes a movement he calls shoulder in where the horse crosses the inner front and inner hind leg with the goal of producing suppleness in the horse since the horse is using the joints in the legs differently from when he travels on one track, whether that is straight or on a circle.

From what I can tell, whether or not the horse will cross the inside hind leg over the outside hind leg has more to do with the angle in which the horse is moving sideways, rather then if he is bent in the spine or not. A sufficiently small angle and the horse will bring the inner rear leg more forward under the body than crossing over the outer hind leg.

These ideas only apply if the horse moves on the straight line. As soon as the horse starts performing shoulder in on a curved line, both the inner front and the inner rear leg will cross over the outer ones.

Picture from Philippe Karl's “Twisted truths of modern dressage” showing sideways movements on circles and voltes:



Video showing shoulder in on the volte


Compare the sequence of footfalls as Yeats moves sideways in shoulder in on the volte with the sequence of footfall when moving in a side pass. When the front legs cross, the hind legs are far apart and vice versa.

Video showing side pass


My conclusion from this study of leg yield and shoulder in is that whenever the horse moves sideways crossing both the front and the hind legs this is suppling the horse, while a sideways movement when the horse is not crossing the hind legs but rather takes it forward and under the horse's belly is preparing the horse for collection.

Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for proof reading! All remaining errors are my own.

Notes from lessons with Craig Stevens, part 2

You can read part 1 of my notes from lessons with Craig Stevens here.

The horse should use his muscles to perform a movement, not his weight. Resistance of weight means the horse's legs are not underneath him. The horse “leans” in one direction. Resistance of force means the horse is tightening his muscles.

Turning by the use of weight



The horse puts weight on the inside shoulder (here the right shoulder) and its head to the outside. The horse turns by “falling”, that is the horse is running to catch up with its own weight.

The horse is out of balance and has a hard time controlling the speed in the turn.

This is not desirable.


Turning by the use of muscles



The horse uses the outside diagonal (here left front and right hind leg) for carrying his own and the rider's weight. The inside front leg is relatively lighter than in the case above, which makes canter departs easier.

This is desirable.

All correct and easily executed movements by the horse are proof of balance. Balance means the horse is using his muscles, not displacement of his weight, to initiate movements.

First give the horse the position and balance it needs for a movement, then let the horse execute the movement without disturbing him.

Precision in timing
Use a direct rein when the front hoof on the same side is on the way down or on the ground. Use an indirect rein when the front hoof on the same side is off the ground.

Attention
If you lose the horse's attention, tap with the whip.

Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for proof reading! All remaining errors are my own.

Natural crookedness

One main goal in schooling a horse is to teach the horse to become straight, that is move straight on a straight line, turn as easily to the right as to the left etc. All horses are either bent to the left or to the right. I've heard various explanations for this, one being this natural crookedness is formed due to the way the foal is laying in the mare's womb. This could explain why there seem to be just as many horses that are bent to the right as to the left. Whatever the reason, an untouched horse is never straight.



A horse that is bent to the right will:
*) carry its head to the right
*) overload the left shoulder
*) carry the haunches to the right
*) the right hind leg will advance more than the left, but it escapes to the side. It reaches more than pushes
*) the left hind will push, but only engage to a small extent
*) the horse tends to weight the left lateral pair (the convex side) more than the right
*) the right lateral pair is shortened (concave side) and carries less weight


When riding or lunging a horse that is bent to the right, the horse will turn easily to the right with a tendency to enlarge the circle since the outside shoulder carries more weight than the inside one. On the other hand, the horse turns to the left by falling onto the inside (left) shoulder in the direction of the turn, while carrying its head to the outside. Usually the horse canters more easily on the right lead, but with its haunches in.

What you feel when you ride:
*) The horse has a nice contact on the left rein, but refuses to take contact on the right rein
*) Your seat drops more to the right than the left in each stride and your right leg is near the horse while the left leg is pushed away from the left hindquarters.
*) In lateral work it is easier for the horse to move its shoulder to the left and its haunches to the right.

“In all work on the right rein, the horse seems flexible and 'balanced', on the left rein it seems to be stiff and 'out of balance'.“ P. Karl, Twisted truths of modern dressage (2008)


Thanks to Mark Stanton of Horsemanship Magazine for proof reading! All remaining errors are my own.