| Hi Everyone,
As usual I'll begin with an apology for my long absence from this list. I've been in non-stop travel mode since early September. Now that the holiday season is approaching the clinic season is winding down. I finally have some time to catch up with the list.
As many of you know by now, I have three new DVDs out. I finished the last of them about two weeks ago, just in time for the Toutle WA clinic. I didn't make a formal announcement at that time because they weren't all up yet on my web site. But they are now listed. If you go to the video section in the bookstore and scroll down through to the end you'll find them:
If you've been wanting more visual references for single-rein riding, these lessons are for you.
Capture the Saddle: The Mounting Block Lesson In the "Overcoming Fear and the Power of Cues" DVD I ended jwith a bit of a cliff hanger. Nick was about to get on Muska, the Icey who had been afraid of saddles. He was going to get on from the ground, but I interrupted him and had him use the mounting block instead. Mounting blocks are so much better for a horses' back and for saddles. They also introduce a great training opportunity: will your horse line himself up to a mounting block and stand while you get on, or do you need the proverbial three men and a boy hanging onto him to keep him still?
The answer for Muska was she wasn't familiar with mounting blocks, and she shied away when Nick led her up to one.
"Oh good," you can hear me saying in the background. "We get to have the mounting block lesson."
There wasn't time on that DVD to show you what I meant by that. I'd already jammed it full to overflowing with other things, so the mounting block lesson had to wait.
Now you may be wondering why you need an entire DVD just to show you how to get on. After all most of you on this list are active riders. You know how to get on a horse. If I didn't see this as such a stumbling block for so many horses I might have passed over it with just a quick "and then you get on" sort of mention. But in clinic after clinic, I get people who want to ride only to have the horse saying "No, I'm not ready," to them. The mounting block is the place where horses get to voice this clearly by whether or not they line themselves up and stand well for mounting.
I want a solid "yes" from my horse before I get on. I want my horse inviting me on. And I want to know that once I'm up there, if something goes wrong, if the proverbial herd of emus comes charging up the driveway, I'll be able to slide down the inside rein, connect directly to my horse's hip, and keep things safe for both of us.
So for me the "Capture the Saddle" lesson is first and foremost a final safety check before I get on. It tells me if I have indeed done my homework so my horse understands the reins and is comfortable responding to them.
Why "Capture the Saddle"? There are many ways you can teach a horse to line up next to a mounting block, especially if you are a clicker trainer. You can use targeting. You can use mats. You can free shape it. These are all great fun to do. If you have a young horse who isn't old enough to be ridden, it's tempting to teach him about mounting blocks in this way. By the time you start riding, he'll be a super star when it comes to the mounting block. He'll come right over and line himself up. You'll climb on and ride off into what you hope will be the proverbial sunset. But if he isn't familiar with the feel of the reins, you could equally well be riding off into an unwelcome surprise. For that reason, I generally prefer to wait until he is in a bridle, or at least a halter and a lead, to teach a young horse about mounting blocks. I want him to understand and be comfortable with the connection to the reins.
In the ground work we've been doing - all the basic leading, the duct tape lessons, the "why would you leave me?" into three-flip-three lateral work, etc., he's been learning how to relate to pressure on the lead. He's learned to soften and give, to yield his hips and to rebalance into a lateral flexion. The Capture the Saddle lesson makes use of these skills and confirms that the horse really does respond to the rein. Under saddle if the rider suddenly slides down the inside rein, the horse isn't going to be surprised by the feel and pull even harder or erupt into a bucking fit. Instead, he'll soften his nose to the side and step under with his inside hind leg, connecting his footfalls and his balance to the rider's hands and seat.
Fancy: Ground Work Preparation The Capture the Saddle lesson is a great example of everything is everything else. The DVD begins with a ground work lesson. The horse I focus on, Fancy, is an older Tennessee walker who has had a long history of horrendous saddle fit. Her owner hadn't realized at first that the saddle was the cause of her horse's riding issues. It wasn't until it started leaving sores that she understood just how bad the problem was. Unfortunately, at that point she also had a horse she was afraid of. Fancy was a sweetheart, but she had definitely turned into a faster-go-faster horse trying to get out from under a poorly fitting saddle.
The night before the lesson I show on the DVD I watched Fancy being ridden while we tried to find a saddle that would fit. It was only her good nature and her owner's good balance that kept the ride together. Fancy always looked just a hair's breadth away from turning into a frightened runaway.
We didn't find a saddle that fit, so Shirley didn't ride her during the clinic. But I wanted to give her the skills she'd need to transform the picture I'd seen the night before into something less hair raising to watch. One of the key skills Shirley was missing was the ability to connect to Fancy's hips so she could interrupt her accelerating speed without creating more anxiety.
One of the things I know, especially when you have a long history with a horse where bad things have happened, is it's easy for the rider to shut down at key moments and to forget the very skills she needs to stay safe. It's all well and good to understand intellectually what you need to do, but unless you have practiced those skills so many times that they have become automatic, they won't be there for you in an emergency.
I knew from watching Fancy that Shirley couldn't wait to "learn on the job". She needed to have the skills in place before she got on because she'd need them the instant that her foot was in the saddle. It wouldn't matter how absolutely perfectly a new saddle was fitting, they both had a lot of history, a lot of conditioned responses to overcome.
So I gave Shirley a lesson she could practice on the ground which would set her up for dealing with both her fear and Fancy's. This is the lesson that begins the "Capture the Saddle" DVD. I set out the by now very familiar why-would-you-leave-me circle of cones. Only this time instead of walking around the outside of the circle, I had Shirley walk across the center of the circle. She was to pick out a cone on the far side and to ask Fancy to yield her hips. This would pivot Fancy around the cone so she ended up facing back towards the center of the circle. Shirley was then to ask Fancy to back up a couple of steps, so essentially she was doing the most basic form of hip-shoulder-shoulder.
Once Fancy backed up, I had Shirley change sides, and ask Fancy to back up again. I did not want the change of sides to be the cue to go forward, so remembering these steps of backing was an important part of the process.
When she was ready, Shirley picked out another cone on the far side of the circle and walked off with Fancy on a why-would-you-leave-me loose lead to repeat the pattern around the next cone.
I've described this as one uninterrupted flow of steps. That's the result we are after, but to get there we had to break the sequence down into a series of little units. Each major weight shift was marked with a click and a treat.
In other words, when Shirley approached the cone and asked Fancy to yield her hips, it was click and treat.
When she asked her to back, it was click and treat.
And while she was giving Fancy her treat, she was changing sides so she could ask Fancy to back again - click and treat.
I wanted her to become very familiar with the mechanical skills involved in these weight shifts because we were going to be using them again, first at the mounting block, and then later under saddle to regulate leg speed. This lesson would work both to slow a horse like Fancy down, and on a non-foot-moving horse to request movement.
Merlin: Capture the Saddle Fancy's lesson was part one of the DVD. Part Two was the actual "Capture the Saddle" mounting block lesson. For this I used Merlin, a young haflinger. His owner, Cindy, had unfortunately not been feeling well. She missed most of the first part of the clinic where we were focusing on ground work, so Merlin wasn't quite as polished as I would have wanted him to be before we moved on to riding. But that actually turned out to be a good thing. It meant he looked a lot like some of the horses people own who will be using these DVDs. It's all well and good to watch a horse that is fully tuned into his handler line himself up almost effortlessly to the mounting block, but it may not help much with your own situation. It's always wonderful when your horse is so much better than the horses on the DVDs! That's my goal - that by watching these lessons, you'll have your horse so beautifully prepared for the next step that it will flow together effortlessly. The people on the DVDs have to jump in at the deep end without the visual references already in place. So hopefully what they show with their horses will help everyone else using the DVDs to be that much better!
When we brought Merlin up to the mounting block he behaved like many young horses. He wasn't afraid of it. He just didn't know he was supposed to line himself up next to it. So he walked up perfectly well with Cindy, but then he swung out wide.
Perfect. Merlin showed beautifully what the "Capture the Saddle" lesson will look like for many of you. In this lesson the mounting block becomes the target for the rider. She doesn't try to reposition the mounting block as the horse sidles away. Instead she stands on the mounting block and repositions the horse. The skills she uses are the same skills Shirley was just practicing in her lesson. Everything is indeed everything else.
When Merlin overshot the mounting block, Cindy asked him to swing his hips around and then to back up. The only difference between the two lessons was now there was no walking between cones. It was as though two cones were set one on either end of the mounting block and Cindy was standing in the middle turning Merlin from cone to cone. In between, she was letting go of the reins entirely so she could reach up and "capture the saddle". In other words she was teaching him a form of targeting. He was learning to bring the saddle to her hands. This turns the lesson into a fun game without losing the underlying safety feature of making sure Merlin was connected to the reins.
The DVD shows me working with Merlin for a bit, and then Cindy took over. He caught on quite fast to the lesson and she was able to get on. I could have ended the DVD there, but I knew it might be a while before I got the next lesson finished. I didn't want to be saying to people - "okay, now you're on - just don't go anywhere until I can get back to you."
Single-Rein Riding: The Cone Circle Exercise So Part three of the DVD takes you through the beginnings of single-rein riding. I again use the cone circle and a variation on the theme of Fancy's lesson. I asked Cindy to ride across the circle and to turn around a cone she's picked out. Instead of stopping and backing up, however, I had her continue on across the circle to another cone.
Sound easy? It might be if you could use both reins to hold him onto a straight line. That would be like steering the horse between the banks of a river. The banks in this analogy are formed by your hands and legs. That's standard riding. But in this lesson I take away the outer bank, meaning the active outside rein. I do this to reveal the balance issues that have been band-aided or "swept under the carpet" by riding prematurely on two independent reins.
In Merlin's case what the exercise revealed was a very wiggly horse. He wiggled left, right, into the camera, out of the circle. It was a wonderfully perfect mess! I say it in this way because Cindy's ride was a perfect illustration of the beginning steps of single-rein riding, and I am so grateful to her for sharing. Horses do wiggle. That's totally normal. Her ride shows you what to do about it. I have shown this section of the DVD to a number of riders who were about to venture into the unknowns of single-rein riding, and I was delighted to see how much smoother their rides went as a result of watching Cindy on Merlin.
The Continuum of Single-Rein Riding I need to pause here and say that when I talk about single-rein riding, I should really be calling it riding on a triangle. I always think of a continuum. In pure single-rein riding you are riding in a halter and one lead. That's all you have connected to your horse's head. I was going to say that's all you have to steer your horse, but that's not true. You have your seat and legs as well. The function of the rein is to help integrate your whole body so you aren't just pulling your horse around by the nose but are riding as a connected, unified whole: hand, seat, legs, weight shifts, breath - intent.
Anyone who has ever hopped on a horse out in its pasture and ridden it back to the barn instead of walking it home, knows you can safely steer using just a halter and a lead. It's a great experience to have tucked away in your riding background. But swinging the lead over your horse's head each time you want to change direction can get old really fast, so most of us move from the halter and single lead to a halter or bridle with reins attached.
You can still ride as though you had only one rein. You'll slide down the inside rein and let the outside rein dangle unheeded.
As you move along the continuum from pure halter-and-a-lead-rope single-rein riding to riding with two organized reins, you'll find yourself using your buckle hand more deliberately in the pick up of the reins. You'll be using the t'ai chi wall (everything is everything else yet again!) to create a triangle of the reins. One leg of the triangle runs from the inside corner of the horse's mouth to the rider's inside hand. The base of the triangle runs between the rider's hands, and the third leg of the triangle runs between the rider's outside (top) hand and the outside corner of the horse's mouth.
The critical connection in the triangle is the base of the triangle, the line running between the rider's hands. The outside rein can have slack in it. That's fine. But you want a solid base. You don't want a soggy triangle, meaning slack in the reins between your two hands. The pick up of the reins is a t'ai chi wall pick up, meaning both hands are involved. The mantra is: single rein riding is not single hand riding. Part of the value of riding on a triangle is the rider learns to engage her core and to become more aware of the nuances that create feels-like-heaven rides.
I know some of the descriptions people send to this list of their rides can seem very esoteric, very unreachable when you are working by yourself trying to sort out the vagaries of a green horse. But feels-like-heaven rides grow out of some very simple lessons. Merlin shows perfectly what a wiggly, not-very-forward, round-as-a-barrel, green horse's early foray into single-rein riding can look like. Merlin wiggled all over the place, and Cindy wiggled after him. All of her habits that she'd learned trying to chase after his balance on two reins popped in. Without the usual crutches, he could really wiggle! But when Cindy connected to her core, when she found the triangle of the reins, and her t'ai chi wall connection, Merlin started walking straight lines!
The ride lasts just over half an hour and the changes in him are quite dramatic. At first Cindy can't let go of him without having him wiggle out from under her. Mid-way through she can ride him on the buckle and he's following her seat. And by the end, he's begun to pick himself up and look quite handsome. In the recap at the end of her lesson Cindy described him as a horse she could never let go of. To be able to ride him on a loose rein was something she had never been able to do with him, so she was thrilled with the lesson.
Merlin is very much like many of the horses people here on the list have. He's a good natured fellow. He's basically okay to ride. You can get on and ride out on the trail, and you know you'll come back in one piece, but you also know there's something missing. Merlin was not very well balanced. He was safe, but he didn't bring out all the adjectives describing amazing connections, dream horses, magical rides. Cindy could get from point a to point b in a serviceable way, but that's about all. It's good enough if its good enough, but it could be oh, so very much, much more.
Glimpsing the Future: Oliver The last horse on this DVD gives us a glimpse into the so much more. This is Oliver from the Shaping on a Point of Contact DVD. On that DVD you saw Oliver when he was two years old. He was a very well behaved youngster. His owner, Keri, had done a superb job bringing him along. He was comfortable traveling. He was fun to be around. He was well on his way to becoming a great companion horse. But for riding he needed to learn something about balance. As a two year old, Oliver was a slouch. Every time he stopped his legs went every which way. He paid no attention to where he put his feet, and his balance was all down hill. When you looked at him in profile, everything hung down.
We changed that picture dramatically by focusing on one of the foundation lessons: standing on a mat. We revisited the rope mechanics and looked in the subtle details that are embedded in them but are easy to miss first time through.
At the end of the Shaping DVD Oliver didn't even look like the same horse. He's standing in balance, with a beautiful pilates-type lift through his whole body. From one day to the next he was a transformed horse.
Now in the "Capture the Saddle" DVD you get to see him a year later. All I can say is Oliver is stunning. He shows you what happens when a horse grows up in balance, using his body well. Oliver was a PMU foal. He was a throw away baby. But when you see him now, none of that matters. He's breathtakingly gorgeous.
And he's having his first away from home ride, so you get to see how capture the saddle and riding on a triangle work with a very new-to-riding but clicker-sophisticated horse. And you get to see the future popping out as Oliver begins to incorporate his microshaping-pilates training into his ridden work. Did I say he was beautiful? That's a huge understatement!
That's the Capture the Saddle DVD. I'll try not to be quite so long winded describing the other two.
"Riding On A Triangle: From Capture the Saddle to Three-Flip-Three" Riding On A Triangle: From Capture the Saddle to Three-Flip-Three is actually a continuation of the "Capture the Saddle" DVD. I would recommend you watch the Capture the Saddle DVD before getting the "Riding on a Triangle" lesson.
The DVD is divided into three main parts. Most of the tape focuses on one horse, Missy, a seventeen year old appaloosa who was in the same clinic with Merlin and Fancy. Missy is a very rideable horse. Her owner, Judy, has done quite a lot with her, exploring many western disciplines, as well as enjoying trail riding. But, like many horses, Missy had accumulated some unwanted baggage through her years of riding. The most annoying habit she had was backing away as soon as Judy put her foot in the saddle.
Now for many horses backing away or sidling off to the side can be a horse's subtle (or not so subtle) way of letting a rider know that something is wrong. A horse who doesn't let you on may be trying to tell you that the saddle doesn't fit, or her feet hurt, or the bridle is bothering her, or her back is sore, or . . . the list goes on and on. You've got the idea. Not standing is a good indicator that you need to become a detective and look for the reasons behind the behavior.
In Missy's case the reason seemed to be as simple as an operant behavior is determined by its consequences. Every time Missy backed up, Judy took her foot out of the stirrup and let go of the rein. For Missy, Judy's attempts to get on had become a cue to back up. She was a wonderfully light, responsive horse who was just trying her hardest to do what she thought her person wanted!
The fix was great fun. If the saddle had become a cue to back up, it could equally well become a cue to go forward. So the first part of this DVD shows an extension of the "Capture the Saddle" lesson where we look at the power of cues and how they can be used in a creative way to solve problems.
In Part two of the DVD Judy is on and ready to ride the same cone exercise that I showed on the previous DVD with Merlin. The problem is Missy isn't going anywhere. She's perfectly happy to just stand planted in one spot. The other big hole in her training was revealing itself. Missy wasn't very forward moving. After many years of riding she was no longer an easy-to-energize foot mover, and she wasn't well connected rein to feet. The night before the video was taken, Judy and some of the other riders from the clinic had gone out on a trail ride. They'd encountered another rider out on the trail and things had disintegrated into a bit of chaos. What that ride showed us was that Missy and the others horses were fine when nothing was going on, but when things went haywire, their riders needed better "tools" to keep things safe.
Safety Tool Box: Finding "Go" So that's what we worked on in this lesson, the safety tool box that connects horse and rider. We began by getting Judy and Missy better connected to "go". Here's where the clicker combined with the single-rein riding really shines as a training approach.
Judy and Missy were stalled out at the halt. I had Judy use the riding-on-a-triangle pick-up of the rein to ask Missy to bring her nose slightly to the side. When Missy responded, Judy released the rein. If a horse is very stiff at this point and is just learning what the pick-up of the rein is asking for, you would also click and give the horse a treat. Later the rider simply releases the rein and immediately begins another cycle - picking up the rein and asking for a give of the jaw.
As this process continues, the horse begins to move his head further and further around to the side. That's exactly what Missy did. As her head bent around, her hips began to move ever so slightly to counterbalance the swing of her head. This is where an understanding of microshaping pays huge dividends. Microshaping teaches us to become aware of tiny shifts of balance and to use these shifts to shape larger and larger responses. (Refer to the "Microshaping: Learning to See the Smallest Try" DVD.)
So as Missy not only gave in her jaw but also freed up her hips, I wanted Judy to release the rein and to click those subtle but oh so important shifts. There's a point in this process where you can feel the horse mobilize. You just know that the next time as you pick up the reins, if you add a hint more leg, your horse will take a step. And to help this process out, you can slide a little further down the rein so you connect directly to the hip. When the horse takes a step over with his inside hind leg - click and treat.
That's the theory. It all sounds very easy and smooth, and indeed it is, but it takes a bit of experience to recognize the shifts that are occurring underneath you, to release in a timely fashion, and to slide down to an appropriate length of rein. Judy and Missy illustrate beautifully the evolution of this process.
So for anyone who has sat on a horse whose feet have that stuck-in-cement feeling, this will be a very useful DVD. And if you have the opposite problem - a foot mover - the basic ride-around-a-cone exercise will help you out. I have some good video of how to use that lesson to create halts and to regulate leg speed, but that will have to wait for another DVD.
Part Three of the "Riding on a Triangle" lesson looks instead at how you can evolve the basic cone circle lesson into the beginnings of a three-flip-three lateral flexion. Three-Flip-Three is explained in an earlier DVD. Here I show you how to take advantage of the cones to pop out the beginnings of the lateral flexion while riding.
The Three-Flip-Three lesson looks at the two directions you can take a bend. You can, for example, ask a horse to bend to the left and to turn to the left. That's what he does when he turns around a cone. So each time Judy and Missy turned around a cone, they were practicing the first half of three-flip-three.
There's a pivot point in each turn where the horse commits his balance fully to the turn. He isn't carrying a right handed twist through a turn to the left. He's fully committed to the left bend and he's pivoting underneath the rider through the turn. He steps up deeply with his inside hind leg so his hindquarters engage underneath him. He's found the "flip" of three-flip-three.
In the simple, first approximation of the cone circle, the rider completes the turn and rides on across the center of the circle, changing rein mid-way across so she is ready to turn around the next cone in the opposite direction.
As this lesson evolves, the rider becomes aware of the "flip" point in the turn. Her horse is no longer a wiggle-worm meandering back and forth across the circle. The turns are smooth. They have a nice flow to them, and her horse walks off from each cone able to stay under her and ride forward on the buckle. If the rider has some experience with lateral flexions, she'll notice that the beginnings of them are starting to pop out. There are moments within the turns where her horse feels as though he could ever so easily step up and over into his outside shoulder. It's time to ask for the second half of three-flip-three.
If the horse is bending to the left, turning to the left around a cone, he'll reach the "flip" point of three-flip-three. He'll engage more behind and step up and under with his inside hind. Instead of changing rein at this point and riding off to the next cone, the rider will stay on the left rein. She'll feel the give of the hip, and she'll release the rein in response. And then she'll pick up the rein again, just as she would if she were asking for a simple give of the jaw. Only now she'll be thinking about the horse stepping over more into his outside shoulder. Her thoughts will change the orientation of her body, and her horse will take a slight lateral step. It's as though you were in a canoe and you just dipped your paddle into the water. A slight turn of the paddle creates an answering change of direction in the canoe.
If all of this sounds confusing to you and you aren't sure where the horse is going, or what the rider is doing to create the change, go walk the pattern. What you do in your body when you walk three-flip-three mirrors very much what you do when you ride it.
Judy hadn't ridden lateral flexions before, so she wasn't recognizing the moments when the next piece of three-flip-three was there to be had. My job was to make her aware of the balance shifts that were evolving through the lesson. That's also the function of this DVD - to help you be more aware of the good things that are evolving as you experiment with single-rein riding and the cone-circle lesson.
Judy's first approximations of lateral flexions earned a click and treat for Missy. She wasn't in perfect balance by any means, but she was on her way. She shows you what this lesson will look like if you are also new to lateral work. As always I am so appreciative of all the people who have been willing to share their learning-curve lessons in this DVD series.
The DVD ends with a special treat showing you what a horse can do who understands how to use the three-flip-three equilibrium to stabilize her balance. I won't tell you what it is. You'll have to get the DVD to find out!
Helen House Horse: The Mechanics of Single-Rein Riding. This brings us to the third DVD in this miniseries - Helen House Horse: The Mechanics of Single-Rein Riding.
I'll spare you the story behind the origin of the name Helen House Horse. Suffice it to say that Helen is a saddle rack. On this DVD we had a very fancy saddle rack - a vaulting stand. You'll see an earlier version of Helen in the "Riding on a Triangle" DVD. That video was shot in 2007. Poor Helen didn't yet have a head. At this year's clinic she was much more complete. She now has a head, so she could actually be bridled. You don't have to have such an elaborate saddle stand to make use of this lesson. Any stand that is sturdy enough to sit on will do.
The video I used in this DVD was taken at a five day clinic. We had time in the mornings to explore the nuances of micro-riding. Then we took that new body awareness first to Helen and then to the horses. What you will see on this DVD are the sessions we did on Helen House Horse. The DVD begins with a demo where I'm sitting on Helen, going though the mechanics of single-rein riding. I'm highlighting some of the subtle differences that make a huge difference to the horse.
I then work with the riders in the clinic, letting them experience for themselves the consequences of these differences. What happens when you pick up the reins with and without bone rotations? What happens when you have right-handers' wrist? What happens when you have a connected t'ai chi wall versus a soggy triangle?
This later is really the main focus of the DVD. If you've been using the t'ai chi wall rope mechanics in your ground work, you've been practicing the rein mechanics of riding. When you pick up the triangle of the reins, you are really just moving from "grown-ups are talking" to the t'ai chi wall.
The Inner Workings: Finding the T'ai Chi Connection Years ago I took a t'ai chi class that was taught by an instructor from China. I took the class with a client of mine who was a dressage rider. We were both interested in the same thing, finding a better connection to our core balance. The instructor was both a gymnast and a martial arts specialist. To watch him practice the t'ai chi forms was indeed a treat. He was very skilled - very strong, wonderfully flexible - except, except he reminded us both of many of the competition horses we were seeing at that time. These horses had all the outer trappings of the movements, but none of the inner balance. They were impressive. They could power their way through a test, but they left you feeling that something important was missing. For all their raw power and obvious training, they weren't really very beautiful.
As we advanced in the t'ai chi class, the instructor introduced us to push hands. This is where we began to understand what was missing. In the push hands exercises that he taught us, two people work together. The object was to dislodge the other person's balance and push him off his feet. We both could consistently unbalance our instructor. Our horses had taught us more about core balance than had all of his years of training in gymnastics and the martial arts. Like those dressage horses he had the outer trappings of the movements but not the inner workings.
It is the inner workings that I am interested in because with horses, when you find them, when you can activate them consistently, magical, breath taking, truly beautiful things happen - and oh by the way, you can also be so much safer around rambunctious, high-energy, pushy horses.
I refer to the rope mechanics as t'ai chi rope handling not because you have to learn t'ai chi forms to use them, but because of the walk-and-chew-gum nature of them. In the t'ai chi forms, you are doing one thing with your left hand, something different with your right, while you are moving through a complicated series of steps with your feet. Everything ties together and is made possible through your core balance.
T'ai chi rope handling, and the related "riding on a triangle" are not single-hand operations. When you slide your hands apart into the t'ai chi wall, you use both hands, just as you would use both hands to draw a bow. Likewise, single-rein riding is not single-hand riding. In both cases you are connecting the line to your horse via your engaged core.
What does this mean in practical terms? A novice rope handler is all hands. There's no connection to core. This handler slides her hands apart and ends up pushing on her horse, using muscle to shove her horse out of the way. It works as a first approximation, but as her horse becomes more sensitive, he'll find this kind of rope handling very heavy handed. It will feel to him as though his handler is shouting at him through a megaphone.
And if the horse is particularly pushy or reactive, the handler may find her flimsy core structure is easily overwhelmed. What sounds like a great technique "doesn't work." But rather than throw the baby out with the bath water, this simply means that the handler needs to dig a little deeper into the mechanics to find the next layer of connection. That's when she starts exploring bone rotations. She ties a lead to a fence rail and starts practicing the slide down of the rope. It feels awkward at first. Coordinating everything, hands, feet, rope length, takes a bit of doing, but after a while it starts to feel more second nature. She has a friend hold one end of the rope so she can get some feedback. She slides down the rope the old way - all disconnected hands and her friend makes a face. "That feels rough," she reports. "It's too demanding. I wouldn't like it if I were a horse."
Our handler slides down the rope with her new skills in place and her friend visibly softens. She doesn't have to say anything. You can see the difference in her expression, her balance.
So now the handler asks her horse what he thinks, and he gives her the same feedback her friend did. When she slides along the rein using her bone rotations and her t'ai chi wall connections, he melts into a soft, flowing balance.
The door is now wide open to the next step in this process. The bone rotations are moving you from the outer appearance of an exercise to the inner core balance. Now the nuances of micro riding emerge. Here the rider learns to become present in her whole body. She learns what that means. The t'ai chi wall connection loses it's mechanical nature and becomes truly a dance.
In the Helen House Horse DVD I explore the transition from outer trappings to core function. We look at bone rotations and how they impact the pick-up of the reins and the stability and effectiveness of the rider's seat. There are no horses on this DVD other than Helen. This lesson focuses on the rider. Taking the horse's response out of the equation - at least for now - helps you to see more clearly what the rider is doing.
Almost done! Phew . . . That's enough. I may not write very often, but, when I do, I make up for it in length!
Those are the three new DVDs. My upcoming projects will include a Micro-riding DVD, and I have two others also in the works, but I'll spare you for now an explanation of what's on those.
One final quick comment. At the last clinic I spread out on a table all the books and DVDs. It's quite a collection. Three books, 14 DVDs. I'm sure all this material can feel overwhelming, especially if you are new to this work. In times of tight budgets buying the whole collection can for many people be too much. So where do you begin? Which DVD should you get? There's an article in the video section of my web site's book store entitled "What should I buy?". It walks you through the whole series and explains what is covered in each book and DVD and how they fit together in the teaching progression. While I love getting orders for the whole set, I recognize that this is not just a budget breaker for many people, it can also be an overwhelming amount of information.
So what I encourage people to do instead is to think of these DVDs as lessons which they might take from a local instructor. If you are new to this work, begin by treating yourself to a monthly lesson. Or if you want to save on shipping, buy a couple at a time. Each of these DVDs is packed. They are layered with information. Every time you return to them, you will see things you didn't spot before. So you will be making an investment in a lesson that can be returned to many times. Using them in this way won't overwhelm either your budget or your ability to work your way through what is becoming a very large body of information.
And if you are in a hurry and you have a basically rideable horse, and you don't want to wait until you've watched all the other DVDs, you can jump into the deep end with these three new riding tapes and do quite well. If you find you have holes in your understanding of the lessons, you can always go back and fill in as needed.
Enjoy!!!
Alexandra Kurland theclickercenter.com
| 
Having problems with message search?
Fill out this form to ensure your group is one of the first to be migrated to the new message search system.
Send Email
Offline 
