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Tuesday, 13 May 2008
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JANUARY 2006 • VOLUME 5 • HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Welcome to the continuation of our series on Riding into Movement. Check out the related stories to all the past articles to date on this series in previous issues. From our last issue --- The horse's desire for harmony is a desire that we can incorporate into our daily training and riding. This is a life-preserving attitude that is inbred into our horses. "Harmony of Movement" assures safety and survival, "Harmony and Acceptance by the Herd" assures companionship and survival. We should never negate the strength of this desire or the strength of our training when we incorporate this concept into our work with our horses. Which is why "First WE Follow..." to show the horse the harmony that can be achieved. When we assess riders to find their weakest point, perhaps not surprisingly it is normally their hands. This seems to be consistent for all riders.
Do
they have the right pressure in the reins? Are they allowing all the
movement of the horse to go through his back, through his neck, or are
they through the bit, the reins or their own body, slightly, however
slightly, holding back against the movement? This is the most frequent
problem that most horses encounter. Often labelled as being not
forward, the horse finds it difficult and sometimes even near
impossible to move because of restrictions felt from the rider through
the reins and the bit.
The horse does not deserve to have a stronger leg aid, spur or whip applied if he is feeling unable to move because of the lack of following of the rider.
This
of course can be complicated, as what the horse feels in his mouth is
not just what we are doing with our hands, but what we are also doing
with our elbows, our shoulders, between our shoulders, our lower backs.
I know that often riders are surprised especially by that last point -
how tension in our lower backs can affect what the horse feels at the
other end of the rein, at the other end of the lead rope and the lunge
line.
While there may be no one way to train the rider to find the complete following of the horse, there are some key points that seem to help the majority of riders.
Correct
implementation of the first five is required for the rider to have a
truly educated hand and be able to have the base function of being able
to find complete following of the rider to the horse through this area
of his body. It is from this base that the rider then imposes
his requests. That he learns to use his rein aids in such a way that
communication is clear without let or hindrance or interference, while
at the same time these rein aids do not interfere with the horse's
movement.
If this base is not correct, if the rider has not learned to follow first, then he will impose restrictions upon the horse that the horse then will learn to avoid in a myraid of different ways, depending upon the personality of the horse. This month we begin by addressing -
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