First of all, I’d like to say a thank you to Cynthia Cooper for her kind words in her June’s newsletter regarding this blog. I’d also like to recommend her website http://www.naturalhorseworld.com, which is full of great articles on all aspects of horse care and training, using methods that are as closely linked to a horse’s natural environment as possible. There’s some great food for thought there.
OK, back to my adventures with Becky now.
It’s good to know that what I previously wrote in this blog on re-discovering our ability to go out on a trail ride (see Unbearable Lightness of Not Caring) did not end up biting me in the ass!
Since that blog-entry we’ve gone out on a very successful jaunt. Becky was quite calm all of the way and, though looking left and right, was mostly content to follow the pace I asked for.
Marina has given me a great tool to use that I think has been instrumental in keeping myself focused and consistent, which obviously translated itself into stronger leadership for Becky: I am talking about feeling and setting the length and the rhythm of her steps with my seat.
Until now, it seems that I was sitting slightly to the back of the lowest point in the saddle. As Marina repositioned me, so that my tailbone was right at the deepest point of the saddle (which, believe me, I did not realize it wasn’t until now), I could begin to feel Becky’s steps through my whole pelvis and lower waist area. Previously, the main contact point that I was feeling Becky through were my thighs, and I felt her movement through them in a right-forward, left-forward motion. But now, I could truly feel my whole pelvis and lower waist moving backwards and forwards with her steps.
Now, we’ve all seen good riders have this slight movement of the pelvis as the horse moves. What I didn’t realize is that that movement could act as a metronome for your horse! Instead of allowing Becky to move me, I could set a rhythm within myself, as if I was a pendulum, and encourage her to match my rhythm. The faster the backwards/forwards movement – the faster her steps; the longer the movement from back to front of my “pelvic pendulum” – the longer should her steps be.
Any falling out of that rhythm on Becky’s part could be corrected with legs (if she went slower or took shorter steps), or reins (if she sped up)
It’s a hell of a lot harder to do than it sounds. The problem was that if Becky moved in a rhythm contradictory to what I set in my mind, my body tended to follow her, and it was very difficult to mentally separate what I intended my rhythm be, and what it actually turned out to be. But once I did get the hang of it, I started catching any deviations from the metronome the moment the incorrect step happened, and could quickly correct it (and because I was quick to notice, the corrections usually needed only be slight)
So how did this help us out on the trail ride?
When we went out, I basically told Becky “we are going forward at this rhythm” and I started the metronome in my head and in my body. This gave us both a great point of focus and consistency in the following ways:
- keeping in the rhythm was a specific and clear job for Becky to do which helped to keep her attention on me;
- Any time she deviated from the rhythm, I was there to “catch” her and correct her immediately, because I felt the change in her steps so much clearer. This showed her that I was on the ball and that I was clear and consistent in my requests, which translated into stronger leadership on my part.
- Keeping the rhythm in my head, and concentrating on Becky following it, served to calm my own nerves! I didn’t have time to get nervous about the potentially scary places on the road and worry about what would happen there. For example, going past a paddock with other horses in it normally caused me to worry about Becky’s reaction if the horses started running along the fence-line parallel to us. Usually that resulted in me losing my concentration on Becky or starting to micro-manage her every step, both of which completely disrupted my overall focus, weakened my leadership and allowed her to take more interest in those horses.
This time, though, those horses were hardly noticed!
In the end of the trail ride, I could even get Becky to slow down or speed up her steps just by slowing or speeding up my own movements. How cool!
I’ve still got a lot of work to do of course, encouraging Becky to be more in tune with me. It is particularly difficult to get her to lengthen her steps in response to my movement, as it is harder for me to judge the length of the pelvic “swing” than the speed, and hence I struggle to give her a consistent long-stepped rhythm to follow. But, practice will make perfect and, best of all, we can practice this out on the trail!
Happy riding everyone!
Hi Anya - I'm enjoying your blog and reading about your experiences. Great stuff!
Posted by: Michael Bouy | June 17, 2009 at 03:22 PM