There’s nothing much to riding a northern horse. It consists simply of communicating clearly what you want the horse to do and then not falling off when he does it. Of course, you have to have built up the relationship with the horse to the point where he accepts you as dominant and is willing to do what you ask.
Bits are probably the most misused and misunderstood pieces of equipment we use. The purpose of the bit is to refine communications, to clarify subtlety. A bit is not a means of overpowering a horse.
Actually you can’t overpower a horse. If you hurt him any self-respecting horse will chuck you if he can. If that doesn’t work he’ll bide his time and bite or kick when the opportunity presents itself. Why go there?
A lot of times when you see someone using a harsh bit they are actually trying to make up for a lack of riding ability. They are having difficulties because they are confusing the horse with conflicting signals or haven’t established dominance. Whatever the reason, they decide that the horse has a problem. And he does. The problem is sitting on his back, yanking on his mouth.
If the hands are soft and the communication is subtle there is no such thing as a harsh bit. For riders who have reached that level a curb or a double bridle simply makes their communication clearer.
Any result achieved with a bit can also be achieved without one. In fact it can be attained without any tack at all. It just takes more skill and more time.
When Pat Parelli was starting out he had a saddle mule that he used in reining competitions. He won time and again using nothing more that a rope halter on the mule’s head. In fact he did so well that he was eventually banned from competing because he didn’t use a bit!
If you want to see a demonstration of what can be accomplished without any tack at all, take a look at this video of Stacy WestFall that I posted last September.
Here are two videos about bits. The first is about understanding how a curb works.
This video is primarily focused on bit misuse. If you see your horse doing any of these things stop what you’re doing and make some adjustments.
T’was a rainy day here last Saturday, real northern horse weather. Our barn has gone through some adversities with health of the horses recently and morale was a bit low. Our barn manager decided to have a little in-barn show and a barbecue to chase away the autumm blues.
The event was a great success. The competitions in the show were very low level to provide a level playing field for anyone who entered. A lot of care was taken to ensure that none of the events were familiar to any of the participants so that more experienced people wouldn’t be able to automatically ace the event.
Now, I’m not a tremendously sociable guy, but I enjoyed myself in spite of that. It made me realize something: one of the main goals of our activities is to have fun, and the like-minded people we encounter along the way are a big source of that fun.
It’s all too easy to get bound up in competition. Concentrating on training your horse just so can become an obsession. When either of these things happen we lose sight of the goal of having fun.
If you aren’t enjoying yourself, what’s the point, really? There are lots of cheaper ways to not have a good time than messing around with horses.
If you’re a social butterfly you’ll meet tons of new people and hopefully have a blast. Curmudgeons like myself have it harder. We have to actually slow down and pay attention to the people in the barn. All of them are interesting if you get to know something about their lives. Take the time! In the end, if you are lucky, you’ll wind up with a handful of good friends to accompany you along the way.
An interest in horses is a great leveler and a great introduction to people you wouldn’t ever get to know otherwise. It cuts across class lines and status lines. Take advantage of this! Go out and find the friends and acquaintances that are waiting just over there. Let them enrich your life.
Did you know that the most dangerous thing you can do in life is hang around with horses? Northern horses are no more risky than others, but according to insurance statistics you have a greater chance of sustaining an injury while engaging in horse-related activities than you do in any other area. That includes driving and extreme sports of all kinds.
The good news is that your chances of being killed or crippled due to equestrian involvement are very low. So, if you have anything to do with horses you will probably get hurt but you won’t die.
Why are the chances of injury so large? I think there are three reasons.
Horses are powerful. Even ponies are so much stronger that we are that they can drag us around or hurt us quite badly when things go wrong.
People have been working horses so long that we tend to take them for granted. Most of the time they are mellow and react the way we expect them to, so we let our guard down.
We spend a lot of time with our horses in all kinds of situations which are social and relaxed. It’s hard to be hyper-vigilant all the time. We think of them as our buddies.
Here are a few things that could be done by everyone that would do a great deal to protect us. No one will do these things, though. We would be laughed at, at least and ostracized at worst.
Wear a helmet whenever you are around horses. Not just while jumping. Not just if you are under sixteen. All the time.
Steel-toed footwear. Doesn’t cost much. Definitely worth the investment. Nobody will buy it.
Use a vest whenever you ride. Vests are mainly used by eventers now, yet they really protect you from injuries in a fall. Vests started to be accepted for racing when a jockey wearing one survived a galloping horse stepping on the center of her chest.
As I said, nobody will follow this advice. For instance, eventers know the value of a vest first hand, yet they will ride a practice round of the same course they are going to compete on without wearing one. You are just as likely to be injured on a practice jump as you are in competition. In fact the chances are probably greater because you aren’t as familiar with the course or aren’t as focussed without the old competition adrenaline coursing through your veins.
Helmets a pet subject with me. Generally, if people wear helmets at all, they only wear them when they are jumping. But the purpose of a helmet is to protect your head and most head injuries do not occur due to a fall.
My wife was holding a horse for someone else several years ago. The horse suddenly whipped his head around and slammed her head into the door frame of the stall. Concussion city and a trip to the hospital. Just last week one of our friends was standing in front of her stall talking to someone. Her horse got a snit on with another one that was passing and brought his jaw down on the top of her head. Six stitches and a compressed spine. Both these injuries could have been avoided had they been wearing helmets. Head trauma like this is the most common injury that happens to horse folks.
I don’t claim to know what the answer is. We don’t have a regulating body to enforce things and nobody wants to be told what to do in their freedom time. Yet people are being injured needlessly every day. It would certainly be nice if some bright light developed a line of horse gear that was protective, yet looked totally cool, so that everyone would fight to buy it. There would have to be separate lines for english and western. Hmmm! Come on folks, there’s a potential fortune to be made! Doesn’t anybody have anything to offer?
Our lives are so busy that often we don’t actually spend much time just hanging out with our horses. Instead, we fly in and get to work, whether the work is riding, training for an event or whatever else the task may be.
Pat Parelli lays great emphasis on the idea the main thing that matters to the results you get with your horse is the number of hours you actually spend with your horse. The problem with focussed work is that it chiefly consists of trying to teach or impose an artificial set of behaviours on the horse with very little effort to learn who the horse is or what makes him tick. When we are focussed so much on the behavior we are trying to achieve we will probably overlook a hundred things about that horse that are just really cool to know in their own right.
If you can find a way to spend hours with your horse, the dividends will be huge. The horse will transform from an animal you are trying to train into an actual friend. When that happens you are in a whole different world. This short video is an inspirational illustration of what that can be like.
Here are some interesting posts I gleaned from blog archives. The first article was published during the previous olympic games. Author basically takes the position that Eventing is the only horse event that shoul be in the olympics. No dressage. Presumably because the physical effort is mostly on the horses part. I’ve heard this type of argument before. The position is always taken by someone who doesn’t ride. In this case, by Wall Street lawyers.
The third article may be useful next time you are at a horse show. What are you allowed to photograph? The answers may surprise you.
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Where And What You Can Photograph – Aspects Of The Law – I was forwarded this illuminating article on the legal aspects of where and what you can photograph. The author, having review a number of information sources, offers up something close to the following: …
I’d like to introduce you to Sally Swift. She can improve your riding 100%, no matter what stage of development you are at and regardless of the type of riding you do.
It amazes me that there are so many books available about training your horse while there is such a shortage of books about how to train yourself. And, most of what is available focuses on technical consideration usually directed towards a specific school of horsemanship. As far as I know, only Sally Swift’s books delve into what it actually feels like to ride a horse well.
Modeling
Tony Robbins transformed the field of sports training by a simple process called modeling. This consists of nothing more than finding out what a master of the sport thinks and feels inside while taking part in their discipline and then teaching it to newcomers. Experience has shown that being able to describe and teach the inner state a master enjoys cuts the time required to get good at an activity to about 20% of what would otherwise be necessary.
One of the most important tools in this process is imagery, and this is what Sally Swift’s techniques are all about.
Imagery and language
A good mental image grabs you and conveys what an action looks like and feels like without words. Words can be used, but their purpose is to trigger that inner state directly, not to describe a set of actions to be carried out. The Chinese language seems to be very well suited to this process and english doesn’t seem to be able to manage it at all. It’s almost as if Chinese were a language for painting and english a language for writing technical specifications.
Just think about the marvelous names the various types of kung-fu have. Praying Mantis style is one of their names. Just hearing the name gives you a picture of the body position used by someone fighting in this style. You almost hunch forward and raise your hands up to beneath your chin as soon as you hear the name. Right away, you have a glimmer of how using their techniques would feel inside.
This is what Sally Swift’s approach to teaching achieves. All schools of horsemanship have certain things in common which are important, for example, an upright posture, a deep seat and a relaxed leg. But what does it feel like when you get it right? Once you get that you can have it available as a constant reference to compare your present experience to, and you riding will improve dramatically.
Sitting trot
Here’s a simple example: sitting the trot or jog. Conventional coaching language would be something like: sit up straight, sit deep in the saddle, relax your legs. What do those words actually mean in experience and how do you achieve it without tension?
Sally Swift simply says when you sit the trot properly it feels like your legs are so long that your heels drag in the dirt. That’s all you need to know. Even if you aren’t on a horse, those words convey exactly what the correct thing feels like. Just reading these words caused your legs to relax somewhat and your hips to open, whether you know it or not. Just check inside now. You can feel it.
That’s really all there is, except that Sally has broken down all the major facets of riding and created similar powerful images to teach the inner state of doing it right, so you can replicate it. You couldn’t make a better investment, and I can’t think of anything else that will improve your riding more than this material.
The horse, like all animals, deals with the world through their physical senses. Human beings are are the only creatures who encounter the world mainly through words. It’s as though we describe the world to ourselves and then act as though the description were the reality.
Coaching riding is an extreme case of this. Isn’t it strange that the main way teaching someone to ride is to have the instructor stand in the center of the ring and shout instructions to the student riding around. The student has no example to follow and the barrage of words keeps them from focusing on the physical sensations of riding.
In Europe, it’s very common for coaches to teach mounted. This lets them follow the students actions and analyze what they are doing without shouting. They can also demonstrate what they are trying to get from the student very easily. This always made excellent sense to me, but you just don’t see it over here. When was the last time you saw an instructor in the saddle?
So, the way things are, we’re stuck with words. But, not all words are equal. Some get in the way, while some magic words actually transform experience and make real learning possible.
One of the biggest offenders in the negative category is the word don’t. As soon as you tell someone not to do something, you’ve put the image of what they are supposed to avoid in their heads and virtually guaranteed that’s what they will do. Either that or they will be so tense guarding against it that they can’t perform at all. Bad, bad, bad.
Magic words are either positive or neutral. The one thing they do is make it very clear and simple to the student what the right action consists of.
One of my favorite negative phrases to illustrate this is the term heels down, that bane of all new riders. I like this one for three reasons:
It isn’t obviously bad the way the word don’t is.
It illustrates the idea of a magic word perfectly and obviously.
I’ve had the personal experience of how that phrase can be transformed into power and freedom.
What’s wrong with saying heels down? Several things, actually.
It pre-supposes that this is a hard thing to do.
A rider trying to keep their heels down drives their foot down against the stirrup. This puts a strain on all the muscles in the leg, especially the calf.
As soon as they stop actively paying attention those tight calf muscles are going to pull the heels up again, proving that it is hard to keep your heels down.
I remember well the day I learned the magic word that unsnarls all that. I was having a hell of a time that day. My heels would not stay down and I was leaning forward instead of sitting up. My coach had mostly been watching me struggle, analyzing what I was doing wrong. Then she said, You’re doing okay, Glenn, but try keeping your toes up.
Believe me, friends, toes up is the mirror image of heels down. With heels down you are tense. That tension makes you squeeze the horse with your legs and it tilts you forward in the saddle. Toes up, on the other hand, relaxes the legs. I think it is because the calf is relaxed and the only tension is a thin line up the front of the shin. You stop squeezing the poor horse. Your hips open so you sit deeper, and you naturally sit up straighter. Instantly, you know in your body that you have it right because you’re suddenly comfortable. That feeling is one that you don’t forget, but you don’t have to concentrate on it.
The body recognizes what is right, always, and goes back to it automatically if it can. That is truly magic, and it can be triggered by a simple word or phrase. What magic words have you come across that have helped your riding?
Wow! I’ve never seen anything like this. This is Stacy Westfall riding without any tack at all and demonstrating reining moves. This shows what it is possible to achieve with hard work and proper training.
As impressive as the horse in this video is, I’m equally impressed with the sheer athleticism of Stacy. When she goes from a lope into a full, sliding stop , that shows what balance and seat really are. How is it possible to develop that sense of balance?
One way, obviously, is to spend a lot of time in the saddle. Pat Parelli rides a unicycle for fun. That would certainly improve your balance. Another way would be skateboarding. I don’t think it would be as good as unicycle, though, because you stand up to ride a skateboard. The unicycle would really improve your seat.
Another thing that would really help is going to a bar and riding the mechanical bull. If you go during the day when things are slow and turn the settings way down that would be best. And stay away from the beer, at least until after your ride.
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