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Training Rain – T Lauer

By TLauer on February 12, 2012

Training Rain Day 2

Wednesday, Feb. 8

Day two was surprising and pretty cool!

I went out to catch Rain on my own, sans cookies or grain. I did place the halter in my hoodie pocket, so my hands were free. When I was about 10 feet away, she took off, but not too far. I started whistling softly and she turned around and walked towards me. I started backing up and continued to whistle. When I stopped, she stopped. I waited for her head to drop and she started licking and chewing. I walked towards her and when she ‘looked’ like she might leave, I whistled and stepped back. She eventually came to me and I was able to slip the rope around her neck. I had a caught horse in less than five minutes!

AS promised, I offered her grain the minute we walked in the barn and we repeated the routine from Monday. I would whistle softly then let her take a bite.

One issue I discovered early with Rain is her discomfort when lead from the right side. Any time I am on the right, she tries to turn and face me or back up. Our first exercise for the session was hand walking – basically taking a walk around the arena on a loose rein, with intermittent halts and walks. On the left she is more confident and will walk shoulder to shoulder. On the right, she side-passes all the way around the arena.

I started walking (body and face forward, holding the lead with my left hand) and used a short dressage whip to prevent her from walking behind me. I also took deep relaxing breaths. About halfway around the arena she took a few steps forward and then turned to face me and pulled back. I smiled, positioned myself next to her the best I could, and started forward again, gently tapping the whip to get SOME motion from her. We continued this dance for about ten minutes, but the end result was a horse that finally made the transition to being led from the right side, shoulder to should, all the way around the arena.

I also spent 20 minutes doing the long reins on a circle. My goal was to try to keep as light a contact as possible because my hands were raw from Monday’s session. Rain had been heavy on the bit and constantly pulling against the lines. My strategy for the second session was to drift with her enough to keep the lines soft, but firm enough to control her speed and direction. I did not want her running away or pulling the lines through my hands.

The result was a soft, supple horse. She was rounding her back nicely and dropping her head and neck below her withers with a nice arch. She was also less chargy and more attentive throughout the full session. She never escalated into a turbo trot and never ripped the lines through my hands. The difference between the Monday session and Wednesday session was night and day – and I wish I had it on video!

We finished the session with mounting block work. She does not want to line up to the block and will turn her body to face me as soon as I say ‘whoa’. WE worked the block for about 10 minutes and finished when I was able to lay across her back from the block.

All in all, an AWESOME session!


Training Rain Day 1

2/6/12 – Rain_Day 1

Rain is an 8 year old draft cross mare. She has some emotional baggage. In Monday’s session she ran away from me for about 20 minutes and three of us had a hard time catching her. Once caught, I gave her a small scoop of grain and made her follow me around the arena. Every time she took a bite, I softly whistled to help teach her to come to my whistle.

Rain’s habit is to run from people and in past lesson sessions we have played a ‘move the feet’ game as long as she is running away from us. I wanted to put that forward energy to use and control her direction the whole session, so I put her on the long reins and I made her do circles at the walk and trot.

All I was looking for this session was calm, attentive, willing, and adaptable. I did not encourage her to run away from me; I used the long reins to control the speed of her trot and when she started to ‘run’ from the pressure, I slowed her to a walk and waited for her head to come down and eyes/ears to get soft.

Long rein work is fascinating. I never escalated Rain into a turbo trot or canter, yet after 30 minutes of walk and controlled trot, she was dripping. Someone watching the session would not have believed she would get so sweaty from the workout.

Long rein exercises help balance horses and encourage them to use all their muscles, especially at the walk. So in actuality, the horse uses more muscles in a concentrated effort at the walk than at the trot. The trot allows the horse to use momentum to maintain balance, and so the horse does not actually have to rely on using all of its muscles optimally. Long rein exercises equate to Pilates or yoga in the people world. Horses use muscle groups they are not used to using on a regular basis, and so they tire more quickly and sweat more readily.

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11.08.13: DO what WORKS

By jmccleary on August 27, 2011

 

I recently helped Jim McDonald (another local trainer that works at our equestrian center) with a clinic, and enjoyed riding with a group for the first time in a very long time. Storm and I have been progressing, and it was nice to push our boundaries again in a simple and safe environment. The clinic was focused on trail obstacles, and the plan was to head out on the trail after lunch. However, some rains rolled in, and we didn’t even get the change. We managed to just get into the barn when the bottom fell out. I worked to get my things put away as the rain poured so loud you couldn’t hear anyone speak unless they shouted into your ear. Eventually the storm slowed, and a few of the participants made a break for it. It was lightening up as the last few riders pulled their trailers closer to the barn and began loading their horses.
Nancy and I were working around the barn when one of the participants came back down in the barn asking for help with loading. I followed her back out to her trailer, and discovered that her little Paso was pretty adamant about not getting back into the trailer. He was pulling every trick in the book to avoid getting onto the ramp from bracing backwards as hard as he could just in front of the ramp to swinging around the side of the trailer to avoid the ramp. She asked me to stand to the side to keep him “lined up” with the ramp so he wouldn’t hurt himself stepping off the edge. I was a bit more skeptical of being up close to him and allowing him to push into me, it was obvious to me that he didn’t have a whole lot of respect for her space, and she and he had a relationship where she leaned on him and he leaned back on her when he didn’t want to do something. It was a recipe to get run over, and I wasn’t going to go there. I supported gently, and attempt to raise and lower my arm to help encourage him forward, but all he did in response to that was brace more. She then asked me if we should get a lunge line and another person so he can be forced on from behind. I told her that there wasn’t any reason to do that, and that is just not a safe manner to get a horse into a trailer. She responded, “Oh, that is what we did when we were here for the last trail competition, someone that said they were a trainer suggested it!” I sadly shook my head and said there wasn’t a reason to get to that point. Maybe in an emergency if the horse absolutely has to get on the trailer NOW then it would be reasonable, but there wasn’t any pressure in this situation and I didn’t want to do anything to further exacerbate his opinion of getting onto a trailer. I asked her if I could take him and give it a go, and she said yes, so I took the lead rope from her.
I was really wishing I had my rope halter and longer lead line, but I figured I should sort it out and make do as it was rather than try to make too many changes at once. I began by simply leading him around and establishing a bit of leadership and balance. I walked him around for a while, slowly getting closer to the trailer, but not going in. I wasn’t worried about time, or the trailer or anything else. The closer we got to the trailer on each pass the more he resisted, and so I spent quite a bit of time simply walking back and forth to and from the trailer. Finally I stepped up onto the ramp and was met with brace at the end of the line. He eventually put his front two feet on the ramp, and so I waited a bit, and then walked off again. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. We eventually managed to get so far as getting his front hooves to the top of the ramp, and a hind food almost on the ramp, but he seemed to be fairly well stuck there. She asked me at one point if I wanted to get a dressage whip, and I declined, mostly being concerned that one person was going to have to be in the trailer, and the other person outside. The thought of her being on the whip end and me in the trailer didn’t make me feel very good, but the flip side was her at his head in the trailer and me with the whip… I didn’t like either scenario as I wanted to keep her out of the picture as much as I reasonably could as he was responding much better to me at that point than he had to her. So I kept chipping away, lather, rinse, repeat.
Finally I decided that he was pretty well stuck and I need to try a different option. I asked her if she wanted to go into the barn and get the whip or if she wanted to hold him while I went for the whip, she said she’d go, so I told her where it was, and she set off to the barn. The first thing that happened is that the little Paso put three feet on the ramp. He was much more inquisitive and relaxed without her standing there bearing down on him. I began to wonder if there were more things I could send her for in the barn. I really felt like it wouldn’t have taken me that long to get him onto the trailer if she wasn’t with us. I knew that wasn’t an option, so when she returned with the whip I led him away from the trailer to establish a bit of communication with the whip and make sure that I knew how he was going to react to it outside of a confined space.
First I had to remind him that I had a bubble and he wasn’t allowed to throw his shoulder into me and ignore me. I rubbed him with the whip and then gently tapped him on the top of his hip. As soon as he shifted forward, I quit, and rubbed him again. Again, I tapped lightly, he stepped forward, and I stopped and rubbed. He was doing better than I anticipated, so I walked him for a moment, and then returned to the trailer. He balked again, so I stopped, rubbed him with the whip and gently tapped him on top of the hip. He placed his front feet calmly on the ramp. I rubbed him gently and gave him a moment and gently tapped again. He stepped forward again, calmly and evenly. Rub, tap again. Suddenly all four feet were on the ramp, and there was no resisting, balking, bracing or hesitation. Rub, tap, steps forward. Lather, rinse, repeat. As quietly as he started, he was suddenly all the way in the trailer, and his owner gently picked up the butt bar, and closed him in as I closed the chest bar. He was nervous, but standing quietly. She was so grateful that she gave me a $20.00 donation to give to Graham, which was nice of her.
The lesson here? Do what you know works. I’ve been taught techniques that are effective and are the simplest way to achieve things with a horse. I need to trust those methods, and not do the things that I know are not as effective. Looking back on the situation, I was really grateful to have the experience and be able to get a chance to work with another horse that gave me the gift of another learning experience.

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11.06.11: Quality, Not Quantity

By jmccleary on June 12, 2011

Its only been 3 weeks since our last lesson since we adjusted the date to avoid the upcoming Father’s Day holiday. Being spring and early summer this is our busiest time of year. The weekend after our lesson was the Memorial Day Holiday and included a one day clinic and followed by a two day clinic that consumed the entire weekend, no riding time there. The next weekend sent us to VA to attend a clinic put on by a good friend of ours. Stayed overnight to break up the travel a bit, and didn’t get home until late. Laundry and cleaning were behind, no riding again. And then there was the heat. Sitting in an air conditioned office all day does not make it easy to handle the 95+ degree high humidity sauna for a couple hours.

So yeah, 3 weeks since our lesson and I hadn’t thrown a saddle over his back. I got him out and grooming was semi useless, he was already very sticky so a brush didn’t do much but rearrange the direction the hair was laying. I got him tacked up, and after fussing with the pads a little bit I left it alone and headed to the arena, getting Kirsten to check things before we got started. Before I even got a chance to ask, Kirsten asked me if I had checked on the saddle fit, and I said, no, I wanted her to look at it. Mary, the balance saddle fitter, was also around and took a look as well. Kirsten asked which pads I had under the saddle, and I told her that I had the 3 that we added back under the saddle again when we widened it at our last lesson. She told me to pull out the 1/2″  JB pad that I had on top of the other two, and Mary offered to loan me the thinner 1/4″ JB pad that she had, and so I slipped that in between and set the saddle back up in the correct position. The two of them looked at it again, and Kirsten shook her head, take out the 1/4″ JB.

Seriously?! I hadn’t ridden, I needed the 1/2″ the last time I rode…. and now I don’t. I didn’t DO anything. But he got WIDER. 1/2″ wider to be exact.

The reality of this is that when all of the steps that you devote together are all about quality, not the quantity, it sticks. Pure and simple. When you do your best to not allow the bad steps and the out of balance steps, then all that time is spent building new better habits. When it feels good, the horse wants to stay that way, and the old patterns disappear as more and more good steps are layered in on top. So while I see him out in the pasture running around with his head up, he knows the difference. So the old patterns aren’t as useful, and he is lighter and more agile, even if he’s not perfect when he’s romping and playing he’s experimenting with his own body on his own. And so he’s able to continue to improve, even when I couldn’t climb up myself. Which is positive since I might have struggled through the change if I hadn’t had someone to catch it before I climbed up. Quality is always better than quantity.

Storm posture 3

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Applies to dogs?

By bpeterson on June 5, 2011

I have a cold so I haven’t been able to ride much this last week. I was going to read so I got Ajax (my sister’s German Shepard that is staying with us for a bit) to put him on the treadmill while I sat next to him and read from my Kindle (I love that Kindle). Ajax moves differently that any other dog I’ve seen: his hips don’t swing back and forth when he walks; instead, is pelvis tucks under a bit. I noticed this, of course, because of all the Optimal Balance work we’ve done with Kirsten. I’m convinced this is because my sister takes Cesar Millan’s advice and uses a treadmill for the dog.

Ajax just walks faster whenever I increase the speed on the treadmill — he doesn’t break into a trot; although he does so when outside. I also noticed that he wasn’t walking quite straight. Using the language of the Optimal Balance model: his box was shifted to the right of his ball, and his triangle was shifted over to the left. I realized that by sitting next to him, I drew his attention — and so his balance — over to me.

I started thinking how I might influence his box and triangle. I ended up using a leash to pull his triangle away from the side I was standing on, bringing him up against the edge of the treadmill, and I used the proximity to the edge to straighten out his box. He started walking straight, but was “heavy in my hand”, meaning he was leaning against the pull of the leash. I decided to let him “sit in my hand” (lean on the leash), temporarily supporting his balance. The treadmill speed was set where he should have been trotting, so it must have been awkward to stay at a walk, particularly an unbalanced one.

After about just 5 seconds he became “light in my hand” (stopped leaning into the leash) and broke into a comfortable trot. I let go and he stayed in the trot, carrying himself straight and balanced.

It got me wondering about the generality of the fundamental principles behind Kirsten’s Optimal Balance. Dogs and horses are both quadrupeds, but their skeleton and musculature must be very different. Certainly their size is vastly different.

Well, something to think on while I spend the day trippin’ on cough medicine.

Brian

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Lost my hip joint

By bpeterson on May 30, 2011

Anyone seen my left hip joint? I can’t seem to find it. I remember having it at my last lesson with Kirsten, but that’s the last time I remember having it.

It’s funny, I can use my right seat bone, but I can’t seem to get to my left one. Jasper and I seem to be plateauing. I was having success keeping my legs long and riding with my seat bones, but I gradually had to use the reins more to correct his triangle. There’s something really subtle going on and I can’t figure it out in the saddle. I had to resort to long lining today to try to see what was going one. We long-lined for about and hour, and Jasper had a really hard time straightening out. That ball would stay on the inside, then slide to the outside, the box would sift, the triangle would get out of whack, or some combination of the three.

It was almost and hour before we finally got 2 really good circles. This was after an hour riding — so almost 2 hours of work in some hard Maryland heat (don’t laugh, you guys in Florida). He was sweaty, I was drenched, and we both wanted to stop. He did those 2 great circles, stopped, looked back at me and said “There. I did it. Now can we stop?” (I heard him quite clearly — maybe it was the heat).

It seems we are getting into that situation because I’m not using that left hip joint effectively. I need some DIY ortho-bionomy.

Brian

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Trip to Kirsten’s: Day 4: Finding the Stretch

By jmccleary on May 24, 2011

May 2nd, 2011: The morning started off really early with a long list of things to do. Jeffra had arrived late the night before and we headed over to Quail Hollow Farm to start the day off with a session for Bree. Kirsten headed out and got Red so she could work him while Jeffra and I took care of Bree. Poor Bree was a mess. Her hips were out, and her spine was really crooked. Jeffra pulled her tail to release some things, and also had to put her 1st rib back into place. Her shoulders were uneven, to the degree that her right shoulder had no point on it when looking at her from the front. Her neck was also very out, and Jeffra did a number of different things to help her release that. She found that there was no flexion in her pastern on the right side, and that the joint was not allowing the hoof to move almost at all. She was able to really help her, and it was so nice to see Bree moving so much easier and with a much better expression on her face. As we finished up with her the farrier arrived and began to work on the horses so we didn’t even have to turn them out again.

From there we headed over to ERAF again to work Logan and Mellagro. Logan was like a different horse, he didn’t throw a buck or any kind of attitude the entire time and took to the long reins like he’d been doing it forever. Mellagro did very well in the long lines, too, working in a deep stretch much of the time and was not pulling out of the circle as badly as he had before. He was tracking nicely, too. From there we headed back to Renee’s for another lesson, this time with her on Rio, another gorgeous horse. As it happened the lesson was the same one that I was working on and to watch it from a different perspective was delightful. Kirsten worked on adjusting her position in the same way that she had mine: don’t let the guts spill out, soften the back, rise from the front of the hips, keep the shoulders forward and work the flex in the joints. Renee asked about posting to the canter, and Kirsten explained that it is just like posting to the trot, but you rise for a stride and sit for a stride and that it is a really nice way to ride because it helps keep the weight off the horse’s back.

Renee was commenting that one of the horse’s that Kirsten was going to work with through the summer had a really bad morning, he wouldn’t drink out of a regular water bucket, so she put a larger tub in the stall and the dumped that over. He also didn’t want to be caught in the stall (her stalls are double sized, so the horse has plenty of room to move around) and so he was still left in his stall. Instead of riding Ziggy, Kirsten decided to work with Doc on some learning frame of mind work in the round pen to get him started and hopefully so he is more trusting of people and more confident in himself. Doc never really did relax, but he began to follow Kirsten’s movements much better. He still liked to lag behind and when she would encourage him forward he would often shoot past her and end up walking sideways ahead of her until she could convince him to get back into the right position. As she started to work, Ziggy started hollering from the barn since his buddy Doc was out of the barn. Kirsten told me that I could go get Ziggy and do some learning frame of mind work to get his feet moving and help him not worry about other things that were going on. I came inside to get him and he began to settle down quickly as we got outside. I worked around the round pen for a little while walking backwards and then headed into the arena area. I was really pleased with how quickly Ziggy started to look to me for information as we worked. It didn’t take long before I turned and began to hand walk him rather than struggle to walk backwards through the uneven sand. It took him a minute to figure out that I wanted the same exact thing from beside him that I expected from in front of him but he quickly settled in. We even began to do figure 8′s with him responding nicely to me even with me on the outside of the turn. After we worked for a while I switched to hand walking on the off side, which took him a minute to get used to again, and then he settled right back in. We worked for quite a while before coming over to watch Doc’s progress as he very slowly made some changes.

She finished up there, and we headed over to another farm in the area to work with a little gray Paso gelding named Talley that was having some problems that were remarkably similar to Bonnie’s issues. Patty was a friend of the owners and was riding him one day and he decided to ignore the brakes, which unnerved her quite a bit. Kirsten had given them the task of walking 10 steps and then halting to the count of 10, and Talley took quite a bit of offense to that exercise. So this lesson was all about using the long lines to build in the brakes from the ground. We got there a little early, so Kirsten got set up in his paddock which was a comfortable size and had several obstacles to work around which is good for long lining. By the time Patty got there Talley was through his little mini meltdown and he was going quietly for Kirsten on the long lines though still hard to stop. Kirsten explained the principles to Patty so she would understand that the objective was to build a new pattern for Talley so that when he was confused or upset he would stop rather than keep plowing forward faster and faster and ignore the rider. Kirsten began explaining these things to Patty as Patty walked next to her while Kirsten worked the lines. Talley began responding with less effort, and was waiting for longer rather than simply pausing and walking off. Kirsten handed the lines over to Patty and it took her a while to sort things out to understand the mechanics of the long lines. Having reins that are 25 feet long is a bit disconcerting to people, and often a struggle to figure out how to handle all the line and not treat it like a lead rope, but treat them like reins. Once Patty began to make that connection, things started to flow. Talley was offering to stop and stand still and wait when Patty lost the connection with the reins, and he was waiting patiently until she asked him to go again, often looking over his shoulder at the two of them with a quizzical expression. As Kirsten put it this was building in the golden set of brakes that will help to give Talley confidence when he is ridden and a greater willingness to look to the rider for direction.

We finished up there and headed back to Michelle’s to work with Max and Razzie again. The horses were standing at the fence watching us as we came in, and Razzie ran around the clump of trees but then decided that he did want to work, and came right over to allow me to put on the bridle. Both horses had improved, though Max kept wanting to get his tongue over the bit. Every time I looked over Kirsten was stopping to help him fix it. Max was not pulling out as badly as the first day we worked on the long lines, and was tracking up nicely. His impulsion was still low, but it was more comfortable than the first day. All in all it was an uneventful hour, which is desirable! When we finished up Kirsten wrapped up her lines and unbridled Max faster than I finished with Razzie, and had started walking up to the barn to give them a treat and left Razzie and I in the field. I pulled the bridle off before I finished coiling the lines in case he might want to follow Max, but instead he stood with me while I finished wrapping up my lines. I gave him a pat and turned to go up to the barn and he stuck with me and followed me all the way in. It is a good feeling to know that the horse has chosen to connect with you and stay with you.

We made a quick stop at the house for some snacks before heading back over to Quail Hollow to work Hercules and Condessa for only an hour this time. The farrier trimmed Hercules that morning, and he was moving much better as a result. He was able to track up square for several steps at a time. His muscles were moving the same as they had before, but the tracking was greatly improved and he was not diving out of the circle quite as often. He ended up pooping five times in the hour, which is only one less time than he pooped in our first two hour session! Most of the piles were small, but it was obvious that he was beginning to find movement. It was their dinner time so I put Herc into his stall and went back to clean up the arena while Kirsten rinsed down Condessa to get the sweat off of her.

Back home we got Prima tacked up and Kirsten let me start out without her being warmed up first. I noticed right after I settled into the saddle and headed for our circle that she was high on the left, and so I started working on getting that fixed. We started tracking to the right as was our norm, and she soon flipped back to her normal pattern. I worked to balance her at the walk before moving up into the trot and canter. Things felt much more stable and comfortable despite the fact that I was pretty sore by this time. I was able to constantly adjust and experiment to find whatever combination of things it took for her to stretch. Her feedback is so pure that you know completely when you get it right so you can really look for those moments to know exactly what they feel like and work to replicate them over and over. We worked on cantering again, and everything was beginning to feel closer to normal and not so grossly awkward.

We switched directions and began going left, which is her stronger side, which means that she is prone to flipping the ball back and forth rather than simply being stuck on one side. As I worked into the faster gaits I was having problems steering her and getting her out on the circle. I finally connected that clear rein contact is required on both sides in order to maintain balance when the ball flips back and forth. When a horse is stuck to one side, the head has to be tipped in the direction the ball is stuck, and the other rein is simply used to help guide the horse outward on the circle so that the horse goes more “straight” even while having their head tipped to one side. That rein is often rather loose, so there isn’t much clear contact in it, if there is too much contact then the rein bent to the inside becomes confusing. But when the horse is flipping, even rein contact is needed because the corrections are much subtler, so a shift of the weight and possibly a slight tip of the nose is all that is needed to move the ball back to center. Once I picked up a lot more contact in the outside rein at the canter she was moving beautifully and able to stay on the right track.

Roger began to harrow the yard at this point, and Prima and I kept working around the tree. Jasper got excited and began to run with Prima and I on the circle for a lap and then go chase the mower for a lap. We were laughing at his antics as Prima and I worked. Roger finished up with the yard area, and so Prima and I would expand our circle to include the other clump of trees to allow Roger to make a loop around the working tree, and then we could come back through and do a few laps at the canter before letting Roger go back around. Kirsten had me use Roger’s tracks as a guide so that I could really work on staying to the outside of the circle. Prima was really able to hold the canter much longer and I was able to stay better organized and balanced better. On one turn around the circle I looked over to where Roger was coming along behind the house and Jasper had pooped RIGHT in front of the tractor, and then danced off playing, much to Roger’s chagrin. I laughed so hard that Prima and I couldn’t get organized and I had to take another lap before I picked up the canter again.

We slowed to cool her down at the trot and finding her balance became that much easier. She was able to get really close to posture 3 for several steps at a time, and was not flinging her head back up into posture 1 between the good spots. The shifts became more subtle which is a good place to be. Keeping myself supported by the skeleton and working from the joints with the motion really helped me to find better organization to stay balanced. By this time Prima and I both were hot and sweaty and covered in black dust. I left Kirsten to hose her down while I went to get into the shower to hose myself off! I had to get myself organized to get packed quickly for an early start to the next morning back to Baltimore.

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Trip to Kirsten’s: Day 3: A Million Moving Parts

By jmccleary on May 24, 2011

May 1st, 2011: The morning started off lazy, much to my relief (and Kirsten’s, I am sure!). We didn’t really get ourselves ready to get moving until 9:00 or so. Kirsten warmed Mick up so that I could get on and ride, and so I set to work trying to find the same position on a different horse with different patterns that needs different support. Everything is different, but only in how it is dealt with, not the actual position. I discovered that I may have been blocking Mick’s movement on the left side somehow with my body. I wasn’t sure if it was due to being locked up or too heavy, but either way Mick was resisting moving to that side. When I became aware of it, and thought about using the left side to pull up as much as the right side as I pushed down to move the ball things started to flow easier. I had to work to try to recreate the same sensation of having the wide feet to help me find the rest of my lower leg and then thigh. When we switched to the left it became more of a challenge to manage the swaps of the ball since Mick is not so stuck in that direction. It means that his balance is stronger, but it also ups the challenge for the rider as the rider can’t get stuck in a correction either. I finally figured out that the key was to make sure that the horse stays balanced is to simply ride straight. Genius, I know. Simply by working to create the same feel of wide feet, and the lower leg and thigh sensations no matter what Mick was doing helped him to find balance. If you don’t let your position change, then the horse can’t go out of balance because they meet a wall ever time they try to push through your seat and leg on either side. It means that small corrections are almost not corrections at all if you stay in the right place. The horse simply can’t move you out of the way.
We wrapped up there and headed around the corner to Quail Hollow Farm again to work Hercules and Condessa again. The two hours didn’t seem quite as grueling as the day before, and I spent the time looking at other details that I hadn’t been as focused on in the first session. The pain line was still there from the first day, and his muscles seemed to have retained the same amount of jiggle that we achieved the day before, which was really positive. I didn’t feel that over the course of the two hours we were able to achieve much more change, but there were more good steps of tracking in line and not quite as many dives out of the circle as there had been the first day. Working to the left he was tracking to the inside and behind his front feet with both his left and right; going to the right it was harder for him and he plowed out of the circle harder and more often on that side and his right hind tracked to the inside and behind his front but his left hind was tracking almost up to his front foot on that side. He pooped twice, and then acted like he had to pee, but ended up pooping instead, and then finally peed once. The poor boy’s muscles still had him all confused, but it was a positive change that he wasn’t letting go so much and was finding some balance again.
We finished up there and headed back home to chill out for a while. The day had been really relaxed, but still getting things done and it was a nice break from the hectic pace from the day before. Kirsten went to lay down for a while to reset her lower back and sent Gabby and I out to clean a row of palms on the side of the yard. Both of us got lost in all the fronds and trees, there were times I couldn’t even see her at all. The trees looked so much happier when we were finished, like they could breathe again. We drug all the fronds down to the pile at the edge of the driveway and left them for the weekly pickup.
Kirsten came back out refreshed, and was really happy with the results of our work. Since the sun was low, we got Prima all set up to ride and Kirsten warmed her up while Gaby and I watched. It turns out that Prima was the only horse of the day with any impulsion. All the horses we worked earlier in the day were slow and pokey, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it sure made a difference when we got started with Prima. She was offering the canter to Kirsten, so she took it and worked her at the faster speed. I was able to watch her position in the trot and really clarify where her low back should be, and how she ‘held in her guts’ as well as how still her lower leg really was. Once she was warmed up Kirsten traded and let me get on board.
I started to feel out her balance at the walk to find out how I was feeling and how she was doing. We started off to the right (as is our habit for some reason, probably because that is easiest coming from the mounting block) and worked to find the same sensations at the walk again. Kirsten encouraged us to move into the trot pretty quickly since Prima was already warmed up. She worked with me to help me get organized from the top downward this time, rather than my feet and legs upward. Putting the two “halves” together helped to gain another level of refinement for my body position. We took some time to really focus on how to organize for the rising trot and where my body should be in order to optimize my balance and position. Using the body’s structure is the key the rising trot – the movement is all based upon using the bones centered around flexing at the joints rather than using muscle. The easy habit (as is the pattern for most people) is to lift from the shoulders, rather than simply rising out of the hip joint. Kirsten showed the example of kneeling flat on the ground, with your feet flat down, and sitting down on your feet. If you rise out of your hip joints using your quads to pull and glutes to push, the shoulders don’t move. If you “cheat” and pull up from your shoulders, the upper body moves, and the back ends up hollowing out dramatically. The same is true on the horse. The ideal position is rising using the quads and glutes which takes less effort than using the upper body muscles. The other key to this position is holding the guts in, and keeping the shoulders slightly forward. Then the “rise” becomes simply propelling the shoulders upward, and the hips swing forward and back underneath the shoulders, which remain steady but light. I experimented with this positioning working at the walk and then moving into the trot to find the comfortable balance. It is harder than it seems, but the big keys for being effective for me are keeping the gut in and keeping the shoulders forward. This position felt awkward and out of balance at first, but became more natural as I continued to try to find it and hold onto the feeling.
I quickly discovered that when I had it right, I could easily handle the reins, ask for the bend and then get her head to drop. I could also handle using the whip to really ask her to move her ball off my leg and shift her out on the circle. She responded by attempting to bounce into the canter for me, which meant that I was largely in the correct position in the first place. When Kirsten saw this, she encouraged me to go into the canter to explore the balance so that I could work on using the speed to improve the trot. I had to do a few laps with Kirsten clarifying what I should do in order to prepare for the canter before my first attempt, and the first attempt was pretty much a mess. I expected this, and I am sure that Prima was well aware of just how unprepared I really was. Gotta start somewhere though. I managed to get about two strides before she was back into the trot again, which I was also totally unprepared for. Kirsten encouraged me to try again, and so as we came around the circle heading towards the front side of the yard, I asked again. That side of the circle was nice and “safe” since there wasn’t really anywhere for her to go if she or I got off track, she had to continue around the circle. The opposite side was the side with the rest of the back yard, and so Prima could have easily headed off into the yard rather than continuing on the circle. The second and subsequent attempts slowly improved as I found my position and also found how to keep asking her to keep going. Getting pitched forward when she hesitated as I lost my balance and then asked her to speed up and getting pitched back was even more dramatic at the canter than it had been at the trot. I was struggling to maintain myself, but Prima takes such good care of riders that when she feels the rider get out of balance she automatically slows down. This is a gift, except when you’re trying to work on getting into balance, and you’re well aware that you’re out of balance and so the slow down only makes it more difficult to regain the correct position. I was finally gaining some consistency, which was helping to boost my confidence. Kirsten really worked with me to put my shoulders more forward, and ride the rise and fall of the canter ‘like a jockey’ to feel allow my hip joints to open and close. Feeling as if I was way too far forward was disconcerting, but Prima’s response was very clear: she went smoother, and maintained the gait more consistently, and a few times I was even able to get her into a stretch at the canter.
I also was able to find a better weight distribution between my feet and my seat. Apparently I was carrying no weight in my feet, which meant that the stirrups slipped all over my foot, which is never a good thing. When I loaded my feet more and kept thinking of keeping them flat, I was able to have more flex in my hips and hold my position better. When my foot got too light and slipped forward into the stirrup I found that I was squeezing too much with my thighs. Hold the gut in, keep the back soft and the shoulders forward. Working from the top down helped to organize my leg position all that much better. It made me realize that at this stage it feels like a million moving parts trying to all function at once, and at first it feels like trying to juggle too many strange objects all at once when you don’t even know how to juggle two tennis balls.
We dropped back into the trot from the canter and were able to find position 2A and ALMOST 3 and were able to hold it for several strides at a time instead of it being a fleeting step or two. It was really nice to really be able to experience the correct postures for more than a step at a time.
The other change that I made was wearing my knee brace for the first time when riding. For whatever reason it did seem to help, and I could not tell if it was only a mental thing as opposed to really providing more support, but it didn’t matter. It is hot and sticky, but it works.

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Trip to Kirsten’s: Day 2: Locking In

By jmccleary on May 24, 2011

April 30th, 2011: We had a late start to the morning which was really refreshing. I still woke up at 7ish, but I was able to slowly get up and get the day started. We talked over the plan for the day and decided to ride here before it got too hot, and then head over to work under the covered arena during the warmest part of the day, and then return home for the afternoon.
We got Mick set up to ride and Kirsten got on first to warm him up good so that I would have an easier time of being able to ride and work on myself. She actually went all the way up to cantering with him in order to improve the slower gaits. Mick’s trot looked really good and strong, getting several steps of posture 3 at a time even in the trot after she finished the canter work. She talked me through the process as he worked in each direction and what she was having to do to balance him. He was going very well, and so she got down to let me climb up.
She set me up to try to find the same feelings that I had on Prima the evening before. Searching for the same sensations on a different horse took some experimentation. Finding the same position took a little while but I started to find the right feelings again, though Mick took more encouragement to really balance well in addition to my leg and rein aids. It took a while to really recreate the sensation, but once I found the right feelings he began responding faster and faster. Kirsten worked with me to adjust my posture some and help me find the right cues to be able to balance him. When we started working he was popped to the outside of the circle, which was interesting to re-balance because it was counter to what most horses do. It meant that paying attention to the feel of what the horse was doing was more important to keep correcting the horse to straightness. Trying to develop the same feel to keep getting back to the same sensations was a challenge, and as I got tired it got harder and harder. When we finally changed directions, it was a challenge to be able to keep him balanced because he began to flip back and forth from one side to the other very quickly. I was getting pretty tired by that point so it was getting more difficult to maintain my correct position, and to add to that the speed with which he was flipping made it really difficult to adjust to rapidly. Kirsten was calling out the directions of the ball to me as I was riding, which helped but I just couldn’t keep up. We wrapped up on a good note as I found some stability and Mick improved into posture 2 and I was able to maintain it.
After un-tacking Mick we took a short break before heading over to Quail Hollow Farm to work a couple of horses. Hercules and Condessa needed marathon 2 hour sessions on the long lines to help them work out some issues. Hercules was so tight that he needed the entire 2 hours of very slow walking to make a change. He was working so hard at the slowest pace possible, but yet wasn’t tring to stop too much. Kirsten working Condessa at the other end of the arena made Hercules look like a cow pony just poking along. He was doing a lot of stretching and twisting and chewing with his mouth in rather odd positions, and it reminded me of Julius in slow motion. The stretching was really helping him to loosen up ever so slowly. He started out so stiff and hard, but eventually I began to see tiny wiggles, more like small vibrations in areas of his shoulders and hindquarters. They were so faint that I could only see them when he came around the circle on a certain side in the light. He also pooped a lot. In our two hour session he pooped six times total, and ended up peeing twice! Making all the changes in his body was making him feel strange, and he was often stopping as if to poop, but nothing would happen. He stopped several times before he actually peed, and would begin to park out but wouldn’t actually do anything, and would look around at his side and look at me with a bit of a quizzical look on his face. The changes in his muscles were making him feel strange, and apparently affecting his body function as well.
His primary pattern was to pull outward on the circle, so the hand with the inside rein was continually getting a workout. He needed to be tipped out on the circle in order to begin to find stability in his hind end. We worked, changing direction every 30 minutes as Kirsten watched the clock for us. The pattern was always the same, regardless of the direction, he would pull outward rather hard as we worked along. As his muscles slowly began to loosen they finally started rippling and jiggling the way that they are supposed to. I noticed on one of the turns as he worked with his right side to me that he had a line that almost looked like a scar across his shoulder. I asked Kirsten about it and from the other end of the arena she said that he had no scar or anything. When we finally finished up, I showed it to her and she said it is called a ‘pain line’ for some reason. It is the result of increased blood flow to an area, below the line was a bit puffy, which is where the blood was moving again, and the area above was still flat where circulation had not yet returned. It was interesting to watch the changes in him over such a long slow period of time, and realize that he had to have the work that long and slow in order to make the change. He simply would not be able to accomplish those changes at a faster speed. The contrast against the work that I did with Razzie the day before where he needed the faster work in order to loosen up first was very stark. The trick is knowing how to make the right choice to reach the same end goal for each of the horses with very different paths to get to that goal.
We put away Candessa and Hercules after a good hosing and got Bree and Red out of the pasture for their work. Thankfully they only needed hour long sessions! Bree was having a problem with her right hind which was causing her left front to go lame from the over compensation. Kirsten explained that if Bree was worked to the left at all she would appear totally lame on that front foot, so I was to only allow her to work to the right for the hour. We set out, and I was grateful that she was not pulling near so hard outside the circle as Hercules had, so it was not as much of a struggle to handle her and keep her balanced. She was still tipping outside the circle in order to stay somewhat balanced, and I noticed right away that she was tracking with her hindquarters pretty drastically to the inside of where her front feet were tracking. Watching her left front and back feet showed that her back foot was tracking anywhere from a complete step inside where her front foot stepped to six or eight inches to the inside of her front step. It was also noticeable that her right hock was very stiff. She was not able to flex her leg upward in order step forward, so her leg sort of dragged forward, instead of stepping fluidly. She made progress over the course of the hour, but she was still struggling. She has an appointment with Jeffra coming up on Sunday, so hopefully Jeffra will be able to help. I also noticed that she had a pain line on her shoulder but it was not as pronounced as Hercules had been.
We finished up there and headed home to take a bit of a break before working Prima. We tacked her up and Kirsten rode first to get Prima nice and warmed up. I studied Kirsten as she rode and worked Prima through her paces. She did not let Prima ‘get away’ with being out of balance. Her corrections were immediate, and timing was perfect so that as Prima lost her balance Kirsten was already actively doing things to get her back into balance. Her feel of knowing what happened before what happens happens was perfect. Watching her post and seeing exactly what she was doing and her positioning helped me to gain a better understanding of where my body should be. She finished warming her up and I climbed on and began to try to put things together again, seeking that same feeling and locking it in. As Kirsten guided me I began to notice other things about the position that got the right answer from Prima. I was able to connect the feeling of my lower leg, and the feeling of my thigh together in the position to gain a better feel for when it was “right.” Kirsten encouraged me to experiment with the trot and so I began to work with Prima to ask her to trot. It took a lot of work for me to bring my energy up and help her to find the faster gait. She didn’t completely believe that I really wanted to trot, and it took some convincing from me, and then more convincing to persuade her that I was balanced enough to stay in the trot. Trying to juggle the horse’s gait and keep them moving when you are experimenting with the positioning trying to get it right only makes it that much more challenging. Prima and I went through the scenario of her trotting, me getting unbalanced, she slowing down, which pitched me forward, and me saying no, no, don’t slow down, and her speeding up again which pitched me back and then her eye roll and quip of “see, I knew you weren’t in balance!” Slowly as I experimented those moments became fewer, and I began to connect the pieces and get the feeling locked in at the faster gait. I discovered that if I focused on keeping my feet feeling flat and wide that my leg ended up in a better position, and did not come out of the position as often. That resulted in the right answer because Prima was able to stay in the trot more consistently and I was able to help her find the stretch through that process. I am sure I was not as effective at shifting my weight, but the fact that my legs remained more stable due to focusing on my feet meant that the rest of my body was much closer to being in the correct position and so she was able to give me the stretch into position 2A.
We finally wrapped up as the light was fading and Prima got a hose off after we took her tack off. Kirsten had been working in the palms cleaning them out of the dead fronds from the winter cold snaps, and since there was just enough light left she put me to work digging a hole to transplant a few of her Bougainvillaea bushes to help fill in across the front of her fence line. They are nasty plants with thorns that have a bit of a poison in them that likes to cause quite an irritation if you get poked (which is almost impossible not to do). Once the hole was ready she set me on another palm and I worked to clean out a lot of the dead fronds. It just looked like it could breathe when I was finished, which made me feel better. By that time it was just about dark, and so Kirsten and I headed inside. Roger and Gabby had arrived from the store with supplies for dinner and got to work making burgers and salad while Kirsten and I headed off to find the shower to remove the layer of black dirt that we were covered in from the ride and gardening. It felt so good to wash off the ick and as a result dinner didn’t get eaten until 10:00. And boy did it taste good!

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Trip to Kirsten’s: Day 1: Finding the Right Position

By jmccleary on May 24, 2011

April 29th, 2011: My flight arrived in Florida at 11:00, and Kirsten and I hit the ground running. She first went to teach a lesson for Renee with her beautiful paint mare Stella, and a gorgeous palomino Tyson. Watching the work on the long reins with Stella and the liberty work with Tyson was a learning experience. Seeing someone else processing the work and another horse working through things makes a bit difference. She finished with the lesson and then got out a walking horse to work for a while. I relaxed and munched on a snack while she rode watching the changes as Ziggy found his balance and became more stable. She was able to get him into posture 3 for several steps at a time.
We left there and headed out to ERAF to work Logan, the young pony, and Mellagro, the paso fino that we got to work when we were here in September. Both horses needed long line work, and Kirsten turned Logan out in the round pen first and he blew off some massive steam for a little while cavorting around doing all sorts of gymnastics. I got Mellagro set up with the long lines and we started our work outside the round pen, and watching Kirsten as we worked around was like watching someone trying to juggle string. Logan was really giving her the what for learning to handle the long lines. He wasn’t very interested in doing the work at first, but eventually began to settle down.
Mellagro and I kept plugging away on the long lines all the while. The wind was blowing pretty hard, but Mellagro kept working away. He was pulling out pretty badly, but in order for him to find his balance, he actually had to be counter bent on the circle. I left him alone and continued to simply make sure that the inside rein held the contact, doing whatever I needed to do with the outside rein to support him. We worked for about an hour while Logan calmed down and Mellagro plugged away. He very clearly let me know when he wanted to be done, and Kirsten wrapped things up with Logan not long after that.
We put them away and headed back to the house to drop my stuff off before heading to another set of lessons. Turns out that the owner couldn’t be there, so we just worked the horses on the long lines. Max and Razzie both needed the same kind of support as Mellagro, but they needed to begin the session by trotting for a while on the long lines to get themselves loosened up. Razzie was a challenge because he didn’t have much forward, and it was obvious that it was a struggle for him due to the imbalance in his hind legs. Trotting them for the length of time first allowed him to really loosen up so that the walk became that much stronger. Both Razzie and Max had to go through the same issue of trotting and walking counter bent on the circle in order to find stability in their inside hind leg. Both horses did really well, and we enjoyed the cool wind as we worked, expecting it to rain any minute, but it never did.
We headed back home and had enough daylight left to be able to get a ride in on Prima. Since Kirsten had been able to work through the saddle fit issues, her horses were progressing rapidly. Riding her this time was infinitely easier than our first visit in September. I was able to be effective with Prima, and get the results. Once I was able to take her head off track and then shift my weight to get her to stretch downward Kirsten started to work with my positioning and posture. Her saddle isn’t nice and squishy like mine is so it is a bit more uncomfortable for my butt. She adjusted some things so that I was sitting with more weight in my stirrups which took weight off of my seat. It also engaged my lower leg more, and placed my thigh in a more powerful position. By sitting slightly more forward in my pelvis but concentrating on holding my guts in (effectively engaging my ab muscles), Prima started to voluntarily drop her head without me needing to shift my weight. Kirsten explained that once the body is in the correct position, the horse can’t help but put themselves into the correct position as well. Holding that position means that the horse runs into a wall when they try to shift the ball out of balance. I was getting more and more strong steps with Prima for longer and longer. Kirsten had me take a moment to really feel the correct position and notice what I was aware of first with the position and then concentrate on trying to always have that feeling, and notice as soon as it was gone and get right back to it. It was hard work, but the results were immediate with Prima. She was responding and giving me the feedback as soon as I was in the right place. It was refreshing to be able to really just work on me and not have to worry about Prima reacting to something else or not giving me the right response if I gave the right cue out of confusion.
I finally slipped down and we put her away before throwing together dinner, which didn’t get completed until after 9:30. When there is daylight there is still work to be done.

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BabyDoll Day 3

By TLauer on May 10, 2011

9 yr old Appaloosa mare. Never been broke, although incredible friendly (basically treated like a dog the last 7 years or so). Owners would like to trail ride and eventually barrel race.

Day 1 and 2: Learning Frame of Mind and Round pen work on a line to get consistent forward motion.

Day 3: Saddle introduction and round pen work – walk, trot, canter at liberty.

BD’s movement is interesting around the round pen. At the walk her hindquarters appear to be more level than at the trot. Although she is not bringing her head down level to her withers, her hips to not tilt as noticeably.

When she is trotting, no matter the direction, the outside hip is always higher than the inside hip. If the right side is higher, is she sort-striding on the outside leg?

I have been watching her movement very closely at the trot and canter. She is weaker on the left hind going to the left and cannot maintain gait for long periods of time without breaking down to a trot. To the right she is more consistent. I thought this imbalance would be more noticeable at the trot, but she seems to be equally tilted regardless of direction at the trot. In both pictures above the far hind leg is out behind her, but her hip is still noticeably higher than the closest hind. I guess I thought the far hip would level out more, especially when she does not have weight on it in that moment.

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