New Techniques (that I should have known long ago)

Well, hardly new. More like new to me, as ashamed as I am to admit it.

You know how I said I was done training Cherry? I still am, but what I didn't expect is that I'm certainly not done training ME. In fact, my own training has been woefully neglected ever since I bought Cherry. My riding lessons turned into horse training lessons, and all the focus was on Cherry, not me. It was all about her reactions, her training, and her learning. I was a mere accessory to this. Not good, I know, but it's done now.

Alright, what the heck am I talking about here?! I had an Aha! moment on the whole concept of release. How long have I been riding again? Oh, that's right. Plenty long enough to have learned this years ago. *sigh* Better late then never.

I've known about release and all that for a long time, but not really how to use it properly. Release over fences, after a half halt, blah blah blah. That's all it was to me. Kind of a vague idea that I tried to implement, but never knew if I was doing it right. Like the whole "inside leg into outside rein" concept, it took me forever to figure out because nobody really explained it.

It seems like all my years of dressage lessons and clinics and book reading hasn't really made sense to me until Right Now. All the knowledge was there, but how it all fit together and worked was not. I've been having many small Aha! moments in the last few months, but this one was particularly grand.

So how did I make this wonderful discovery?

http://www.sustainabledressage.net/

More specifically

http://www.sustainabledressage.net/rollkur/work_stretch.php

I LOVE this website, and I really agree with a lot of what this woman talks about. The use of force to get the horse to do your bidding is wrong, and creates tension where there should be relaxation. Some of it gets a little repetitive and heavy on terminology, but for the most part, I find it to be an amazing collection of articles.

Reading the Work & Stretch article really opened a new door. For years, I was taught that the release came after the work, and most importantly after the work was through. Work happened in long stretches, and the release followed these long intervals. "Teach Cherry to LIKE walking," was a lesson I vividly remember.

In the article, the author talks about how the release should come very frequently, after EVERY burst of (correct) work. Her interval was 1-2 minutes at the max. Huh?

When I first read that, I admit I laughed. Release every couple minutes? Are you crazy? I'll never get my horse back to work again! One of my problems is that Cherry likes to jerk her head down and yank the reins, not stretch slowly down and out. Then it's tough to get her back. Maybe, just maybe, she does this because I don't let her out often enough and her neck is tense and cramped. Hmmm...........

The author goes on to say that self carriage, collection, and being on the bit is hard work. I suppose she's right. Horses don't naturally travel like that, so it stands to reason that doing all of these things is effort for them. Hence the frequent release. Reward the effort with a chance to relax.

So I tried it. And I was amazed.

It worked. It worked really, really well. I started small, releasing when Cherry asked to stretch down. Usually she likes to do this after backing up or any lateral movement. Any jerking on the reins was met with immediate re-establishment of contact and work.

Pretty soon, she'd stretch down when I offered it. We even got one or two really nice, full down and out stretches. I'd let her stretch, then I'd gently close my leg and take back the rein. And she came back! That was a moment right there in and of itself.

This was all at the walk. Moving up into trot she was a bit tense, but I got her to relax. Not the full stretch, but she did reach down a few times. Hopefully she'll get more comfortable as we go along. Canter was amazing. I didn't really want her to stretch, but by this point we'd done a lot of stretching and she was relaxed and moving well.

Another thing I noticed though, our transitions need a lllllllllllllllot of work. Hoo boy do they suck! Didn't notice this as much when we were out of balance and not working correctly most of the time, but the contrast between nice, balanced canter and nearly falling into a walk was amazing. I see it now, and I need to remember my half halts.

I think the joint supplement is helping too. Cherry is much more willing to step under herself with her hind legs now, and yesterday (the day of the Killer Quail and Other Monsters), she was feeling pretty damn good. I rode for nearly two hours, and she was just as perky at the end as she was when I got her out of the pasture.




Maybe this new realization has something to do with my decision to ignore the damn horse and work on my own riding. No, not maybe, definitely. If I ride correctly with clear aides, my horse will come along with me. Gee whiz, really?! Of course, it's so simple, why did it never occur to me before? Perhaps the very simplicity of it makes it difficult to grasp.

Riding is not complicated, it's quite simple in theory. However, it is extremely complex with deepening levels of sophistication and refinement. But it's not complicated, and I think we screw up the most when we try to make it so.