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glenatronToday we had an afternoon of lessons with Shuna Shaw who was down from Scotland for a weekend of teaching in this part of the country. We have been to clinics she has run in the past and her calm no-nonsense approach and clear explanations make her a really good teacher and made the afternoon a really useful bit of support between the two clinics with Steve Halfpenny, in June and September.
Zorro and I were up first, working on our groundwork. We began with some leading, trying to work on the way that Zorro tends to drop his shoulder on me when we're leading (I always lead from the shoulder) so that rather than going along as a pair of parallel lines we converge. When Zorro starts to drop his shoulder on me I have to then push it away one way or another which inspires him to push back and ultimately turns the whole thing into a bit of an unnecessary argument. Shuna observed that we went fairly well when I was focussing on where we were going but the moment my focus switched to Zorro he would start to drop in on me. She suggested I just use the end of the rope to swing around myself when I felt him get a little close in order to mark the border of my personal space. If he was in range of the rope then it would catch him, but the point was to make it very clear that I didn't want him any closer than that. The important thing about this is that it is always about my personal space rather than about doing anything to him so he never has a chance to turn it into a fight.
The other advantage is that it asks him to be brave without being close to me. It's very easy to teach a horse to be brave when they're right with you and then find that when there is a problem of any kind they are suddenly in your pocket or on your toes or otherwise squashing you. If they can find you equally reassuring while they are a little further away things are safer for everyone.
Next we started working from a driving position, where I lead from around the point where the saddle is. This is really useful for work that you want to be the same from the ground and in the saddle and we were using it particularly to work on transitions and on modulating speed within the paces. We haven't done so much of this so it was a bit new to both of us- we were able to get things going quite nicely with Zorro pretty much following my movement and using that for his cues, until Shuna pointed out that I was working as hard as he was and that actually I could use being able to set things up so he did more and I did less.
We were working with very mirrored feet, so that my feet and his were landing at exactly the same time and by changing the pace of my feet I could change the pace of his, but as we get faster that is harder work than it needs to be. Shuna had me focussing on asking him to move on without moving more myself, letting him widen the circle we were working on to adjust to the requirements of his movement.
Getting started. It looks a bit like lunging but it is actually leading work so it's not on a fixed circle and I am looking for the horse to be paying me close attention the whole time rather than just running around in circles and zoning me out.
I'm obviously finding the whole thing very entertaining. Probably Zorro has outsmarted me in some respect. It happens a lot.
Zorro soon started to really get the hang of it- here his trot has really picked up and he's stepping into that striking and very brisk movement that is a marker of either his Section D or his Fresian ancestry, whichever it is he has.
Notice that in this one, compared with the previous two, I'm not precisely in step with him.
Of course, there were some minor disagreements, but once I got him from trying to drag me across the school back onto moving on the circle things went smoothly again.
The outcome of this was partly that Zorro started listening for much smaller cues so not only was I having to do less, I was able to drop my requests right down as well. The only problem he had was that he really wants to disengage to a halt, taking his hindquarters away and turning to face me. That's fine if we need an emergency stop but he seems to have learned that it is the only possible way to stop on a line. To work on this Shuna suggested that if he was intending to disengage I should just walk out behind him, which will draw him round in a full turn and bring him in to catch up with me on the other rein. It sounds very complicated but practically it is just a case of walking in a straight line behind the horse and letting them do the rest. Also handy if you have a horse who is thinking they might leave while you've got them on the line or who has stopped paying attention to what you're asking them to do.
Our stops weren't perfect but Zorro enjoyed the more challenging manouvre and seemed to stop getting so excited about the idea of turning to face me every time he stopped.
We were kind of expecting Zorro's owner to come over and see us in action but as we were about to get to riding and she still hadn't arrived it seemed a good idea to swap in with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sleepsy_mouse and do some more work with Zorro afterwards.
For people not familiar with Small Pony (or Jasper as he is actually named) he came to us as a very sweet and very willing little horse who could do anything except go into a school. At some point he had been treated very harshly in a school and to even just walk through the gate into one was to reduce pony into a nervous wreck. We have been working on this since the foot and mouth outbreak because we couldn't really go off the yard, doing bits of groundwork in the school and interspersing it with letting him have a few tasty horse treats or a carrot in a bucket.
It seems to have worked reasonably well because he was absolutely amazing in his groundwork- offering everything he was asked for off something very close to invisible cues. It was absolutely beautiful to watch. There is a more detailed account of this here- seeing him understand lateral work on the lead like switching on a light was very impressive.
It was interesting to see the difference in him when he was tacked up and realised he might have to do some ridden work in the school, which he has never done with us aside from a brief few steps into and out of the gate after a hack. Suddenly the softness and lightness dropped out of him and we started to see a few of the anxieties that are part of the reason he has come to stay with us. Spot the difference:
On the lead.
On the same lead, but wearing his saddle and bridle.
It took a while to get him settled again with his tack on and then they went on to riding. I don't think I can add much tosleepsy_mouse' post here, so I'll leave it at that except to say that Small Pony moves stunningly even when he's having a fluster.
Zorro's owner, Kerin, had arrived by this point and we went in and fetched our awesome black cob for a bit of ridden work. My real focus was to try to get my cues working a little quicker so I wasn't having to nag him and he was responding promptly and accurately to what I was asking. We started out by going back to the driving work we had been doing before and checking we both remembered it and seeing how light I could actually make my requests. Having had a bit of time for us both to think it over I found I was able to get Zorro to pick up into a brisk trot and even into a canter just by breathing in and slightly picking up my energy.
I have heard and read so much about people using their energy to work with their horses and I've always found the term slightly diffuse and hard to get a hold of. I think that is because it's something that only really makes sense when you know what it feels like- like explaining to someone who has never sat on a horse what it feels like to ride in walk. Today it finally makes sense to me, which is a door that I've been trying to open for some time. The subtlety that Zorro was able to respond to was fantastic.
Once in the saddle I was trying to get those transitions equally smart, so that I wouldn't have to squeeze hard or keep nagging with my leg, just give a gentle squeeze and get the pace that I have asked for. Much of this is about backing up the ask as soon as it isn't followed, at first Shuna helped me with this by offering a bit of a push with the stick and string then she had me doing it, using the end of the reins (I was riding on a looped 12' line off my halter so there was quite a loop on them) to reinforce the cues from my legs. Once again this started to show me how light I can make my cues as Zorro started paying attention to that soft ask and really responding to it. We only did a few minutes of this, as time was running out on us, but it has put me in a place where I have a whole lot to work on over the next few weeks.
It rained on us for most of the time I was riding and intermittently for the rest of the afternoon but in spite of miserable weather it was a really useful day for all for of us and it was a great help having Shuna to make things clear, explain why things were happening as they were and show us how to make them happen the way we wanted to. Really useful stuff.
It goes without saying that I am immensely proud of my pony.
Zorro and I were up first, working on our groundwork. We began with some leading, trying to work on the way that Zorro tends to drop his shoulder on me when we're leading (I always lead from the shoulder) so that rather than going along as a pair of parallel lines we converge. When Zorro starts to drop his shoulder on me I have to then push it away one way or another which inspires him to push back and ultimately turns the whole thing into a bit of an unnecessary argument. Shuna observed that we went fairly well when I was focussing on where we were going but the moment my focus switched to Zorro he would start to drop in on me. She suggested I just use the end of the rope to swing around myself when I felt him get a little close in order to mark the border of my personal space. If he was in range of the rope then it would catch him, but the point was to make it very clear that I didn't want him any closer than that. The important thing about this is that it is always about my personal space rather than about doing anything to him so he never has a chance to turn it into a fight.
The other advantage is that it asks him to be brave without being close to me. It's very easy to teach a horse to be brave when they're right with you and then find that when there is a problem of any kind they are suddenly in your pocket or on your toes or otherwise squashing you. If they can find you equally reassuring while they are a little further away things are safer for everyone.
Next we started working from a driving position, where I lead from around the point where the saddle is. This is really useful for work that you want to be the same from the ground and in the saddle and we were using it particularly to work on transitions and on modulating speed within the paces. We haven't done so much of this so it was a bit new to both of us- we were able to get things going quite nicely with Zorro pretty much following my movement and using that for his cues, until Shuna pointed out that I was working as hard as he was and that actually I could use being able to set things up so he did more and I did less.
We were working with very mirrored feet, so that my feet and his were landing at exactly the same time and by changing the pace of my feet I could change the pace of his, but as we get faster that is harder work than it needs to be. Shuna had me focussing on asking him to move on without moving more myself, letting him widen the circle we were working on to adjust to the requirements of his movement.
Getting started. It looks a bit like lunging but it is actually leading work so it's not on a fixed circle and I am looking for the horse to be paying me close attention the whole time rather than just running around in circles and zoning me out.
I'm obviously finding the whole thing very entertaining. Probably Zorro has outsmarted me in some respect. It happens a lot.
Zorro soon started to really get the hang of it- here his trot has really picked up and he's stepping into that striking and very brisk movement that is a marker of either his Section D or his Fresian ancestry, whichever it is he has.
Notice that in this one, compared with the previous two, I'm not precisely in step with him.
Of course, there were some minor disagreements, but once I got him from trying to drag me across the school back onto moving on the circle things went smoothly again.
The outcome of this was partly that Zorro started listening for much smaller cues so not only was I having to do less, I was able to drop my requests right down as well. The only problem he had was that he really wants to disengage to a halt, taking his hindquarters away and turning to face me. That's fine if we need an emergency stop but he seems to have learned that it is the only possible way to stop on a line. To work on this Shuna suggested that if he was intending to disengage I should just walk out behind him, which will draw him round in a full turn and bring him in to catch up with me on the other rein. It sounds very complicated but practically it is just a case of walking in a straight line behind the horse and letting them do the rest. Also handy if you have a horse who is thinking they might leave while you've got them on the line or who has stopped paying attention to what you're asking them to do.
Our stops weren't perfect but Zorro enjoyed the more challenging manouvre and seemed to stop getting so excited about the idea of turning to face me every time he stopped.
We were kind of expecting Zorro's owner to come over and see us in action but as we were about to get to riding and she still hadn't arrived it seemed a good idea to swap in with
sleepsy_mouse and do some more work with Zorro afterwards.For people not familiar with Small Pony (or Jasper as he is actually named) he came to us as a very sweet and very willing little horse who could do anything except go into a school. At some point he had been treated very harshly in a school and to even just walk through the gate into one was to reduce pony into a nervous wreck. We have been working on this since the foot and mouth outbreak because we couldn't really go off the yard, doing bits of groundwork in the school and interspersing it with letting him have a few tasty horse treats or a carrot in a bucket.
It seems to have worked reasonably well because he was absolutely amazing in his groundwork- offering everything he was asked for off something very close to invisible cues. It was absolutely beautiful to watch. There is a more detailed account of this here- seeing him understand lateral work on the lead like switching on a light was very impressive.
It was interesting to see the difference in him when he was tacked up and realised he might have to do some ridden work in the school, which he has never done with us aside from a brief few steps into and out of the gate after a hack. Suddenly the softness and lightness dropped out of him and we started to see a few of the anxieties that are part of the reason he has come to stay with us. Spot the difference:
On the lead.
On the same lead, but wearing his saddle and bridle.
It took a while to get him settled again with his tack on and then they went on to riding. I don't think I can add much to
sleepsy_mouse' post here, so I'll leave it at that except to say that Small Pony moves stunningly even when he's having a fluster.Zorro's owner, Kerin, had arrived by this point and we went in and fetched our awesome black cob for a bit of ridden work. My real focus was to try to get my cues working a little quicker so I wasn't having to nag him and he was responding promptly and accurately to what I was asking. We started out by going back to the driving work we had been doing before and checking we both remembered it and seeing how light I could actually make my requests. Having had a bit of time for us both to think it over I found I was able to get Zorro to pick up into a brisk trot and even into a canter just by breathing in and slightly picking up my energy.
I have heard and read so much about people using their energy to work with their horses and I've always found the term slightly diffuse and hard to get a hold of. I think that is because it's something that only really makes sense when you know what it feels like- like explaining to someone who has never sat on a horse what it feels like to ride in walk. Today it finally makes sense to me, which is a door that I've been trying to open for some time. The subtlety that Zorro was able to respond to was fantastic.
Once in the saddle I was trying to get those transitions equally smart, so that I wouldn't have to squeeze hard or keep nagging with my leg, just give a gentle squeeze and get the pace that I have asked for. Much of this is about backing up the ask as soon as it isn't followed, at first Shuna helped me with this by offering a bit of a push with the stick and string then she had me doing it, using the end of the reins (I was riding on a looped 12' line off my halter so there was quite a loop on them) to reinforce the cues from my legs. Once again this started to show me how light I can make my cues as Zorro started paying attention to that soft ask and really responding to it. We only did a few minutes of this, as time was running out on us, but it has put me in a place where I have a whole lot to work on over the next few weeks.
It rained on us for most of the time I was riding and intermittently for the rest of the afternoon but in spite of miserable weather it was a really useful day for all for of us and it was a great help having Shuna to make things clear, explain why things were happening as they were and show us how to make them happen the way we wanted to. Really useful stuff.
It goes without saying that I am immensely proud of my pony.
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no subject
Date: 19 Aug 2007 21:38 (UTC)I'm so psyched that 'using your energy' finally makes sense to you!! That is where it really gets fun...and its something that takes practicing over a lifetime.
Shuna sounds like a great instructor, from reading your notes. That is some very clear instruction, and gave me something to think about as well.
no subject
Date: 19 Aug 2007 23:16 (UTC)The energy thing I've been sort of on the edge of for a while now but today it finally fell into place and it was really amazing. I guess it's kind of a mark that some of the important foundations are in place.
no subject
Date: 19 Aug 2007 23:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Aug 2007 19:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 20 Aug 2007 23:00 (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Aug 2007 16:22 (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Aug 2007 20:19 (UTC)It's a fascinating area- a lot of the reflective stuff comes down to herd dynamics and survival strategies when predators appear, very interesting.