Lessons with Karen
20 October 2007 21:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronToday we had Karen French over for a lesson with each of us and our horses. Karen is a tremendous teacher who has studied horses for most of her life, first through Pony Club and the BHS then through Classical Dressage and the Alexander Technique (not riding specific, obviously, but it really influences her way of teaching) to where she is now teaching Natural Horsemanship in a way that is informed by all the other approaches she has learned from.
We began a little early because a certain small pony of our aquaintance has decided that if the weather is sunny he would really prefer to stay in his field please. Or possibly it's something to do with the fact that he hasn't done as much work as he would like at the moment and he just loves running.
Either way, he felt that charging about would be more fun than being caught:
Run away...
Keep running!
It's not difficult to catch him, you just go through the standard stuff and it works exactly like it is supposed to- it just takes a little while because he has extraordinary stamina and he really loves to run about. Also he is very sensitive so you have to really be paying attention for his tries or you'll be there all day.
Of course, although it's not difficult it is quite time consuming so I wasn't elated when he introduced this as his new trick last Thursday morning, while our trimmer was waiting to do his feet.
If I look really cute maybe they will forget what a pest I was a minute ago.
Karen arrived and Lou (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sleepsy_mouse ) and Small opted to have the first lesson as Zorro was still in the field. Zorro is easy to catch, though- show him a rope and he will pretty much grab it and drag you in so you can play.
They began by talking about Small's life and the work they need to be doing - he is still a bit anxious of the saddle- he doesn't explode, but when you bring it over to him he will move away from it and generally look anxious which indicates that he doesn't feel entirely safe about it. One thing Karen recommended was to do everything with the saddle around, so it just becomes part of the scenery. When they went to the school to start on some groundwork Karen put the saddle on a jump block in the middle so that they could use it as a stopping and resting point to help build positive associations for it as far as pony is concerned.
There would be no problem physically with Lou just chucking the saddle on pony's back and hopping on, he would tolerate it and not throw her straight off again, but he would be very unhappy about it and it would push him harder than is fair.
They worked on relaxing him on the ground, first getting him attentive with Lou working from a driving position ( so she is parallel with his hindquarters ) and using some of the same techniques that we used in the liberty work at the clinic to move his quarters around. This was followed by the same work with a saddle on, which as usual Small found a lot harder emotionally. He handled it, though, and soon they were doing some lovely trot and canter transitions just from Lou's energy.
Lou hopped on Small's back and Karen set up a square of jump blocks about 14 metres across to help guide shapes around and had Lou and Small making a circle around them, trying to maintain a correct bend so that he was really working on the circle, then varying it to be a square with accurate corners or to move from a circle outside the blocks to one inside the blocks and so on. The concentration and the feeling of "having a job to do" really help both horse and rider to focus and get themselves working together.
That doesn't sound like much but they actually covered a lot of ground and took quite a while so by this point they were about done and I went off to find my pony. I think Karen and Lou were discussing useful and insightful things while I went on Zorro retrieval but you'll have to wait for her post onsleepsy_mouse to find out what...
I brought Zorro in and we talked about where we were and how I'd come back from the clinic and immediately found all the awesome stuff that I had been getting there appeared to have fallen out of my brain on the drive back. Although I'd managed to pick bits of it back up, large areas were missing, presumed totally forgotten.
When we got to the school and started on a bit of leading work Karen observed that one of the big things that I'd lost was my sense of direction. Not in the sense that I didn't know where I was going but... no, actually in exactly that sense come to think of it. She was totally right- I wasn't picking up targets and making a really focussed job of going there. Zorro was ambling along at his own pace and I was just wandering, conveying neither importance nor direction and leaving him behind as his innate cob friction caused his movement to tend towards that of the slowest possible snail, like a character from one of Zeno's paradoxes.
I started trying to pick that up a bit and - after a while of persuading Zorro that this wasn't the time for sleeping on the hoof - we started to move a with a bit more purpose and began to look more like a team. We still had the four jump wings up to form a circle so we used those to make circles and squares on the ground, working to help Zorro keep his forward, which I was risking losing somewhat. This is going to be a big thing for us over the next few months, really thinking about forwards first and building everything else on top of that because it's so much easier to steer and maneuver when you have a little momentum. We worked on some of the same leading from behind principles, which I found pretty hard because I needed to be driving Zorro's hindquarters forward and stopping him turning around to face me at the same time. Again, something to practice - one of the main purposes of lessons like this.
When I got on we continued working on my two main objectives for the day- to help Zorro not be afraid of the Evil Hedge Of Doom and to help me use my arms less so it doesn't look like I'm trying to have a conversation in semaphore when I'm riding.
There were plenty of other things that came out of that- we used the square as the corners of a circle, which I found very hard to visualise if I was looking at the next corner, but quite easy to visualise if I was looking at the one beyond, riding ahead is something I'm only just starting to be able to do and I need to get better at if I'm going to get this objective-based "got a job to do" thing working out well for Zorro and I. Whenever Zorro wanted to bend outside the circle (usually so he could eyeball the EHOD ) Karen had me taking him around a smaller circle at the next corner so that we recovered the bend, got him listening back to me and then got back on the wider circle with a bit of that shape preserved. The problem I found was that when Zorro lost his bend I was tending to lose focus on where we were going and I was actually letting his change in shape draw my shoulders to the outside.
Realising that lead to a really big light-bulb moment for me, which is that I've been rubbish at riding corners all along. I mean, that wasn't so much of a shock, but part of the reason is that I grew up riding bicycles: For most of my formative years I was charging around the local tracks on my mountain bike and one of the big things about cycling is that you lean into the corners. Without even thinking about it or being aware of it I've been doing the same on horseback, probably for as long as I've been riding. Being aware of that and keeping my shoulders consciously level brought out an immediate change in Zorro.
In fact my position was generally a bit poor- I ride a lot better than I did but because I'm tall but slightly wussy I have always tended to slouch a little, partly to make me look less noticeable, partly to avoid braining myself in low doorways. Possibly, it occurs to me as I type, also because I spend most of my day typing which also draws my shoulders forward and closes up my chest. I've been working on this (and I've made improvements over time) but Karen had me really working to keep my shoulders up and back and my head high so that I'm more self-supported and allow pony's back more freedom to move.
Here is an interesting comparison:
Me last week
Me today
My head is a lot higher and my shoulders are a bit higher and wider in the second of those. I don't look quite relaxed in the second picture because that feeling is still new to me, but now I know how it feels I can really work on learning to relax into it...
We spent the whole lesson working on the circle, finding ways to vary it, working on getting half and quarter circles of trot and walk with accurately positioned transitions. What was interesting was that although the bottom corner of the circle was only about seven feet from the EHOD we didn't have any big spooks from Zorro, he just kept a bit of an eye on it when we were nearby. Whenever he seemed to be getting a bit anxious and spooky I was changing things a bit so we had a new task for him to think about rather than flustering about imaginary hedgebeasts.
I feel like I have a huge amount to work on now- my position and my focus particularly - and I think that if I can get them working for me we'll be able to really take some big steps forward over the next few months.
We began a little early because a certain small pony of our aquaintance has decided that if the weather is sunny he would really prefer to stay in his field please. Or possibly it's something to do with the fact that he hasn't done as much work as he would like at the moment and he just loves running.
Either way, he felt that charging about would be more fun than being caught:
Run away...
Keep running!
It's not difficult to catch him, you just go through the standard stuff and it works exactly like it is supposed to- it just takes a little while because he has extraordinary stamina and he really loves to run about. Also he is very sensitive so you have to really be paying attention for his tries or you'll be there all day.
Of course, although it's not difficult it is quite time consuming so I wasn't elated when he introduced this as his new trick last Thursday morning, while our trimmer was waiting to do his feet.
If I look really cute maybe they will forget what a pest I was a minute ago.
Karen arrived and Lou (
sleepsy_mouse ) and Small opted to have the first lesson as Zorro was still in the field. Zorro is easy to catch, though- show him a rope and he will pretty much grab it and drag you in so you can play.They began by talking about Small's life and the work they need to be doing - he is still a bit anxious of the saddle- he doesn't explode, but when you bring it over to him he will move away from it and generally look anxious which indicates that he doesn't feel entirely safe about it. One thing Karen recommended was to do everything with the saddle around, so it just becomes part of the scenery. When they went to the school to start on some groundwork Karen put the saddle on a jump block in the middle so that they could use it as a stopping and resting point to help build positive associations for it as far as pony is concerned.
There would be no problem physically with Lou just chucking the saddle on pony's back and hopping on, he would tolerate it and not throw her straight off again, but he would be very unhappy about it and it would push him harder than is fair.
They worked on relaxing him on the ground, first getting him attentive with Lou working from a driving position ( so she is parallel with his hindquarters ) and using some of the same techniques that we used in the liberty work at the clinic to move his quarters around. This was followed by the same work with a saddle on, which as usual Small found a lot harder emotionally. He handled it, though, and soon they were doing some lovely trot and canter transitions just from Lou's energy.
Lou hopped on Small's back and Karen set up a square of jump blocks about 14 metres across to help guide shapes around and had Lou and Small making a circle around them, trying to maintain a correct bend so that he was really working on the circle, then varying it to be a square with accurate corners or to move from a circle outside the blocks to one inside the blocks and so on. The concentration and the feeling of "having a job to do" really help both horse and rider to focus and get themselves working together.
That doesn't sound like much but they actually covered a lot of ground and took quite a while so by this point they were about done and I went off to find my pony. I think Karen and Lou were discussing useful and insightful things while I went on Zorro retrieval but you'll have to wait for her post on
sleepsy_mouse to find out what...I brought Zorro in and we talked about where we were and how I'd come back from the clinic and immediately found all the awesome stuff that I had been getting there appeared to have fallen out of my brain on the drive back. Although I'd managed to pick bits of it back up, large areas were missing, presumed totally forgotten.
When we got to the school and started on a bit of leading work Karen observed that one of the big things that I'd lost was my sense of direction. Not in the sense that I didn't know where I was going but... no, actually in exactly that sense come to think of it. She was totally right- I wasn't picking up targets and making a really focussed job of going there. Zorro was ambling along at his own pace and I was just wandering, conveying neither importance nor direction and leaving him behind as his innate cob friction caused his movement to tend towards that of the slowest possible snail, like a character from one of Zeno's paradoxes.
I started trying to pick that up a bit and - after a while of persuading Zorro that this wasn't the time for sleeping on the hoof - we started to move a with a bit more purpose and began to look more like a team. We still had the four jump wings up to form a circle so we used those to make circles and squares on the ground, working to help Zorro keep his forward, which I was risking losing somewhat. This is going to be a big thing for us over the next few months, really thinking about forwards first and building everything else on top of that because it's so much easier to steer and maneuver when you have a little momentum. We worked on some of the same leading from behind principles, which I found pretty hard because I needed to be driving Zorro's hindquarters forward and stopping him turning around to face me at the same time. Again, something to practice - one of the main purposes of lessons like this.
When I got on we continued working on my two main objectives for the day- to help Zorro not be afraid of the Evil Hedge Of Doom and to help me use my arms less so it doesn't look like I'm trying to have a conversation in semaphore when I'm riding.
There were plenty of other things that came out of that- we used the square as the corners of a circle, which I found very hard to visualise if I was looking at the next corner, but quite easy to visualise if I was looking at the one beyond, riding ahead is something I'm only just starting to be able to do and I need to get better at if I'm going to get this objective-based "got a job to do" thing working out well for Zorro and I. Whenever Zorro wanted to bend outside the circle (usually so he could eyeball the EHOD ) Karen had me taking him around a smaller circle at the next corner so that we recovered the bend, got him listening back to me and then got back on the wider circle with a bit of that shape preserved. The problem I found was that when Zorro lost his bend I was tending to lose focus on where we were going and I was actually letting his change in shape draw my shoulders to the outside.
Realising that lead to a really big light-bulb moment for me, which is that I've been rubbish at riding corners all along. I mean, that wasn't so much of a shock, but part of the reason is that I grew up riding bicycles: For most of my formative years I was charging around the local tracks on my mountain bike and one of the big things about cycling is that you lean into the corners. Without even thinking about it or being aware of it I've been doing the same on horseback, probably for as long as I've been riding. Being aware of that and keeping my shoulders consciously level brought out an immediate change in Zorro.
In fact my position was generally a bit poor- I ride a lot better than I did but because I'm tall but slightly wussy I have always tended to slouch a little, partly to make me look less noticeable, partly to avoid braining myself in low doorways. Possibly, it occurs to me as I type, also because I spend most of my day typing which also draws my shoulders forward and closes up my chest. I've been working on this (and I've made improvements over time) but Karen had me really working to keep my shoulders up and back and my head high so that I'm more self-supported and allow pony's back more freedom to move.
Here is an interesting comparison:
Me last week
Me today
My head is a lot higher and my shoulders are a bit higher and wider in the second of those. I don't look quite relaxed in the second picture because that feeling is still new to me, but now I know how it feels I can really work on learning to relax into it...
We spent the whole lesson working on the circle, finding ways to vary it, working on getting half and quarter circles of trot and walk with accurately positioned transitions. What was interesting was that although the bottom corner of the circle was only about seven feet from the EHOD we didn't have any big spooks from Zorro, he just kept a bit of an eye on it when we were nearby. Whenever he seemed to be getting a bit anxious and spooky I was changing things a bit so we had a new task for him to think about rather than flustering about imaginary hedgebeasts.
I feel like I have a huge amount to work on now- my position and my focus particularly - and I think that if I can get them working for me we'll be able to really take some big steps forward over the next few months.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 00:21 (UTC)What a change in the pictures!
Sounded like you had a fun learning day! :-D
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 10:54 (UTC)Is doing her stage 2? Needs me to film her riding for it
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 18:30 (UTC)When filming make sure you can see the horse's feet...
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 18:46 (UTC)Nah she's down in Kent
Will do :)
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 19:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 13:58 (UTC)1. Think of gently raising your collar bone. This will cause you to raise your chin and look up, and gently bring your shoulders back, rather than force them back in a stiff position.
2. Get a dressage whip (if Zorro won't spook at the thought of you carrying one) and put it behind your back and through your arms, so that you are holding it in place in the bend of your elbows and braced behind your back. This will cause your shoulders to stay back, and also put your hands into a position that does not interfer with your horse.
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 18:39 (UTC)How bendy are dressage whips? would that not put my hands right on my belt? Or is that where they are supposed to be?
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 18:41 (UTC)I think that maybe works better for me because I think I would find it hard to relax with something across my back like that and I need to be able to be relaxed with this movement if I'm going to be able to habituate myself to it.
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 19:43 (UTC)Your hands should not be at your belt, and the whip thing certainly shouldn't put them there. Basically, it forces you to have that L shape to your arm and have your shoulders back in a more classical posture. You can still move your forearms however is necessary, it merely restricts your upper arm and keeps your shoulders back.
Good luck with the self awareness. It can be tricky to always remember about such things.
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 19:43 (UTC)Your hands should not be at your belt, and the whip thing certainly shouldn't put them there. Basically, it forces you to have that L shape to your arm and have your shoulders back in a more classical posture. You can still move your forearms however is necessary, it merely restricts your upper arm and keeps your shoulders back.
Good luck with the self awareness. It can be tricky to always remember about such things.
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 20:07 (UTC)I'm lucky in that I've learned to be a little more self aware than most people- not as much as someone who has really studied top flight dressage or something like Alexander Technique or Pilates, but maybe a little more than the man in the street. I'm good at correcting my position when I know I need to correct it but bad at monitoring it over time, so I have to sort of go round a whole bunch of checks one after the other as I'm riding along- are my heels in the right place? is my head in the right place? where are the horse's feet? Funnily enough if I count my breathing and work on keeping one inhalation over 8 steps, holding for four, exhaling over 8 and so on as I ride I find that the counting and the focus on breath clears my mind a little and I can become more generally aware of what my body is doing. Then I see something sparkly or my pony sneezes and I lose focus and forget about breathing again, but while I can maintain that it is a very valuable exercise.
no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2007 02:41 (UTC)Yes, breathing is an excellent way to become aware of yourself. I have become very good at being aware of my faults and trying to fix them. Except, I do find that as I concentrate on everything else, I forget that I'm looking down! That has become my biggest fault. Even though I'm not focused on down ... if I'm focused on a visual point, it's the ears ... it still upsets a delicate balance and causes unknown tension.
no subject
Date: 21 Oct 2007 18:00 (UTC)no subject
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Date: 22 Oct 2007 17:15 (UTC)Maybe you look like you're enjoying yourself more in the first one, but as long as you are having fun then it's ok if it doesn't look that way.
Is that the bad hedge that Zorro seems to be trying to ignore in the bottom photo?
no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2007 19:32 (UTC)no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2007 19:13 (UTC)On position:
I was raised on dressage lessons that were largely inspired by Sally Swift's Centered Riding book. And Linda Tellington Jones was in there too I'm pretty sure. I heard such things as 'shoulder back, sit straight, imagine there's a little man tugging on the top of your helmet, you have angel wings sprouting out your shoulders" etc. etc. I have always tended to lean forward a bit. You're taught to have a straight back to the point of sticking out your bum a bit, and even arching your back some.
Now enter parelli. Linda does a fabtastic job of demonstrating her reasoning for position on the level 1 dvd's. She picks one student to be the horse, and then sits on said student in different positions. She tries just kinda slouching on her, and the 'horse' is fine...then she straightens up into the classic english pose of shoulders back, arched back, bum stuck out, and the 'horse' actually started kicking in protest!! Then she sat on the horse with 'english legs' where your knees pinch (horse almost fell over from pain of pinching knees) and she also showed how, if you turn your feet so your toes face forward, it makes your knees dig in even more.
At the end of all that she shows the western 'water skiing' position which is not terribly uncomfortable for the horse, since your toes are out, and your bum is tucked so your seat bones DON'T jut into the horse's back, but it is unbalanced, and not always effective as a rider.
My conclusion is that it is good to sit up more or less straight for balance and not slouch, but that you also do want to stay relaxed and not force your position. They also have the 'pushing passenger' position where you push on the horse's neck as a way of anchoring your weight in your seat. Which is kind of brilliant I think.
With all that said, I do still think you look a more 'empowered' rider in the second photo. Amazing difference. And your weight is no longer falling forward. I think Linda's point is that leaning forward is fine, as long as your weight stays in your bum, and is not pushing forward.
Zorro looks happy in that second photo too. :-)
no subject
Date: 22 Oct 2007 21:50 (UTC)Also breathing and everything else are easier if you have a good body position.
Going out hacking is really good for this, as I was reminded on Sunday, because trying to look over everyone's walls on the way down the lane is a great way of lifting my head so I stay really straight. I was interested to notice how much up-and-down movement appears in Zorro's back when I pick my weight up a bit.