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glenatronWell, another Silversand clinic, another huge leap in my understanding of horses and how I can work with them. I have no idea how much I will change as a result of it because I'm still fizzing with ideas and inspiration, I feel like my veins are running with gold. It's absolutely amazing.
But that's neither here nor there, what might be useful for anyone out there interested in what we were doing and for my future self is a Clinic Report. It will be less comprehensive than my last one because I was participating this time so I didn't take notes and for much of the talk and explanation Steve was giving I was busy paying attention to my lunkhead.
We began the weekend with an adventurous journey in our friend's lorry that she had kindly lent us for the weekend. Zorro loaded like a charm and we chugged our gradual way around the M25 to Kent. The journey took about 2 1/2 hours but Zorro travelled very happily and didn't seem bothered at all. The venue itself was brilliant, with big walled stalls in a barn with wooden rails between neighbouring boxes so ponies could see each other but not play too many bitey games. Zorro settled happily and we were just in time for Steve's demo in the evening.
For the demonstration Steve was working with an unbacked young pony, showing the process he uses in starting new horses. The focus of the demonstration was getting the horse confident enough that it would happily stay with him and let him get on board without feeling the need to leave or throw itself around the place. At the same time he was working from the start to show acceptable boundaries so that the horse never felt it would be acceptable to come into his space and risk barging him, treading on his toes or any of the other problems that come from horses that feel the need to stay too close.
Steve and the pony he was working with.
It was interesting to watch Steve's approach to getting a horse ready for mounting, rather than being quiet he put a lot of movement around it, observing that it's all very well getting on a horse quietly and the horse being alright with that, but in real life people are rubbish at getting on horses and if you've started one that is fine with you tiptoeing around it and then it's owner gets aboard and accidentally catches their leg on it's quarters while they mount you could end up with a real problem. Consequently he trains young horses to accept people being rubbish so they're not so badly bothered about things.
Lying across the pony and getting it used to having a human moving around it.
He also starts by working bareback, riding off just the halter- this creates the minimum difference between the groundwork and the ridden work to start with and gets the horse used to the idea of the human working around them, moving them about and doing the same things from their back. He also pointed out that if you saddle a horse up and then get bucked off you don't know whether the horse was afraid of the saddle or afraid of you, so by starting bareback that problem is avoided. When asked what he'd do if the horse was thinking about bucking him off, he said he'd go back to working on the ground until it didn't feel it needed to do that.
Pony being ridden for the first time.
Watching Steve work I found it striking how simple most of what he does is- simple, but by no means easy as much of it depends on a deep understanding of how horses think and deep experience that enables him to read the horse in detail, knowing exactly when he can put the pressure on, when a change has happened that should be rewarded, how long to leave the horse to think and so on.
Zorro introduced himself to the other participants in fine style in the morning- I went to check on him in his box and the moment I undid the catch he barged the door, brushed me out the way and went visiting. I caught him up and held on to him ( with my arms around his neck, which he cheerfully ignored ) and he didn't go far, he just wanted to talk to the neighbours a bit, but it was quite pesky.
"Me? I wouldn't barge people out the way and go visiting! I'm not that kind of horse at all."
As has been the case in the past we began the day with a question and answer session about what people hoped to get from it- we had a lot of spectators in the clinic and it was very interesting hearing from different people about what they were looking for. In my case I really wanted to find out how to be the right kind of leader for Zorro so he didn't feel he was always having to take control.
We then went out to do some groundwork for the morning. We started with backup, trying to get the horse to back up on a circle, with a low head, relaxed body (it's pretty much impossible to get a circular backup without a relaxed body) and a soft rein. Steve is very big on working with a soft lead rope- he makes the point that any time you have any pressure on the rein you are teaching the horse to pull and consequently to ignore your requests. If you want precision from your horse you want them to be listening to the rein well before it goes taut. Consequently you only ask with a pull briefly, turning it to a repeated squeeze if that doesn't work and maybe
We then went on to leading circles, working to get the horse bent accurately to the circle and staying there, making sure that the shoulders weren't dropping in ( Zorro was bending perfectly, but he was doing it in the wrong direction, creating a banana type position where the bend in the banana was towards me rather than away from me ) and that the horse was staying precisely around the side of the shape. It took quite a bit of help from Steve to start getting Zorro's shoulder away and his head in - he was very reluctant to allow me any control over his shoulder.
Zorro, meet Steve.
"I don't want to meet Steve!"
Steve quickly established that the appropriate way to start leading was by Zorro's shoulder moving away. It took me a little while to establish the same, but we got there in the end.
After lunch we moved on to doing the same work in the saddle, starting by getting circles in that nice rounded shape and then getting in time with the hind feet to ask for a little extra step-under and turn with them to take us back around the circle. The control of the hind-feet through an indirect rein is important not only as part as disengaging for a one-rein stop, your essential emergency brake, but because it's easier for the horse to get the hang of stepping under on the turn where it can later be used to help the horse learn about collection.
We then developed that into a bit more of a three-track movement, trying to break out of the circle into a shoulder in type movement. I will confess that I didn't meet a whole lot of success with this- it showed me that I needed to get a lot more control over his shoulder to start with before I got it right in the saddle.
We also worked on the backup we had been doing from the ground and Zorro was great at that, softening and lifting his back so we had a real feeling of lightness.
In the evening we sat around, ate cake and chinese food and enjoyed a few glasses of wine and the company of like-minded horsepeople, which is always a pleasure when you can find them.
We began the morning by talking about our goals and what we had learned so far- I was really thinking about shoulders by this point and Steve commented that the majority of problems he sees in the relationship between people and their horses come from them not having control of the shoulders - which, when it comes right down to it, is the same as them not having control of the horse in effect. I was certainly very conscious of this with Zorro after the problems I'd had in the saddle on Saturday.
We began the morning by repeating an exercise we did at the last clinic, where we formed groups of three and practiced leading on one another. This is an amazingly informative exercise that anyone can do and I strongly recommend trying it. The way it works is this: You take a group of three people, two of them stand one in front of the other with the back person having their hands on the front person's shoulders. They are the horse. The front person holds their hands out in front of them and you loop a string or lead rope around their wrists. The third person then does leading work with the "horse" who tries to react as they think a horse would. It's a very interesting and informative exercise- it shows you how little you need to do in order for your requests to be felt by your horse and also how natural it is to resist any pull on the rope, among many other things. Seriously, just find a couple of friends and try it- you'll learn something from it.
After that we moved on to groundwork again, this time really working on shoulder-in and getting the horse working on three tracks, then making transitions from shoulder-in to full sideways movement. It was very interesting work and it took me quite a while and a whole lot of help from Steve to get things running how I wanted.
One thing I took from the morning was that if you want softness and lightness in your horse sometimes you need to have a bit of toughness in you to get there. In Parelli-speak you have to have a phase 4, even if you should only need it very infrequently. I've always known it in my head, but actually using the knowledge was something I found pretty difficult to balance out with not wanting to have to tap pony with the stick or slap him with the rope when he was ignorning my requests. At the end of the day you have to be ready to get effective (not a case of beating on your horse, more of administering a strong correction with very accurate timing so that the horse knows exactly why it has happened) on Sunday morning I finally got effective and Zorro immediately started offering me a whole lot more lightness and movement than he ever had before. He just seemed to pick up and move in a way that I'd not really known him to.
Before we moved on I had some very nice movements, both as shoulder-in and turning it sideways on both reins.
We ended the morning working on controlling the feet with another interesting exercise, which was simply to choose a foot and get the horse to move it and only it. This is not easy to do at all- I was trying to get Zorro to pick up his right hind and for all my careful work with his balance he really wanted to keep it in a diagonal pair with his left fore. I had enough control of his balance that we could rock back and forward without moving his feet, but not quite enough to get only one. In fairness, I think that two-point close maneuvering is pretty awesome, so I didn't really want to be in the way of it.
Warming up for riding.
In the afternoon, we once again took the work we'd done from the ground into the saddle starting by going back to the three-track work, starting from a circle, breaking out onto three tracks and then floating to a disengaged halt. We were working to get it using only the inside rein both to ask for the bend and to support the neck- unlike the traditional way of working where you support with the outside rein Steve had us leaving that wide open to give a space for the horse to move into. He explained that the traditional approach is great when you have a high school horse that will naturally collect itself when you ask on it's head, but to most of our horses it's just a bit confusing.
At this point I started to feel my novice riding skills really holding me back because although I could recognise it from the ground I couldn't really feel when I was getting the right movement so Steve helped me by pretty much riding for me, showing me where I needed to be putting my hands on the rein and when I should be asking with my leg (as the inside front foot comes up) to get the movement. Once I had felt it (and Zorro had figured out what on earth I had been on about all afternoon) we started to really get the idea- on the left rein, where Steve showed me how to do it, we were going great guns, on the righ one it was a bit harder, but when we finally did get it right, I was so pleased that Zorro and I had sorted it out for ourselves that all the work was vindicated. The next exercise was what Steve called "imaginary cow cutting" involving working at shoulder in, turning on the haunches and going back along the same line at the opposite shoulder-in. At this point I managed to get such a perfect bit of shoulder-in on a totally loose rein from both sides, that there was just no point asking Zorro for any more. I figured it was the perfect place to stop and let Zorro have the graze he'd been fighting me for all weekend. It would be hard to imagine a happier cob.
Sadly no pictures of this exist, but happily there may be some video, which may even surface at some point if I don't feel too self-conscious about it...
The others went on to work backing up a semi-circle then turning on the haunches and changing to a forward movement, another great softening exercise, and then trying to control the feet from the horse's back so that they could pick up and put down a single foot in a controlled way.
Steve backs up on Toffee, a very bless if somewhat reluctant little Appaloosa who decided that actually he could be quite willing if Steve asked him nicely.
The final exercise of the day was working on a circle- Steve standing in the centre and giving the rider the end of a rope which they then had to use to ride a circle around him without either dropping the rope or having it touch the ground. It was brilliant to see how much control everyone had, particularly Lin with Namara, who we've met at all the Silversand clinics we've been to and who have made amazing progress- they ended up doing pretty much perfect circles in both directions in all three paces, something which would have been unimaginable for them a couple of years ago. A beautiful sight.
Lin and Namara making circles.
I'm absolutely full of inspiration now and judging by his general demeanour Zorro is too. It was a brilliant weekend, fully as good as I had hoped it would be and better yet. Even over the couple of years we've been attending his clinics Steve's finesse has noticeably increased but unlike many great horsemen he remains an excellent teacher able to explain what he is doing and why he is doing it clearly and in a way that is easy to understand. Not that you'll necessarily understand it straight away- it's simple, but it's not easy.
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equestrian
But that's neither here nor there, what might be useful for anyone out there interested in what we were doing and for my future self is a Clinic Report. It will be less comprehensive than my last one because I was participating this time so I didn't take notes and for much of the talk and explanation Steve was giving I was busy paying attention to my lunkhead.
Friday Evening Demo
We began the weekend with an adventurous journey in our friend's lorry that she had kindly lent us for the weekend. Zorro loaded like a charm and we chugged our gradual way around the M25 to Kent. The journey took about 2 1/2 hours but Zorro travelled very happily and didn't seem bothered at all. The venue itself was brilliant, with big walled stalls in a barn with wooden rails between neighbouring boxes so ponies could see each other but not play too many bitey games. Zorro settled happily and we were just in time for Steve's demo in the evening.
For the demonstration Steve was working with an unbacked young pony, showing the process he uses in starting new horses. The focus of the demonstration was getting the horse confident enough that it would happily stay with him and let him get on board without feeling the need to leave or throw itself around the place. At the same time he was working from the start to show acceptable boundaries so that the horse never felt it would be acceptable to come into his space and risk barging him, treading on his toes or any of the other problems that come from horses that feel the need to stay too close.
Steve and the pony he was working with.
It was interesting to watch Steve's approach to getting a horse ready for mounting, rather than being quiet he put a lot of movement around it, observing that it's all very well getting on a horse quietly and the horse being alright with that, but in real life people are rubbish at getting on horses and if you've started one that is fine with you tiptoeing around it and then it's owner gets aboard and accidentally catches their leg on it's quarters while they mount you could end up with a real problem. Consequently he trains young horses to accept people being rubbish so they're not so badly bothered about things.
Lying across the pony and getting it used to having a human moving around it.
He also starts by working bareback, riding off just the halter- this creates the minimum difference between the groundwork and the ridden work to start with and gets the horse used to the idea of the human working around them, moving them about and doing the same things from their back. He also pointed out that if you saddle a horse up and then get bucked off you don't know whether the horse was afraid of the saddle or afraid of you, so by starting bareback that problem is avoided. When asked what he'd do if the horse was thinking about bucking him off, he said he'd go back to working on the ground until it didn't feel it needed to do that.
Pony being ridden for the first time.
Watching Steve work I found it striking how simple most of what he does is- simple, but by no means easy as much of it depends on a deep understanding of how horses think and deep experience that enables him to read the horse in detail, knowing exactly when he can put the pressure on, when a change has happened that should be rewarded, how long to leave the horse to think and so on.
Saturday
Zorro introduced himself to the other participants in fine style in the morning- I went to check on him in his box and the moment I undid the catch he barged the door, brushed me out the way and went visiting. I caught him up and held on to him ( with my arms around his neck, which he cheerfully ignored ) and he didn't go far, he just wanted to talk to the neighbours a bit, but it was quite pesky.
"Me? I wouldn't barge people out the way and go visiting! I'm not that kind of horse at all."
As has been the case in the past we began the day with a question and answer session about what people hoped to get from it- we had a lot of spectators in the clinic and it was very interesting hearing from different people about what they were looking for. In my case I really wanted to find out how to be the right kind of leader for Zorro so he didn't feel he was always having to take control.
We then went out to do some groundwork for the morning. We started with backup, trying to get the horse to back up on a circle, with a low head, relaxed body (it's pretty much impossible to get a circular backup without a relaxed body) and a soft rein. Steve is very big on working with a soft lead rope- he makes the point that any time you have any pressure on the rein you are teaching the horse to pull and consequently to ignore your requests. If you want precision from your horse you want them to be listening to the rein well before it goes taut. Consequently you only ask with a pull briefly, turning it to a repeated squeeze if that doesn't work and maybe
We then went on to leading circles, working to get the horse bent accurately to the circle and staying there, making sure that the shoulders weren't dropping in ( Zorro was bending perfectly, but he was doing it in the wrong direction, creating a banana type position where the bend in the banana was towards me rather than away from me ) and that the horse was staying precisely around the side of the shape. It took quite a bit of help from Steve to start getting Zorro's shoulder away and his head in - he was very reluctant to allow me any control over his shoulder.
Zorro, meet Steve.
"I don't want to meet Steve!"
Steve quickly established that the appropriate way to start leading was by Zorro's shoulder moving away. It took me a little while to establish the same, but we got there in the end.
After lunch we moved on to doing the same work in the saddle, starting by getting circles in that nice rounded shape and then getting in time with the hind feet to ask for a little extra step-under and turn with them to take us back around the circle. The control of the hind-feet through an indirect rein is important not only as part as disengaging for a one-rein stop, your essential emergency brake, but because it's easier for the horse to get the hang of stepping under on the turn where it can later be used to help the horse learn about collection.
We then developed that into a bit more of a three-track movement, trying to break out of the circle into a shoulder in type movement. I will confess that I didn't meet a whole lot of success with this- it showed me that I needed to get a lot more control over his shoulder to start with before I got it right in the saddle.
We also worked on the backup we had been doing from the ground and Zorro was great at that, softening and lifting his back so we had a real feeling of lightness.
In the evening we sat around, ate cake and chinese food and enjoyed a few glasses of wine and the company of like-minded horsepeople, which is always a pleasure when you can find them.
Sunday
We began the morning by talking about our goals and what we had learned so far- I was really thinking about shoulders by this point and Steve commented that the majority of problems he sees in the relationship between people and their horses come from them not having control of the shoulders - which, when it comes right down to it, is the same as them not having control of the horse in effect. I was certainly very conscious of this with Zorro after the problems I'd had in the saddle on Saturday.
We began the morning by repeating an exercise we did at the last clinic, where we formed groups of three and practiced leading on one another. This is an amazingly informative exercise that anyone can do and I strongly recommend trying it. The way it works is this: You take a group of three people, two of them stand one in front of the other with the back person having their hands on the front person's shoulders. They are the horse. The front person holds their hands out in front of them and you loop a string or lead rope around their wrists. The third person then does leading work with the "horse" who tries to react as they think a horse would. It's a very interesting and informative exercise- it shows you how little you need to do in order for your requests to be felt by your horse and also how natural it is to resist any pull on the rope, among many other things. Seriously, just find a couple of friends and try it- you'll learn something from it.
After that we moved on to groundwork again, this time really working on shoulder-in and getting the horse working on three tracks, then making transitions from shoulder-in to full sideways movement. It was very interesting work and it took me quite a while and a whole lot of help from Steve to get things running how I wanted.
One thing I took from the morning was that if you want softness and lightness in your horse sometimes you need to have a bit of toughness in you to get there. In Parelli-speak you have to have a phase 4, even if you should only need it very infrequently. I've always known it in my head, but actually using the knowledge was something I found pretty difficult to balance out with not wanting to have to tap pony with the stick or slap him with the rope when he was ignorning my requests. At the end of the day you have to be ready to get effective (not a case of beating on your horse, more of administering a strong correction with very accurate timing so that the horse knows exactly why it has happened) on Sunday morning I finally got effective and Zorro immediately started offering me a whole lot more lightness and movement than he ever had before. He just seemed to pick up and move in a way that I'd not really known him to.
Before we moved on I had some very nice movements, both as shoulder-in and turning it sideways on both reins.
We ended the morning working on controlling the feet with another interesting exercise, which was simply to choose a foot and get the horse to move it and only it. This is not easy to do at all- I was trying to get Zorro to pick up his right hind and for all my careful work with his balance he really wanted to keep it in a diagonal pair with his left fore. I had enough control of his balance that we could rock back and forward without moving his feet, but not quite enough to get only one. In fairness, I think that two-point close maneuvering is pretty awesome, so I didn't really want to be in the way of it.
Warming up for riding.
In the afternoon, we once again took the work we'd done from the ground into the saddle starting by going back to the three-track work, starting from a circle, breaking out onto three tracks and then floating to a disengaged halt. We were working to get it using only the inside rein both to ask for the bend and to support the neck- unlike the traditional way of working where you support with the outside rein Steve had us leaving that wide open to give a space for the horse to move into. He explained that the traditional approach is great when you have a high school horse that will naturally collect itself when you ask on it's head, but to most of our horses it's just a bit confusing.
At this point I started to feel my novice riding skills really holding me back because although I could recognise it from the ground I couldn't really feel when I was getting the right movement so Steve helped me by pretty much riding for me, showing me where I needed to be putting my hands on the rein and when I should be asking with my leg (as the inside front foot comes up) to get the movement. Once I had felt it (and Zorro had figured out what on earth I had been on about all afternoon) we started to really get the idea- on the left rein, where Steve showed me how to do it, we were going great guns, on the righ one it was a bit harder, but when we finally did get it right, I was so pleased that Zorro and I had sorted it out for ourselves that all the work was vindicated. The next exercise was what Steve called "imaginary cow cutting" involving working at shoulder in, turning on the haunches and going back along the same line at the opposite shoulder-in. At this point I managed to get such a perfect bit of shoulder-in on a totally loose rein from both sides, that there was just no point asking Zorro for any more. I figured it was the perfect place to stop and let Zorro have the graze he'd been fighting me for all weekend. It would be hard to imagine a happier cob.
Sadly no pictures of this exist, but happily there may be some video, which may even surface at some point if I don't feel too self-conscious about it...
The others went on to work backing up a semi-circle then turning on the haunches and changing to a forward movement, another great softening exercise, and then trying to control the feet from the horse's back so that they could pick up and put down a single foot in a controlled way.
Steve backs up on Toffee, a very bless if somewhat reluctant little Appaloosa who decided that actually he could be quite willing if Steve asked him nicely.
The final exercise of the day was working on a circle- Steve standing in the centre and giving the rider the end of a rope which they then had to use to ride a circle around him without either dropping the rope or having it touch the ground. It was brilliant to see how much control everyone had, particularly Lin with Namara, who we've met at all the Silversand clinics we've been to and who have made amazing progress- they ended up doing pretty much perfect circles in both directions in all three paces, something which would have been unimaginable for them a couple of years ago. A beautiful sight.
Lin and Namara making circles.
I'm absolutely full of inspiration now and judging by his general demeanour Zorro is too. It was a brilliant weekend, fully as good as I had hoped it would be and better yet. Even over the couple of years we've been attending his clinics Steve's finesse has noticeably increased but unlike many great horsemen he remains an excellent teacher able to explain what he is doing and why he is doing it clearly and in a way that is easy to understand. Not that you'll necessarily understand it straight away- it's simple, but it's not easy.
x-posted with
equestrian![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 4 Jun 2007 20:52 (UTC)I have worked on the one foot at a time method and was quite accomplished at it with a horse I had a long way back. If I can, I'll find pictures of it and scan them in. I am working on this with Sam, but it is rather confusing to him and I don't think being blind is helping his situation too much. But he's trying very hard and beginning to understand.
I have not tried moving that into the saddle. The old horse, while wonderful on the ground, could not overcome his past trauma no matter how I tried to help, and so was unsafe to ride. And, as I said, Sam is still trying to understand from the ground.
no subject
Date: 4 Jun 2007 21:46 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Jun 2007 02:07 (UTC)I find that sometimes it's not just what I'm doing. Even though Sam trusts me implicitly, he is still listening to what is going on around us. And when I ask him something new or difficult, he gets worried about what might be happening around him or what trouble could befall him. And he tries to trust me, but I know it can be so hard at first when we do new things.
I'm sure my energy level is a bit high then too. I wouldn't say I'm impatient or bossy, but I'm a person who sets expectations and works hard to meet them, and so I'm sure my diligence can be overpowering at times to him. does that make sense?
no subject
Date: 5 Jun 2007 10:23 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Jun 2007 12:23 (UTC)I can also relate to that moment of coming to terms with being 'as gentle as you can be but as strong as necessary.' When I hit that 'as strong as necessary' point Sage's whole attitude changed too...and he seemed happier! I was puzzled because I had finally used a phase 4 on him and expected him to hate me for the rest of the day. Instead he licked his lips and looked at me 'yes ma'am, now what?' Glad you hit that place with Zorro, it makes such a huge difference!
I am so impressed that you got shoulders in, etc. at the end. I would be floating on a cloud, that is advanced stuff! The circle exercise at the end looks neat too.
BTW, Zorro is so handsome!
no subject
Date: 5 Jun 2007 13:07 (UTC)