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Post by horseguy on May 29, 2016 13:51:02 GMT
A while back we had a discussion about "on the bit", something that has taken on a life of its own in the would of showing horses. I think it was Jimmy who pointed out that it was not an idea that has any historical basis. It's a more modern interpretation (or misinterpretation) of a old and different idea that involves the whole horse not just headset. I got thinking of that old idea and remembered my instructor Mr. Gratwick. He always used the phrase, "Gather up your horse". There is a great mental image in that phrase. It makes me think of picking up a big pile of laundry off the floor. You can't just bend over, reach under the pile with your two hands and pick it, or you won't get the whole pile. What you must do is carefully reach under the clothes and feel for the big pieces like maybe a pair of jeans that will support all the socks and small things in the pile. You have to find the balance point, use you body to contain the load, and carefully draw the pile up into one single mass. That is "gathering up".
Just as every pile of clothing is different and requires a slightly different positioning of your hands, a different balance point and a different use of compression on the pile to hold it together, every horse requires a different set of explorations with your hands to feel how a horse must be gathered up. Like with the pile of clothes, where you place your hands, higher or lower, makes a difference. It might only be a fraction of an inch up or down, but you must feel where and how the horse experiences your hands in his mouth. Separately, like grasping the pile of clothes with arm strength, you must feel what it will take in terms of contact tension in the reins to make the bit location most effective in joining your hands with the horse mouth. Both these determinations, placement and strength of connection require consciousness. The closest thing I can think of in human life to this is when a dentist or dental hygienist works in your mouth. Some are constantly conscious of their hands in your mouth and treat your mouth like it belongs to a living being, while others treat your mouth like it's a carburetor they are rebuilding and they're just doing their job.
We have to conscious when our hands are essentially in our horse's mouth. I mentioned recently a millennial young woman who was riding a sensitive young horse and bothering the heck out of him with her hands. She refused to listen to my attempt to explain the meaning of "gathering up" her horse. Instead she cut me off and explained to me what she was doing, which was a very mechanistic process of positioning the horse's head. She had learned well defined steps A, B, C & D and the horse was not responding and therefore the horse was at fault. She was right and the horse was wrong, and I apparently was too stupid to see it. I actually thought her "steps" were OK. I know other steps, but hers would have worked if she was conscious that the horse brought a sensitivity to the process, which she had to acknowledge and respect in order to achieve the goal of the process.
Her process was mechanical and she applied it mechanically. The horse complained because I had trained the horse and he was used to a more collaborative process of discovery and awareness in the "gathering up". He was trained in a process where he had rights, not stupid "animal rights", but the right to complain if he was made uncomfortable by a rider's inability to connect with him. In other words, the rider had to be as good at her job as he was at his job. His complaints could not be extreme like bucking off a poor rider, but rather a communication like a head toss. In this case he didn't like her hands. They did not follow his head movement in the stride and they were unnecessarily heavy. His response to her failure of consciousness was to try to reposition the bit in his mouth. This very self focused rider described what he was doing as "mouthy" in a very condescending tone. She could not imagine the possibility that he was trying to improve the situation in the only way open to him.
Good hands are listening hands, not demanding hands. "Gathering up your horse" is a conversation that primarily involves your hands but they are only part of the conversation back and forth between horse and rider. In my steps A, B, C & D, which I would never explain in a linier mechanical way as the young woman did, your hands are a starting point, not with every horse, but with most. And your hands do more listening than telling as you do the gathering up.
 Étienne Beudant |
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Post by jimmy on May 30, 2016 2:19:54 GMT
I use the term "in the bit" sometimes. It is similar to "in your hands".
The California style reined horse was one in which the acceptance and carriage of the bit was a source of pride. Still is.
The horse works off of contact, more than on the contact. If that makes sense. He is light because he finds his own slack, by slightly tucking his nose. That is one part of gathering him up. Just shaking your reins is enough to put him in the bit. We use the term "in the bridle" for a reason. That is my own interpretation.
A horseman listening through his hands has to constantly evaluate the feel, and process any "complaints". Not that we would indulge our horse in any behavior, but to ignore repeated signs of discomfort or complaint would be contrary to what I think a horseman is.
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Post by horseguy on May 30, 2016 12:15:44 GMT
I use the term "in the bit" sometimes. It is similar to "in your hands". The California style reined horse was one in which the acceptance and carriage of the bit was a source of pride. Still is. The horse works off of contact, more than on the contact. If that makes sense. He is light because he finds his own slack, by slightly tucking his nose. That is one part of gathering him up. Just shaking your reins is enough to put him in the bit. We use the term "in the bridle" for a reason. That is my own interpretation. A horseman listening through his hands has to constantly evaluate the feel, and process any "complaints". Not that we would indulge our horse in any behavior, but to ignore repeated signs of discomfort or complaint would be contrary to what I think a horseman is.
Yes, this gets right to the center of what horsemanship is. I often post that horses have not changed much over the 60 plus years I have been involved with them. What has changed is the riders and horse owners. I don't want to contribute to the ongoing war between the millennials and the generations who preceded them. I do, however, want to point out that listening with your ears or your hands can't happen if the rider is programmed to be primarily self focused. We have a generation od riders now who are becoming the young instructors who grew up losing a soccer game and getting a trophy. This demographic became adolescents with and IV stuck in their arms full of self esteem. While they have received riding instruction, many seem to have largely processed their education of horses into a some kind of algorithm wherein the horse is not a source of learning.
When I saw this young instructor's hands applied to a sensitive well trained horse, I cringed. I felt like yelling to her, "Alois Podhajsky wrote a book, My Horses, My Teachers and he picked that title for a reason". But I knew it would be wasted on her. So many riders have come up through a far more mechanistic form of learning riding and now they are beginning to teach what they learned. This is not to say these young riders do not care for horses, but that too is different. It's not like the "courageous friend" relationship in the cavalry recruiting poster.
It's more like a the relationship of a benevolent slave owner and slave. Those owners, by the way, were sincerely surprised when after the Emancipation Proclamation their slaves left the plantations.
"Feel" is a disappearing element of riding, and it is disappearing largely from rider's hands. And I agree "A horseman listening through his hands has to constantly evaluate the feel, and process any 'complaints'. Not that we would indulge our horse in any behavior, but to ignore repeated signs of discomfort or complaint would be contrary to what I think a horseman is".
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Post by horseguy on May 31, 2016 9:40:08 GMT
Jimmy Wrote, "A horseman listening through his hands has to constantly evaluate the feel, and process any "complaints"." A well trained horse will let the rider know when horse/rider unity is threatened. Horses want a single shared balance and a single shared movement. I believe that it is the horse's movement that the rider must stay within because it is the horse making contact with the ground and moving the horse and the rider forward. Thus we have the old adage, "let the horse move you". When it comes to shared balance, I believe that is more the rider's responsibility because the rider knows what is coming next. In polo the horse is off contact most of the time. The rider gives a directional command along with an indication of the speed the rider desires and the horse executes the command. If, for example the ball changes direction, a new direction and speed is required. Before the command for the new direction is given, the rider rebalances the horse in order to prepare for the new command. This is when hands matter. As Jimmy said earlier, some polo hordes only need a shake of the reins to tell them, "Gather yourself up for a new command". The horse responds and prepares for the new set of directions. But some horses are not that responsive. With those horses the rider must work the reins and the seat and legs to help the horse out of the extension they are in and into collection from which they can execute the next command. It is in these intense transitions from extension to collection that "a horseman (is) listening through his hands has to constantly evaluate the feel". It is here that a willing horse might communicate to the rider a complaint along the lines of, "You are interfering with my attempt to execute the transition to collection you asked for". For example, I had a farm in upstate NY at one time that had a polo field. People would come up from NYC and Long Island for a weekend to play polo and hopefully buy horses. An investment bank attorney named James (he greatly disliked being call Jim or Jimmy) was given a wonderful mare to play. She was a handy quick minded horse but a tad small. This guy James fought with this mare, who knew much more about polo than the did, in every transition. He, like the millennial instructor, had very mechanical hands. He'd pull on the reins like you pull on an emergency hand brake in a car when you park on a steep hill. Then he'd lunge his upper body forward as he tried to swing the horse's head in the direction he wanted to go next. His weight shift forward just as this small mare was executing a turn on the haunches, cause the horse to slow the turn as she rebalanced the weight shift to her shoulders. James cam off the field informing me that the mare was the worst horse he had ever ridden. Like the millennial instructor, my attempts to help him with his riding were met with interruption and an explanation of how the horse had failed him. My point, horsemanship and the elements of it like good hands, requires some humility. The overly entitled rider has great difficulty "hearing" a horse tell the rider they need to improve. These riders interpret a reasonable complaint as disobedience, when in fact it is a sincere offer of assistance. We as riders can do many things to increase our ability to distinguish between a horse's complaint as useful feedback and poor performance by our horse. Each of the things we can do to improve is rooted in our ability to maintain or increase the shared balance and shared movement with our horse. My next post will be about learning to never use the reins to balance yourself. They are there only to balance the horse. This failure by a rider is perhaps the most common legitimate complaint horses have about riders.  |
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Post by jimmy on May 31, 2016 13:28:32 GMT
James is what my mother called me when I was in trouble!
~
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Post by horseguy on May 31, 2016 16:28:25 GMT
Jimmy, I guess then you need to stay out of trouble. That James guy was a piece of work.
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Post by horseguy on May 31, 2016 17:04:41 GMT
In order to have good hands, a rider must have a good seat. I believe as bipeds we are programed to use our hands to aid in balance when our feet and legs fail to maintain balance. This impulse must be overcome if a rider is to develop the correct use of the hands. Beginner riders can very often be seen using the reins to maintain balance. Not only does his hurt the horse mouth but if allowed to continue, it sets a pattern that is completely counter productive to correct riding. Some instructors will use snap reins on a halter to try to break a beginner student from hanging on the reins. While this technique may spare the horse unnecessary pain, it does nothing to help the student learn to balance correctly without using the reins for assistance.
The most effective means I know of to teach a beginner or a more advanced rider to give up the reins as a balance support is to have them ride without reins. I use a round pen and a lunge line. The rider sits on a steady horse and is lunged at the walk trot and canter I a circle. Cross rails and jumps are added when appropriate in order to increase the rider's movement on the moving horse. The rider has their arms "out like wings" with shoulder open and relaxed. This allows the rider to completely manage to stay within the horse's movement with no use of the hands. I will also use a jumping lane of gymnastic grid, which is a line of jumps or ground poles, without reins to help a rider establish the use of their lower body as their means of balance and unified motion with their horse.
Once the rider establishes their lower body as their base when riding, then it is possible to teach good hands completely free of using hands to assist balance even in the most extreme situations. This is important because it is in the extreme situations that a horse needs most not to be interfered with by the rider's misuse of their hands.
There is so much to good hands. Hand must follow the necessary balancing movement of the horse's neck. They must not interfere with the horse's balance in a jump or in difficult footing. Mostly, a rider's hands must not frustrate a horse that wants to accomplish the task they have been trained to do. This is where "feel" comes into play. We must feel how the horse is responding to our hand through the reins. We cannot do that if we are using the reins for balance, for brakes or for any other purpose.
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Post by rideanotherday on Jun 6, 2016 14:44:34 GMT
Some days, I think horses feel like this.... Attachments:
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