Post by horseguy on Jul 10, 2017 15:47:00 GMT
We have been talking about figure 8 nose bands and how they have become standard eventing equipment when not many years ago you didn't see any. Jim Wofford's article supported the points made here. We have also had many visits lately from the crowd that uniformly uses these devices and selects bits as a sort of "emergency brake". There is a clear difference of opinion. I have been thinking about why.
Immediately go to Jimmy's regular point of the internet being the primary source of information for young people. As we all know, there is good information, poor information and truly awful information there, as well as a lot of images of professional riders. I think the images have a substantial impact on your riders. Computers, phones and devices have made them more visual that prior generations. When you see them in public, very often they are looking at a screen. Additionally, visual forms have come to dominate the criteria of riding instruction. I think this is perhaps the primary reason figure 8 nose bands are so common. It's a look, along with the big watch, the gopro and the rest.
The old way, the method of deciding what equipment to use with a horse used to be made based on what it did and how it effected you performance, and this was measured by the feel of its effect on the horse.
I once had a riding student who in her youth and young adulthood was a very successful ballet dancer. She began with me as a rank beginner and learned quickly having developed high body awareness and specific muscle group control and an early age. But as fast as she could accomplish her side of the riding equation, she was slow to feel and understand the horse. I saw her predicament as if she were a motorcyclist who could not figure out using the clutch, shift lever and throttle together as one set of movements and commands. She became frustrated.
Her frustration lead to a focus on equipment. She wanted to change things that she had no understanding of at all. She dismissed my explanation that feel takes time to develop. Long story short, it came down to her riding boots. I think this was something she could control because I made it clear she had no control over the horse's equipment. For three or four lessons she has unending question about riding boots. Tall ones, short ones, western, English, field boot with laces, no laces. I felt like I needed to charge her extra for this in depth boot seminar that was added to her lesson.
Eventually I got tired of the equipment as solution to frustration process and asked her, if I started ballet lesson, how long would it take before wearing any particular kind of ballet shoe would make a difference in my dancing. After some hesitation as she processed the reality of my intention she said, years.
And that is the basic point of discerning what kind of equipment should an individual horse use. Most young riders have no where enough feel to determine the effects of equipment. They need to ask a professional, but many of them have come up through the perched, steer and brake with the reins and bit school of riding that has very little feel in it's learning process. Therefore with little or no practical basis to differentiate equipment they primarily are left with internet images as information to make equipment choices.
The rider who last I heard was taking our advice here under consideration summed it up with her "explanation" of how a rider with good hands would not abuse a horse's mouth with a twist bit, not considering that the collective advise here was that a person with skilled hands would not need a twist bit for brakes or safety or anything really. This is the conundrum. Many young rider don't know what they don't know and therefore operate in their entitlement to present an image as if they know, since they don't know.
If you want to know, ride for years using simple equipment, then experiment slowly and carefully with changes on a horse by horse basis. Hardly anything except the simplest equipment suits a wide range of horses.
Finally I said to her, if I began to learn ballet, how long would it be until the kind of kind ballet shoe I wore could make any difference in my dancing? She thought about it for a moment, seeing where I was going, and she said years. Exactly, until you develop enough feel to discern the difference equipment makes
Immediately go to Jimmy's regular point of the internet being the primary source of information for young people. As we all know, there is good information, poor information and truly awful information there, as well as a lot of images of professional riders. I think the images have a substantial impact on your riders. Computers, phones and devices have made them more visual that prior generations. When you see them in public, very often they are looking at a screen. Additionally, visual forms have come to dominate the criteria of riding instruction. I think this is perhaps the primary reason figure 8 nose bands are so common. It's a look, along with the big watch, the gopro and the rest.
The old way, the method of deciding what equipment to use with a horse used to be made based on what it did and how it effected you performance, and this was measured by the feel of its effect on the horse.
I once had a riding student who in her youth and young adulthood was a very successful ballet dancer. She began with me as a rank beginner and learned quickly having developed high body awareness and specific muscle group control and an early age. But as fast as she could accomplish her side of the riding equation, she was slow to feel and understand the horse. I saw her predicament as if she were a motorcyclist who could not figure out using the clutch, shift lever and throttle together as one set of movements and commands. She became frustrated.
Her frustration lead to a focus on equipment. She wanted to change things that she had no understanding of at all. She dismissed my explanation that feel takes time to develop. Long story short, it came down to her riding boots. I think this was something she could control because I made it clear she had no control over the horse's equipment. For three or four lessons she has unending question about riding boots. Tall ones, short ones, western, English, field boot with laces, no laces. I felt like I needed to charge her extra for this in depth boot seminar that was added to her lesson.
Eventually I got tired of the equipment as solution to frustration process and asked her, if I started ballet lesson, how long would it take before wearing any particular kind of ballet shoe would make a difference in my dancing. After some hesitation as she processed the reality of my intention she said, years.
And that is the basic point of discerning what kind of equipment should an individual horse use. Most young riders have no where enough feel to determine the effects of equipment. They need to ask a professional, but many of them have come up through the perched, steer and brake with the reins and bit school of riding that has very little feel in it's learning process. Therefore with little or no practical basis to differentiate equipment they primarily are left with internet images as information to make equipment choices.
The rider who last I heard was taking our advice here under consideration summed it up with her "explanation" of how a rider with good hands would not abuse a horse's mouth with a twist bit, not considering that the collective advise here was that a person with skilled hands would not need a twist bit for brakes or safety or anything really. This is the conundrum. Many young rider don't know what they don't know and therefore operate in their entitlement to present an image as if they know, since they don't know.
If you want to know, ride for years using simple equipment, then experiment slowly and carefully with changes on a horse by horse basis. Hardly anything except the simplest equipment suits a wide range of horses.
Finally I said to her, if I began to learn ballet, how long would it be until the kind of kind ballet shoe I wore could make any difference in my dancing? She thought about it for a moment, seeing where I was going, and she said years. Exactly, until you develop enough feel to discern the difference equipment makes
