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Learning to soften and melt

12/8/2012

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Learning to soften or melt


My student Cindy, started lessons about 6 months ago and was pretty nervous.  She did not talk directly about it, but, watching her ride showed it.  She carried tension.  With time it would partially disappear when she had enough time repeating the exercise we were working on, and either fatigue set in and she could release tension unwittingly or she just got a bit more confident.  

However, the tension would resurface in new circumstances, like a different horse to ride, or a new exercise or speeding up.  Today, we worked on transitioning from halt to walk to trot to walk to halt.  In her downward transitions particularily she would grow very rigid and bounce in the saddle due to knee grip, shoulder tension, lower back stiffening, and ankle lock.

I worked with her to create awareness of her visceral response, which caused her to tense in a protective reaction.  I suggested visual and physical replacement reactions. Such as toe tapping in the stirrup to loosen her ankle, thinking of presenting her hand to be kissed, this helped loosen her wrists and and therefore her lower arm and triceps. Softening her knee so she could sink deeper in the ankle, softening between her shoulder blades and releasing her lower back. The horse visibly softened as well.

The last thing I suggested was to really breathe deeply and to "blow out 100 birthday candles" as she sat deep and melted into the walk-halt.

Cindy made a very big change and felt like "she could really ride a horse."  I know the horse really appreciated the change as she was soft and relaxed and breathing deep as well, all in the effort of release.

Good job Cindy.
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Getting in time

12/5/2012

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In November I spent 4 days with horseman Martin Black at a clinic in Woodstock, Il.  The biggest message was about getting in time with the horses feet.  If the rider does not ride from this platform, the are likely to be less sucessful in their communications with their horse.  In this case they  will know that something is missing, but may not be able to put their finger on what is missing if they do not understand the concept of timing. 
 I say this because for years, I think decades, I rode and was not aware of timing . This lead to a lot of frustration for myself and I am sure the horse.  Why wasn't I aware of timing?  No one ever told me about it.  They may have said "up, down, up, down" when I was in the trot, but that is about as advanced as it got.

In Martin's clinic he kept us working on pivoting on individual feet and going either forward or backward on the said foot. This sounds pretty easy, but I will tell you, Cass (my horse) understood it way before I did.  To coordinate the feel, and the timing and THE HORSES COOPERATION is challenging.  But, like anything that is hard work comes the reward.  

This was my second Black clinic and so my second chance to revisit this concept under Martin's teaching.  This time the light bulb really came on for me.  It is so cool to be on your horse and feel exactly when his feet are preparing to lift, so you can get to counting and then getting to transmitting to those individual feet to say slower, stop or faster go! 

The horse just feels like the machine of grace and athleticism he is meant to be, he is unimcumbered he is FREE.  And you will "feel" it.  

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    Jen Piecz

    Horse Lover, Mom, Wife...but not always in that order!

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