4 Tips to Improve your Horse Skills

 

Are you breathing?

When people focus, they tend to hold their breath. Talk. Tell your horse what you are doing (literally, it also helps you keep track.) Sing to him or whistle. Anything!

 

Breath is the most underrated aspect of interacting with our horse. It affects our softness and specificity, mental clarity, muscle engagement, and the effectiveness of our aids. So many students are "late" in their communication because they are carrying tension as a result of inconsistent breathing, causing rigidity in their movement and creating a delayed response in their timing.

 

What are you looking at?

As folks try to coordinate learning the mechanics of communication and the finesse of "feeling" what is happening, they tend to drop their focused gaze downward. Learn to "scroll" across the horse's body, rather than zooming in and fixating on one body part. It will help you associate what you're feeling and what the horse's physical behavior looks like, especially when he is offering resistant or unwanted responses.

 

Are you gripping?

Without trying to be "strong" people tend to grip their hand on the lead rope or rein. Practice having "piano" fingers. Check that you can open and close your fourth, middle, and index fingers on the lead rope or rein as if playing the piano. Do you hold your lead rope like your rein- with a 90-degree bend in your elbow so that you can give and take as needed without losing your balance? This can help release tension in your neck, shoulder, rib cage, elbow, bicep, forearm, and hand.

 

How are your feet?

When standing, notice if your feet are at a comfortable distance apart, with your weight distributed evenly, or if you are physically in a position where if you had to move quickly, you've "blocked" or put yourself in an unsteady stance. Notice if you stand with a slight bend in your knee or lock them, causing rigidity in your leg, and roll your weight off balance onto your toes when addressing your horse. As you stand, can you feel all of your toes flat on the ground, or do they scrunch up in your boot?

 

When in the saddle, remind yourself every once in a while to lift the bottom of your foot slightly off the stirrup. This will reflect if you are pushing down and bracing onto the stirrup with a locked knee or ankle, causing you to be rigid in the saddle and "moving" against the horse's momentum, pushing yourself "backward." This can create delayed responses and a "drag" in your energy. It will also cause you to "unplug" your seat bones, leading to an unstable seat, gripping the reins with a dropped hand, locked elbow, curled shoulders, and head dropped down, eyes looking at the horse's neck. This position leaves you unable to adapt and offer relevant, effective communication in real-time because your focus will be on trying to stay on, rather than able to feel the horse's feedback and address it in a manner that has value to him.