I know I’ve been hot on this topic but it is an important one! A petition which will be presented to the FEI has been started. I urge all who care about horses to SIGN IT.
Just found out there are multiple petitions! Here’s another.
It’s easy. It’s free! I signed both.
I was touched by this excellent essay on the topic of Losgelassenheit, which is one of those long German words that needs a paragraph to translate. Well, here are several paragraphs which do a great job of it.
Here’s a quote to entice you to read the rest:
“Losgelassenheit, we were taught, is the most important stage in the training of the horse.
This “state” of deep relaxation allows the horse to perform movements later, without damaging his body, burning his nervous system or lose trust in the rider. It is this stage that prevents the loss of the natural paces, bad tension in the muscles and which also assures that we have the full attention and participation
of the horse. If a horse shies, he is not losgelassen or has lost his losgelassenheit. Same if he loses balance or is irregular DAP etc, in his gaits: he lost this central calmness.”
Update: Apparently there was some sort of copyright issue with the video. Too bad, as it was a most excellent visual.
Not wanting to be a person who is perceived as someone with some kind of ‘sour-grape’ thing going toward the big-money dressage riders, I thought I’d share this video that demonstrates quite clearly that the hyperflexion I railed against in my previous post is not just abusive but just plain wrong and frankly ineffective.
The commentator is Gerd Heuschmann, the vet/dressage rider who has been going around the world building momentum against the rollkur/hyperflexion phenomenon. I believe that the riders are Andreas Helgstrand (on Blue Hors Matine?) and Guenter Seidel (on Aragon?).
Some may recall that Andreas and Matine caused quite a stir at the World Cup Finals in 2006 when he won a Silver medal in the GP Freestyle. MANY people ooohed and aaaahed about this ‘spectacular’ performance but I did not like it. I said so then, too. And, this clip makes it abundantly clear why. What is not at all clear to me is WHY such a gawd-awful performance would garner such high praise when it is quite obvious that the basic work is flawed. One would think that the judges would at least know it. When will people start to open their eyes and discover that the Emperor is NOT WEARING ANY CLOTHES!? Soon, we can only hope–for the sake of the horse.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Matine was retired to stud after a minor injury a, that she incurred when being unloaded from a horse transport van, a year later. Yes, yes, horses get hurt all the time… s*** happens. But, my theory is that slip was the last straw for a body that was already compromised with strain. Dressage is supposed to be GOOD for the horse’s body. If it isn’t then we need to be working to figure out why.
I’m really glad that this incident is causing quite a stir. Here in Tennessee we’re all too familiar with the abuse taking place within the ‘big lick’ Tennessee Walker community. We’d like to think that Dressage riding would somehow be ‘above’ that. But, not so.
For some years now, it is scary to think of the parallels to what happened to the TWH, certain individuals in high level international competition have been advocating for ‘hyperflexing’ the horse’s neck during training. This was purportedly to further enhance the super bred horse’s already extravagant movement. Unfortunately, the reality is while the legs might get ‘flashier’ the bottom line result is the destruction of the horse’s natural paces.
Evidently, humans being who they are, if some is good, then more must be better! Today riders are not just ruining the horse’s correct way of going they are torturing horses in the name of More More More. Does this not have a sickeningly familiar ring to it? (Thinking big lick here.) For those of us who love dressage for what it is supposed to do FOR the horse, this is abuse and it has to stop.
If you can’t play the video you can go here to read the article associated with the footage on Epona.tv. Actually, you should read the article anyway since it provides more details about what was filmed and answers some questions people have had. You can also go straight over to YouTube to see the video.
Eve Alexander and Beau de Leon
Eve Alexander who maintains a blog at Examiner.com asked me for an interview to talk about clicker training and my book! I was delighted to agree and here is the result. Eve is a prolific writer herself with quite a collection of articles on horses, horse care, training and more. Check her out!
This video features the work of Peggy Cummings. It has a lot to offer in terms of finding a balanced seat and feel and showing how these factors can really influence the horse’s relaxation and balance. There are concepts that are near and dear to my heart so it was a pleasure to see the same ideas reiterated with different words. There were a few before and after examples in which these changes were demonstrated. This is a good video watch for those who are working on establishing these most fundamental of basics in themselves and in their horse.
There were a couple of unique features of her work. One unique thing was the way she utilized a halter and some rope for her groundwork. She didn’t discuss it specifically so I had to make some assumptions about her goal with the set up. She used a regular leather halter with fleece padding the nose band. Then she took what looked like a length of climbing rope and threaded it somehow through the side rings to end up with the rope criss-crossed over the fleece padded nose. The result was a kind of make-shift side-pull. I got the impression that the gain out of all that was snug but comfortable head gear, all the better to transmit ‘feel’ to the horse. I’m all ‘for’ that!
The other aspect to her work was the way she used ‘combing’ or stroking the reins. She did this both in the saddle as well as on the ground. It seemed to me the benefit of that technique was that it presented a softly mobile contact with the horse’s mouth (or head when on the ground). Those who ride with me will frequently hear about keeping the shoulders mobile so that the horse doesn’t ever encounter a static/stiff feel. It seemed to me that the stroking/combing technique filled a similar niche.
All in all a worthwhile experience watching this one.
Sometimes people write to me privately, via email. It might be to ask a question they aren’t comfortable asking on one of the public forums I participate in. Or, it could be that they read my book and want to say that they found it helpful. I’ll admit that those do make my day! And, some times the writer feels the need to write to inform me about how wrong I am on points A, B, and C. The latter aren’t frequent but when they arrive they usually cover the same ground all based on the same mis-understandings about what I do. I received one of that type just the other day.
Because I am a dressage rider people seem to think that my use of clicker training is to by-pass the classical process. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is important to state clearly that nothing could be further from the truth–in my world. Clicker training is a method by which we can reinforce behaviors. It doesn’t tell us what to train or the steps to use to get to the end goal. Those choices need to be made by the trainer and they need to be customized for the horse at hand. So the choices that I make may be very different from those made by someone with different goals and experiences. In other words, there may well be someone out there who does want to use clicker training to by-pass the classical training process, but that is not me. My choices will be based on what I’ve learned about the best of horsemanship and the classical process.
My goal is to achieve the result of a horse who is calm, focused, relaxed, freely forward, balanced, and supple in all that we do. I know too much about how little it can take for a rider to interfere with those goals by being unbalanced and stiff. Rather than try to train the horse to ignore these rider errors I will teach the rider to become ‘easy to carry’ by being calm, focused, balanced, and supple herself. In other words, the classical requirement for the rider to come to the training with an independent seat still applies. Any clicker training which might be applied to the situation is on top of all that.
Yes, clicker training is ‘easy’ to do and ‘anyone’ can do it. But the quality of the results will always be directly proportional to the trainer’s experience with the end game–the trainer’s vision of the results. If the vision is flawed or incomplete well then so will be the results. This goes for everyone, me included. Which is why I’m continually pushing myself to learn more. The journey is truly never ending! And that is probably why I love it so much. 
Philippe Karl — one of my hero’s — was in Toronto, ON to do a three day clinic last week. Oh, I wish I had been there! I’ve watched all of his videos and read his books. They all leave me inspired and wanting to see more, more, more of him riding and transforming horses. Apparently, this clinic did not disappoint those who attended. You can read the notes taken by one of the lucky attendees. I for one have printed out her notes so that I might read them again and again. It is quite lengthy and chock full of details and observations.
Philippe Karl is a classical horseman through and through. He is openly critical of the modern version of dressage seen so often in competitions. He is for the betterment of the horse at all times. He is, in my opinion, someone worth emulating and I do the best that I can in that department!
The other day I was writing about reinforcement and that by doing nothing to get in the way of a behavior is the same as rewarding it. Then, while riding yesterday and today I realized that I was letting my mare, Danke, get out of balance and I was doing absolutely nothing about it! So, guess what? Since I allowed this to continue, of course, little by little the problem was getting bigger and bigger. Finally, I gave myself a ‘whack upside the head’ and got with my own program!
In a kind of out of body experience I started to realize that I was letting this falling out of balance thing happen. I could feel it was happening and then I had to hustle to put it back together. Suddenly, I had a moment of clarity that I wasn’t being anywhere NEAR particular enough about this matter. What had I been thinking? Who knows. Obviously, my attention had been mis-directed. Unfortunately, now that I’d let it happen numerous times (I’d reinforced the behavior through my own in-action) I had no choice now than to be dramatic to make a point. Sorry, Danke, but it just doesn’t need to be like this and it was time for me to do something about it!
So, I decided that if I felt even the tiniest of possibilities that the balance was going out of whack, I would put in a full halt– to say (in effect) STAY with me. Turns out that was after about half a stride. Hummm. Well, no wonder. I repeated this a few times. Pretty soon, I just had to think, ‘stay with me’ and ‘voila’ –carriage, lightness, softness were available instantly. Duh. 
Now, that was yesterday. Today, being a fairly quick study, I decided to be particular about everything right from the git-go. Go when I say “go”, Stop when I say, “stop” and Turn when I say, “turn” and when all was well, go with it. Of course, I had a great ride!
Over and over again I’m reminded that riding well is about attention to detail. Not just today or this instant but every single stride of every single ride. That can seem like a daunting responsibility and I suppose it is. But, if you want to ride well, and I do, then you accept the responsibility. When Danke came to me this balance issue manifested in much more obvious problems–like being unable to canter left at all. Now that most of the time she is lovely to ride this balance thing was more insidious. Things just felt…icky. Now, I see it was my own danged fault. Of course it is, seeing as that’s what I’m always saying to my students!
How small a particle can you become aware of and be particular about it?
I read Dominique Giniaux’s book, “What the Horse Have Told Me” several years ago. It was interesting enough at the time but I’ll admit I didn’t fully appreciate his points until some other information came to light and it all converged. Funny how that sort of things happens. It is like your brain isn’t wired to ‘hear’ something the first time you come across some information. But, it gets stored. Then later, some other bit of information reacts with the first bit and POW, revelation!
So, recently I was watching a video put together by JP Giacomini about half pass. He said something that caught my ear. It was about how the horse’s rib cage would lift up the inside seat bone when the horse was properly bent. He went on to explain that when bent the horse’s withers/spinal processes would rotate toward the outside thereby lifting the inside seat bone. In addition that the idea of pushing downward with the inside seat for bending was counter-productive because that would require that the horse be hollow. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Suddenly I started to have memories of reading in the Giniaux book. Something was tickling my brain. I had to go get the book and open it to chapter 16 about collection. Yes, there it was, the diagram I remembered which illustrated how the spinal processes would have to tip to the opposite side of the bend. I may even have done the experiment that he proposes with the piece of cardboard and a tack. You’ll have to get the book to find out what I’m talking about! 
Well the more I ruminated about it and then brought it to my horse the more sense it made. And, with that clarity, I started to get a lot better bend, too!!
