which_chick | (no subject)

My day went reasonably well. Though I haven't been discussing it due to assorted other issues, after-work sessions with Cass and Chelsea have been proceeding nicely.

We're all making some headway. It's amazing what regular practice will do for ya. I'm getting better at explaining what needs to be explained, Cass is getting better about *thinking* before she asks the horse to do something, and Chelsea is getting better about actually listening to what Cass has to say. So, y'know, progress. Things I'd like to see improve... Cass's releases still need work and she's still tight on the reins when she gets frustrated. Chelsea actually needs some work on her lateral stuff -- she's not as good at it as I thought she was or else she's totally blowing Cass off. Either way, Cass is doing the cues right as far as I can see (and I stand so that I can see where the legs and hands are moving) and Chelsea is not giving her the response she should... so that's an area that needs work for the pair of them.

I know that Chelsea knows how to back up. That, she knows. She and Cass are great on backing up now. The problem is that without lateral clue, there is no steering while going backwards, and that's a problem. There's also no sidepassing, but that's part of our reach exceeding our grasp right now. :) We'll get there.

For all ya'll non-horse-people, I have drawn some diagrams to clarify lateral work with horses. I realize that this material is of limited interest, but at least I'm not talking about my groceries. For these horrible diagrams, pretend you are looking at the horse from high above him. The horse is drawn in black. The triangle is the horse's head, the straight line connecting the triangle to the big oval is his neck, the big oval is his body, and the three scraggly lines are his tail. (This is probably the ugliest horse schematic on the planet.) The stuff drawn in red is stuff the rider does. The straight line out to the side of the neck is rein pressure. The little circle along the belly of the horse is the rider's leg. (The rein and leg that are NOT SHOWN are to be quiet and not giving cues.) The small red arrow inside the horse's belly is to show where the horse's weight is to be shifted, forward or back. The arrows and/or feet (they are horse feet) underneath the schematic show how the horse is supposed to move. The arrows show movement. The horse feet picture means that the corresponding feet (front or hind) do not move.

In the above set of schematics, we are looking at basic lateral cues to move over the hindquarters (the half with the tail) or the forehand (the half with the head). In the two left diagrams, we are using leg cues to shift the horse's hindquarters to the left or to the right. The weight of the horse is to be in a going-forward frame of reference. That's sort of the default setting, so no difficulty there. The two right diagrams show using rein cues to shift the horse's forehand to the left or to the right. Notice that for moving the forehand, the horse's weight has to be shifted back, as indicated by the little red arrow inside the horse. This is because mostly horses stand with more weight on their front legs than on their back legs (it's about a 70-30 split) and asking the horse to move his front legs while he's busy standing on them is a recipe for failure.

Now, when you are doing a dogleg backup, you are going backwards, so that your horse's weight looks like the "forehand" turn pictures (the ones on the right, above). However, your steering for staying inside the dogleg will require you to be moving the hindquarters over (like the diagrams on the left). This is one of the reasons that it is difficult for 4-H kids to succeed at the obstacle... they try to go right from backing up directly into asking the hindquarters to step over, and the horse stomps all over the obstacle. It's just ugly. To succeed, you should stop backing up, release the reins a bit, and let the horse mentally recollect before asking for the hindquarter step-over.

Here, we have more exciting combinations of cue goodness. Note that the little arrows inside the horse have turned into minus signs, indicating that the horse should not have his weight either forward or back. These are purely lateral goodies, these are. I've also labled the moves so that you have some idea of what they are... and a bit of a grip on why I been saying that Cass can't ask Chelsea to sidepass until and unless all the basic lateral stuff is working real well. (That'd be the stuff in the FIRST set of pictures. If all that stuff works well, then it can be put together to build these cooler, niftier moves.) It's important to get the basics down rock-solid because otherwise you get to "Why does my counter-clockwise spin look like shit?" and you discover that your problem is that your horse won't shift his hindquarters to the right worth a damn and you've got to go back and work on that. Might as well teach it right the first time, you know? With a good foundation, all the nifty moves are right there, the moment you ask for 'em. Practice up for a week or two, and you'll be all set. If you rush it, you've built your house on sand and the higher level moves will NOT come together no matter how much you practice them.

However, asking for a hindquarter step over, just one, to the left is boring. It is. It is especially boring if you're eight and you want to sidepass RIGHT NOW. *sigh* We're getting there, but we're getting there one step at a time.