horseridinglessons

How do some riders seem to simply handle ‘speed wobbles’ when they are riding? It seems as though nothing phases them.  They simply effectively and efficiently get things back on track with minimum effort and drama… Their secret?  They have swapped reacting versus responding when they ride.

If you are the sort of rider who gets ‘triggered’ by certain things in your riding, you have possibly looked at those ‘other’ riders with a mixture of awe and jealously!

Today I want to tell you exactly how you can begin riding like them; and begin responding rather than reacting when riding, and working with, your horse.

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Additional Resources for Equestrians

• Connection; My Online Membership for Equestrians
• Your FREE half halt training
• The Direct Relationship Between Your Fitness & Your Riding
• Dealing with a Horse who Spooks and Spins
• Diffusing a Difficult or Dangerous Situation
• Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
• Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses)

Sprinkled, like confetti. This is how I think the half halt should be applied to your ride. Little ones that are really everywhere. None of them too big. Or ‘stand out’. Yet all of them working together to give the desired effect or result.

For many riders, the half halt, rather than being like confetti, becomes more like broadsheet newspapers scattered randomly around the arena. Not too many, some altogether. And not really having any use other than to make things look messy and unorganized.

Size Matters

How do you get your broadsheet size half halts to resemble a piece of confetti? You refine. And refine… The energy that you are putting into that one ‘big’ half halt (your standard broadsheet), divided up and divided amongst a whole lot of smaller, more refined half halt (your ‘confetti').

Yes, I realize I am really oversimplifying something that so many riders struggle with, the trusty half halt. And yet, it really is that simple. It is riders ‘wanting’ to make it harder than it really is... That is the real struggle with the half halt. And they want to make it harder because, although it is simple, it is usually not that easy to grasp when actually riding.

I have spoken about the half halt a lot… It really and truly is a sticking point for so many riders. I won’t get into too much of the what and why (you can read about that HERE and HERE and HERE if you’re interested). Instead, I want to give you some practical tips you can use while riding to help you work on turning your half halt from a broadsheet to a tiny piece of confetti.

Light, lovely, and a feel-good sign for all who experience it.

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Additional Resources for Equestrians:-

• • • FREE Half Halt Training Audio
    • 3 Ways to Use the Half Halt in Your Riding
    • Harnessing the Power of the Half Halt
    • Improving Your Ride with the Half Halt
    • Understanding and Refining Your Half Halt
    • Your Half Halt on the Ground with Your Horse
    • Connection in Your Riding; Your Seat and Legs
    • Connection; My Online Membership for Equestrians
    • Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
    • Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses

What will you be doing with your horse this week? Seem’s like an innocent enough question… ‘Ah, a bit of this and a dash of that’...

And there is the problem. If you committed to actually planning out the answer to this question for the coming 4 weeks in your riding, you can, potentially, change everything.

The Same Thing = The Same Result

So many riders are doing the same thing, day in and day out, and then feeling frustrated by the lack of results.

They go out there, day after day. Clock in their respective rides. For some, it might be 4 a week. Others might be happy with 2 a week. There is a feeling of accomplishment having ‘gotten in’ the two or four rides for that week. But what has really changed? What was intentional? Focused?

And are your results merely reflecting your lack of doing anything different?

Is it possible that you are, in fact, seeing results? You are failing to see them because they are simply the same ones you’ve been seeing for quite a while now… Doing the same thing over and over will achieve one result. The same one! Expecting anything different is wishful thinking!

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Additional Resources for Equestrians

• • • Join Connection today (cancel anytime)
    • Out of Planning and Into Action
    • Planning for Progress in Your Riding
    • What's Your Riding Number
    • Lunging for Riding 
    • Groundwork for Riding
    • My free online community 

Interpreting Ten Common Riding Instructor Sayings

Contact Details for this Episode are available on 

www.HorseChats.com/JenniferKotylo3

Music
- BenSound.com

Interviewed by Glenys Cox

Think about the last time you were with your horse. How many times did you ask him to halt while working with him on the ground? Before you mounted up? Was it 4?  Maybe 10? And what about after you dismounted?

When interacting and working with our horses, so much of it happens on the ground. Beside your horse. Here is how you can begin using this in a way that will help you when you do mount up in the saddle.

All conversations with your horse start and end on the ground. Before you mount up and when you dismount after each ride. So it makes sense to use this daily interaction to intentionally help your riding.

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Additional Resources on This Topic:-

• Your Half Halt on the Ground with Your Horse
• An Engaged Halt
• Online coaching and audio horse riding lessons for equestrians
• Groundwork for Riding
• FREE Weeks Riding Plan
• Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
• Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses)

"Ten Ways To Get The Most Out Of A Training Session"

Contact Details for this Episode are available on 

www.HorseChats.com/BrendanBergin7

Music
- BenSound.com

Interviewed by Glenys Cox

How many times have you asked your horse to leg yield, moving forward yet sideways, only for it to become frustratingly obvious a few steps into the moment that what is happening underneath you is definitely not what you had in mind?!

Asking our horses to leg yield is one of the first introductions they will have to lateral movement.  It introduces our horse to the concept of not just going in straight lines and moving forward, but also adding in some lateral or sideways movement as well.

It is a wonderful exercise for supplying our horses and has the added benefit of being easy enough to introduce to younger or less schooled and developed horses who have not yet achieved collection in their gaits.

A true and correct leg yield happens when your horse moves forward and sideways, along a diagonal line, keeping their back straight with a slight flexion of the poll away from the direction you are travelling.

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Additional Resources on this Topic

• • • Leg Yielding to Refine Your Asking Aids in the Saddle
    • Lateral Movement – Leg Yielding
    • Using Lateral Work to Improve Your Walk
    • FREE Weeks Riding Plan
    • Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
    • Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses)

So often when we are riding, relaxation for both ourselves and our horse is one of the goals for the ride.  This being so, you may have tried working him long and low, whether it be during warming up or cooling off.  However, you may also have noticed that asking your horse to work long and low can be pretty hit and miss...  He might get faster and faster as he becomes really unbalanced and begins falling onto his forehand...

Working your horse long and low involves stretching and elongating his topline, from the tail to the poll.  

It helps to build his topline, strengthening the 'suspension' muscles underneath you and also, create more longitudinal suppleness, which will benefit your horse greatly while being ridden.

So often when riding we think of suppleness as bending and flexing from left to right and while this is true, this is lateral suppleness.  

Working your horse long and low helps with his elasticity and flexibility from tail to poll, along his back, which is essential to his correct development.

When riding your horse in a long and low frame, you will feel his hindquarters swinging underneath you.  This is due to the muscles in his back becoming more supple and loosening up.  This can only happen when your horse relaxes enough through his back, allowing the energy to flow and connect.  This results in your horse developing an increased range of flexion and movement in his joints, which will allow for a bigger, more flowing, step or stride, and a more sound horse.

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Additional Resources to Help with This Topic

• • • • Connection; The Online Membership for Equestrians
      • The Returning to Riding Program – Getting the Basics on Autopilot in Your Riding
      • Equestrian Fitness Challenge
      • Join the free Strides for Success Online Community

Think back to the last time you were cantering along on your horse and a change of rein was coming up.  You began the task of preparing to drop back a gear into a trot to change the canter lead.  "Better than losing rhythm and balance through a flying change..."  However before you even got there, your horse (being the clever guy that he is) decided to take matters into his own hands. And with what felt like a skip, Voila, he had performed the flying change all by himself...

The flying change is one of those things that we tend to, as riders, overthink in our heads.  

However, the simple truth of the matter is that flawless flying changes happen when we focus on the preparation and then allow our horse to perform the change without interference from us in the saddle.

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Do you find yourself becoming confused and frustrated about how you are supposed to be using your rein aids while riding?  Do terms such as soften your rein, fill up your rein, hold with the rein, lighten the rein leave you baffled, not to mention how much pressure is good and how much is too much?!

I want you to take a quick trip down memory lane and back to your first ride on a horse...  Chances are that back then, before you knew any different, you thought of your reins as the means to steer and stop your horse.  However, you soon began to realize that while your reins make up part of the system to do this, in order to really have a happy contact with your horse, you needed to reframe how you think of your reins and what you use them for.

Your reins are, first and foremost, the way that you collect the energy your horse creates in his hindquarters and back, so you can then channel it where you want it to go.  

This is done through you have a consistent contact on the rein, which allows your horse to build trust in you that you won't catch him or drop him while he is working into that contact.

However, before you can even begin thinking about this, we must first discuss how your hand will come to meet the rein and the effect this has on you and your horse.

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Additional Resources for Equestrians:-

• • • • Why Forward is Essential for Contact
      • Improving Your Riding Coordination & Aids While Lunging
      • Join Connection today and transform your riding journey
      • Lunging for Riding – 4-week step by step program to transform your lunging experience
      • Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
      • Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses)

When we first learn to ride, turning is often explained to us as merely a 'tug' or pull on one rein or the other to turn our horse's head. There is a general consensus being that where his head turns, his body will go..  

However, anyone who has ridden a determined pony or horse will know that this is very often not the case... You can point the head where you 'want' to go, but often your horse will crab along sideways, almost following his hindquarters, in the opposite direction; which 90% of the time is the same direction as the stable!

Later as we become more accomplished in the saddle, what started out as a simple instruction in our first lesson, has become an ingrained habit and something that we often feel nervous or anxious giving up control over!  

So why are we thought to turn this way if it is indeed incorrect and, why later when we get into the nitty-gritty details of riding are we constantly hearing about softening or lightening our inside rein?

I think the reason that we are thought this initially is threefold... Firstly, we get a quick win under our belts which then leaves us wanting more (translate into booking more riding lessons!).

Secondly, even the best-coordinated person struggles when they first get into the saddle to use their different limbs and body parts in different ways all at the same time to produce the desired result! 

And lastly, it's a control thing and one that we need to learn to let go of!

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Additional Resources for Equestrians

• Inside Rein to Outside Leg
• Applying the Rein Aids in Your Riding
• Why Forward is Essential for Contact
• Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
• Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses)
• Join Connection; The Online Membership for Equestrians

Does the thought of any sort of prolonged periods of sitting trot fill both you, your bum, and your horse’s back with a sense of dread?!  Perhaps the find the more you try not to bounce; the higher you appear to go?!

Sitting trot is probably one of the most confounding things to master when you first begin riding. And often enough time is not invested at the beginning of your training to understanding the sitting trot. This leaves riders to their own devices, of which there are many, in trying to stay in the saddle and not bounce around like a gummy bear!

Ideally, the sitting trot should be thought before the rising or posting to the trot, however, because sitting trot has gotten a bad name over the past few years, this is rarely the case.

This leads most novice riders to think of it as difficult or hard, which does not have to be the case.

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Additional Resources for Equestrians

• • Avoiding the Trampoline Effect in the Sitting Trot
  • 3 Mistakes Riders Make when Riding the Sitting Trot
  • Position Faults that are Potentially Holding You Back in Your Riding
  • What are the Basics when It Comes to Riding
  • Are You Working on Developing Your Leg Aids
  • Lunging for Riding
  • Online Community for Equestrian focusing on Planning and Mindset
  • Connection; the Online Membership for Equestrians

Feel...  A hugely important component of successful horsemanship and something that is often considered as a talent that you are either gifted at birth with or your not!

From years spent helping and watching people ride, I do agree that some people seem to have a more natural feel than others. However, I have also found that, often, riders who seemingly lack natural feel can learn it. They can develop it with consistent effort and diligence.

What Is Feel?

So what is feel?  My explanation of feel is the ability to know the right time to ask a question of your horse without having to consciously think about it.  It is also the skill of reacting correctly, in a timely fashion, to almost all situations without, again, having to think too long or hard about it.

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Additional Resources for Equestrians

• Online Community for Equestrian focusing on Planning and Mindset
• Great Expectations – Returning to Riding series
• Step by Step – Returning to Riding Series
• Choosing Your Mindset – Returning to Riding Series
• Focusing on the Basics – Returning to Riding Series
• The Original Returning to Riding Plan
• The Full Returning to Riding Program
• Free Equestrian Fitness Challenge
• Connection; The Online Membership for Equestrians

Have you tried it? For many riders, the mention of riding bareback is enough to see them running to the tack room for a saddle!  However, for those that pluck up the courage - it can change so much...

Bareback riding is a super way to improve your posture and position as well as balance, skills, and feel. However often the greatest challenge we must first overcome in order to achieve these benefits is our minds telling us we cannot possibly do it!

Riding bareback is not as difficult as you may think and this week I challenge you to push the boundaries of your comfort zone and try it, if only for a few minutes initially. Then gradually build your confidence and time spend 'sans' saddle!

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Additional Resources for Equestrians

• • • Learning to Stop Blocking with Your Seat – Part 1
    • Learn to Stop Driving with Your Seat
    • Connection in Your Riding; Seat and Legs
    • Your Independent Seat is a Result of Your Independent Aids
    • Your Independent Seat is Everything in Your Riding
    • Online coaching and audio horse riding lessons for equestrians
    • Groundwork for Riding
    • Online community for equestrians working on their mindset & fitness
    • Online Community for equestrians focusing on re-schooling horses (and ex-racehorses)

I've often wondered what it is about the canter that makes riders almost seem to ignore it when schooling in the arena.  I see riders put so much time, care, and attention into the trot and to a lesser degree, the walk...  But the canter is more often than not relegated to a few 'laps' of the arena and then back to more of the same with walking and trotting...

This week on the Daily Strides Podcast, we are focusing on some ways you can incorporate more canter work into your schooling sessions.

Canter can require some serious work from both you and your horse.  It is easy to become tired while we are cantering and with tiredness comes a sense of complacency with the quality of the gait.  

During this episode of the Daily Strides Podcast, we are covering four main points that will help keep you on track with your cantering and allowing you and your horse to perform at your best.

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Additional Resources to Help with This Topic

• • • • Developing Your Seat in the Canter
      • 3 Steps to Better Canter Transitions
      • 3 Ways You Are Ruining Your Transitions from Trot to Canter
      • Asking for the Correct Canter Lead when on the Straight
      • Straightness in the Canter
      • Using Your Body to Effectively Influence the Canter
      • The Returning to Riding Program – Getting the Basics on Autopilot in Your Riding
      • Equestrian Fitness Challenge
      • Subscribe to the Daily Strides Podcast
      • Join the free Strides for Success Online Community

Do you find that when you ask your horse for a more expressive trot, he just seems to begin running onto his forehand with you, becoming heavier and heavier with each stride? You're not alone!

Many riders set out looking to achieve an active, working trot... But due to lots of different factors, this can end up just 'running' around the arena. The horse resembling an arrow of sorts!

The front end getting lower and lower with each passing stride, while the back end is getting completely left behind!

Unfortunately, what usually happens next is the one thing that exasperates this 'effect' even further and that is hauling on the reins; dropping an anchor if you will.  

The reason this just makes the whole situation worse is by doing this, you and your horse begin to engage in a 'tug of war' of sorts. And, quite frankly, being involved in such a game with a 600 kg animal is an exhausting endeavor!

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Additional Links to Help You:-

• • • Planning Your Rides – Part 1 Fun
    • Planning Your Rides – Part 2 Partnership
    • Planning Your Rides – Part 3 Training
    • Planning Your Rides - Part 4 Free Exercise to Use
    • Lunging for Riding
    • Online Community for Equestrian focusing on Planning and Mindset
    • Stop Wasting and Start Investing Time with Your Horse
    • What’s Your Number in Your Riding?
    • A Plan for 7 Days in Your Riding
    • Plan Your Ride with These Simple Steps
    • Transform the Next 12 Weeks in Your Riding
    • Connection; the Online Membership for Equestrians

Your outside rein is a vital part when it comes to the balance of your aids.  It is the ‘endpoint’ with regards to the physical cycle of our aids when creating energy in the saddle.

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Additional Links to Help You:-

• Planning Your Rides – Part 1 Fun
• Planning Your Rides – Part 2 Partnership
• Planning Your Rides - Part 3 Training & Developing
• Planning Your Rides - Part 4 FREE Exercise & Plan
• Stop Wasting and Start Investing Time with Your Horse
• What’s Your Number in Your Riding?
• Lunging for Riding
• Online Community for Equestrian focusing on Planning and Mindset
• Connection; the Online Membership for Equestrians