The more I learn about horses, the more I understand people...
There are so many parallels I could provide on this, but I'll leave it at this example, which happened Saturday while I was taking a lesson. One issue I've had over time in my very young riding career (I've been at this all of like 11 months, if that) is my lack of consistency in communicating with Freckles. This is especially true when I'm trying to get her to go. Even when she goes, she loves to stop for no apparent reason, at least that was my take.
At it turns out there was a couple of things that might have been sending her mixed signals. One was the fact that my stirrups were still too long. That meant I was likely not centered properly and unable to focus on communicating specific commands with her. In a human sense, think of it like someone grabbing your elbow pulling you one way while tugging on your shirt tail. You're not really sure what is wanted from you, so you just stop. Makes sense, right? Same goes for the horse.
The other issue was the location of my hands and the amount of slack (or lack of) in my reins. I ride bit-less, so that's probably more of an issue in this setup than with a bit. The same analogy applies as above, the tension in my reins was sending her mixed signals while I'm asking her to go.
Just fixing the hand location/tension issue paid off immediately with her. It was like she was a completely different horse. I can't wait to finish punching new holes my stirrups and see how much that helps. That was hands down the best ride I had had with her since I bought her in March. Quite a breakthrough, in my humble opinion! Of course, I had help, naturally as I doubt I can discover most of this stuff on my own. Paige is a terrific teacher and helped me work thru both of these issues. I can't say enough about how wonderful we have it where we board our horses at.
In the end, it crystallized for me not just why Freckles was more responsive, but how you can get people to be more responsive as well. I had to clear out the "noise" in my communications in order for Freckles to understand me (and likewise, for me to understand her, which is arguably more important). Seems to apply to horses and humans I guess.
At it turns out there was a couple of things that might have been sending her mixed signals. One was the fact that my stirrups were still too long. That meant I was likely not centered properly and unable to focus on communicating specific commands with her. In a human sense, think of it like someone grabbing your elbow pulling you one way while tugging on your shirt tail. You're not really sure what is wanted from you, so you just stop. Makes sense, right? Same goes for the horse.
The other issue was the location of my hands and the amount of slack (or lack of) in my reins. I ride bit-less, so that's probably more of an issue in this setup than with a bit. The same analogy applies as above, the tension in my reins was sending her mixed signals while I'm asking her to go.
Just fixing the hand location/tension issue paid off immediately with her. It was like she was a completely different horse. I can't wait to finish punching new holes my stirrups and see how much that helps. That was hands down the best ride I had had with her since I bought her in March. Quite a breakthrough, in my humble opinion! Of course, I had help, naturally as I doubt I can discover most of this stuff on my own. Paige is a terrific teacher and helped me work thru both of these issues. I can't say enough about how wonderful we have it where we board our horses at.
In the end, it crystallized for me not just why Freckles was more responsive, but how you can get people to be more responsive as well. I had to clear out the "noise" in my communications in order for Freckles to understand me (and likewise, for me to understand her, which is arguably more important). Seems to apply to horses and humans I guess.