Why get a little when you can have a lot?

I recently read about a Tail Detangling treatment being offered in the Austin area. The provider detangles every hair and notes what the surface of the tail itself is like where the hairs attach. The person who wrote about this said that this really relaxed her somewhat nervous horse and the next time she rode the horse the relaxation seemed to still be present. So is the horse training or equine bodywork? probably neither, but nice for the horse.

This was very interesting to me as a TTouch Practitioner. I have included work on the tail in my sessions with horses for many years, doing Tail Flexions, Tail Rotations and Spinal Tractions. As a groom and horse trainer I have taught people in how to remove tangles and keep the tail skin healthy in a way that makes the horse comfortable and relaxed. I’ve also recommended keeping the tail short enough that it hangs a few inches off the ground, as leaving the tail too long could be very irritating to the horse when it drags on the ground or catches in plants.

I can see the value of this treatment, but why not go all the way, and learn how to do TTouches, Tail Flexions and Rotations, and Spinal Traction. All of these techniques are part of the TTouch system and affect the horse on a much deeper level. While the detangling treatment can be useful in producing relaxation, especially for the sensitive or nervous horse, the above mentioned techniques can create a long lasting change in any personality type. If do –it –yourself is not your style, hiring a TTouch practitioner to provide a complete tail or mane treatment would give you more bang for your buck.

balance wrap video

http://www.horsehero.com/13908/75601

I recently received this link from one of my distant students and was delighted to see it. In it the young horse is wearing a band fastened to the saddle that goes around the base of the neck. I have never seen this equipment used in this way other than in TTEAM clinics.

I have been using this technique for many years and have seen it help horses who are heavy on the forehand lighten up, horses who don’t have good balance rebalance themselves, and help improve the halt with horses who push through the rein.

The band in the video can easily be reproduced by buying a heavy duty elastic bandage and simply tying it to the rings at the front of the saddle. It will give the horse a new awareness of it’s body, will support it’s neck and shoulders, and help it lighten up. Although it cannot be worn in competition, it can change the horse’s habitual posture and movement enough that it will become unnecessary most of the time, and can easily be put back on during training sessions to remind the horse.

The next step is the balance rein. It can be more effective because it is not elastic, and the tension and support are controlled by the rider. This gives more options, but also requires that the rider be able to successfully control two reins in order to choose when to apply pressure with the balance rein.

I highly recommend that you watch the video and experiment with the balance wrap. Whether your horse is high headed, or heavy on the forehand or, even both at the same time, using it a few times is likely to cause improvement.

I love it because it is another tool which can help our horses do their work in greater comfort and balance.

The Book of Horse

Lately I've been re-reading Michael Road's book Journey into Nature and have been reminded how at some levels we really are all one. In his book he relates experiences of being connected to horses ( and other creatures) and experiencing the world through their eyes and feelings. I've had some experiences myself where I've become a part of "Horse"- all horses that ever have been, are now, and ever will be. Horse consciousness, if you will. During these experiences I've been overwhelmed by horse's love for us and amazing generosity to us as a species. Our connection runs deep, and we really are made to support each other.

There is a big "Book of Horse" and we are each writing our own chapter, both in our Book of Horse and in their Book of Horse as perceived from their viewpoint. Their behavior and response helps us write the chapter in our book. Our chapter in their book is recorded in their group consciousness. Ultimately our chapters together inform all horses and humans and become a guide to help those who come after us. They give us a way to evolve our connection to and communication with Horse and with Nature through Horse. And if we can interact with kindness, understanding, love and respect, our connection increases and opens the door to even greater evolution.

Imagine a world where everyone can feel that huge love that flows through all of Nature. We can evolve in that direction, and each one of us who chooses to feel it and find it through horses contributes to our evolution.

So keep on lovin your horses, listen to them, watch their responses, imagine that they have feelings and intelligence of their own, reward them with your attention, kindiness, respect, and understanding. And know that you are writing chapters in the Book of Horse that can lead us all to a better life.

Nenemi reminds me to deviate

I just returned from a fabulous week teaching at a Starting Young Horses Clinic with Linda Tellington Jones and her sister Robyn Hood. The horses at Bitteroot guest ranch are all started using Tellington Method- TTEAM training during these week long clinics.

As one of the teachers working with small groups under Linda and supervision I was assigned to a 3 year old quarter horse mare Nenemi and her students for a couple of days. Our task was to try to prepare Nenemi for being saddled for the first time. We were at a point where we wanted to begin the process of ground driving to help her learn to respond to signals and to improve her balance. As we moved forward with the next step, we went into a round pen to work with ehr and her anxiety mounted. I was "on a mission" to continue and she reached a point where she reared up. We immediately released pressure and took her out of the situation and backed up a step, ending by soothing her and asking her for an easier task.

That night at our debreifing I realized that I had felt pressured by the situation to continue within a time frame towards saddling. The next day I decided to deviate from my"goal" and my "system" and took Nenemi in the catch pen again with my students. At the beginning she could not stand still and was looking everywhere else, not present, not wanting to be with us, nipping, barging and leaning on her handler. Instead of taking up with the previous day's lesson we did bodywork and balancing work. By the end of our session she was standing quietly and totally present. She had stopped nipping and leaning on us, and walked quietly on the lead to pasture with the rest of the horses.

At "graduation" ceremony for the horses next day, which is a walk across a one lane wooden bridge over the raging Wind River, Nenemi successfully walked quietly beside her handler without leaning, freezing, blowing up, or nipping. Great progress! My lesson learned was don't escalate. Deviate!

Balance, Confidence, Harmony Part 2 ~ Balance Leads the Way

Finding balance in the saddle is a lifelong quest for many. As a rider, there is no skill more important than learning to sit in perfect balance. As I’ve said before, with great balance you will find confidence and harmony, but all the confidence in the world won’t get you to harmony without excellent balance.

All that “heels down, sit up straight, lengthen your leg, lean forward, lean back, etc., etc., etc., " ad naseum is really your instructors way to get you to experience the state of good balance so that eventually you can find your way there on your own. I have found, over years of teaching, that after one gets past the very basics of staying on the horses back; there are some techniques that do help speed you on your path towards perfect balance. Often these involve non-mounted exercises - what I call homework. For many, the idea of connecting homework with riding is about as appealing as eating a live toad, but I assure you that it is much easier and will definitely get you closer to perfect balance faster. Which, by the way, means less struggle and sore muscles for you and your horse.

The brain needs a certain number of repetitions of any thought/movement combination before your body can “automatically” reproduce that combination. If you can create that pattern and practice it unmounted, it will be there for you to call on when you are mounted. Maintaining good balance while posting is a challenge to many riders, novice and experienced alike. When you don’t maintain balance, often, the reins are used as a balance aid and that BCH circle spirals down. I’m going to give you a balance exercise that you can practice at home to make your journey to great balance a little faster. Even if you do not post the trot, this exercise can be modified to work for you.

For exercise one you’ll need a full-length mirror, a stool or chair and some books. You’ll also need the assistance of an instructor in your sport, or a friend with a good eye for about five minutes. After you’ve got the hang of it, music comes in handy.

First, with your helper, view the horse from the side with the saddle on. The saddle must sit level on the horse in order for you to establish good balance. If it doesn’t, this I the time to use shim pads, or get a new saddle that fits your horse correctly. Now have your helper stand to the side and help you establish the top point of your rise. This should be when you are standing almost vertical in the saddle with just enough bend in hips and knees to be springy, and with the sole of your foot parallel to the ground. Then, sit, with the part of your heiney that folds, underneath your buttocks, touching down in the lowest part of the saddle. Now ask your
helper to measure how far back and how far down this distance is. You don’t need a ruler (though it helps) a string, a stick, or a hands width will do. But some measure should be taken and recorded that you can take with you.

This is where a chair, or stool comes in. Get yours, with some books, saddle pads, wood, what ever is handy to add or decrease the height of your stool or chair. Have your helper position you in front of the stool or chair, adjust the height and your distance until you have recreated the height and distance you measured that your heiney has to travel to touch down from the top of your rise to the lowest part of the saddle.

Have your helper stand 5 or 6 feet away and view you directly from the side. Stand with your feet as far apart as they are when you are in the saddle. Let your upper arms dangle straight down out of your shoulder joints, bend your elbows and hold your hands out in front of you as though you were holding the reins in perfect position. Now reach down and back with your derriere and touch, but don’t sit on your chair or stool. Have your helper watch and help you to make sure that you repeat the movement as you did while mounted. Repeat at least 40 times. This is very important, as that is a minimum number of times for you to be able to remember it.

Now you can take your rise and fall measurement, go home, and recreate this exercise at home in front of the mirror. Begin by going slowly, watching carefully. Be sure to keep your feet flat on the ground. After you can repeat the movement consistently, speed up.

Then turn on the music, and “dance”/post to the rhythm of the music. This will imprint the thought/movement combination in your brain, and will help you learn to recognize, repeat and maintain a rhythm or a tempo.

Let me say here that many very experienced riders do not post the trot in balance. Try this exercise and see if

1) your saddle is level on the horse. 2) your heiney touches down in the lowest part of the saddle 3) your feet stay still and level while you post. If any of these common bugaboos are part of your current posting trot, they are interfering with your progress and the comfort of you and your horse. Practice the whole exercise until you’ve really got the feel. Then try to recreate the new balance while riding. It can actually be more challenging for the experienced rider to change their balance for the better than for the novice rider to begin properly. Keep practicing off and on the horse and your posting trot will become more effortless. Your horse will thank you.

Now for those of you who do not post the trot, here’s how you can use this exercise to your advantage. If you don’t post, your position in the saddle should essentially be vertical. Have your knowledgeable helper make sure that your saddle sits level on the horse. Then stand in the position described above. Your shoulders should be directly above your hips, and a plumb line dropped from the center of your hip (viewed from the side) should graze the back of your heel. Your hips and knees should be bent. Now practice bouncing elastically up and down just an inch or two. Music is helpful for keeping a rhythm. When you can bounce elastically and follow the rhythm for several minutes, its time to add the motion of the trot. Find a place where
you can skip – just like you did as a child. Skip around for a couple of minutes, and notice the movement created in your back and hips. The movement of the skip and the movement of the trot both raise one hip at a time with a moment of suspension in between. Now go back to your stance and the music and recreate the sensation in your hips which was created by skipping. Don’t move your feet, keep your knees and hips elastic and slightly bent, and let your hips move one at a time. After you’ve got this exercise mastered your sitting trot will be lots more fun for you and your horse.

If you ride gaited horses, follow the directions for finding central, vertical balance. Then recreate the motion of the horses back. This varies from gaited horse to gaited horse. It can be a circling with the bottom of each sitting bone, one hip at a time. It can be a side-to-side motion, one hip at a time, or it can be one hip drops at a time – like the trot, but with no suspension. The key is to notice which your horse does, then recreate it while you are standing sideways in front of the mirror so that you can experience good balance and imprint it in your brain.

Excellent balance is one of the keys to admirable riding. Excellent balance makes the whole experience of riding more effortless for rider and horse. Excellent balance gives you the power to improve your horse’s balance – leading to lightness. Excellent balance is the key to the doorway of improvement in every area of riding. Excellent balance leads you and your horse into the unending circle of balance, confidence and harmony, constantly spiraling upward towards ease, grace, and en-light-enment. Excellent balance is worth every moment that you spend developing it.

Balance, Confidence, Harmony

Years ago I created a logo for myself. I wanted something that would express my philosophy about riding in a visual way. Something that would distill all those words and motions presented while giving countless riding lessons and clinics into a quick unmistakable shot. Like distilling all the raw materials in Frangelico down to that potent, delicious liqueur. Something that would be obvious, but that would also have greater meaning as the skills and understanding of the viewer increased. At the time I was creating this logo I was creativley and intuitively blessed. Even though the logo was created 10 years ago, it still expresses my understanding and philosophy of excellent riding today. My skills and understanding have increased, but the path to improvement
and “en-light-enment” remains the same.

You can see the logo on this page. The words in the circle surrounding horse and rider are “balance – confidence – harmony”. I’ve drawn them in a circle because they each influence the other without end. Without the rider having good balance the horse will not have confidence in the rider, nor will the rider have confidence in herself. Without good balance there can be no harmony between horse and rider. As harmony increases, it is easier to maintain balance, and confidence rises in both horse and rider. As balance eases towards perfection, riding becomes easier for both horse and rider. Confidence and harmony soar. As the rider’s confidence soars
she is more able to relax. Another step towards harmony. As harmony increases, the horse listens more carefully and the rider speaks more clearly and softly. The horse relaxes and the rider balances more easily. And so it goes. Balance, confidence and harmony each influencing the other for better or for worse.


It appears that rider balance is the beginning of the circle, but this is only so if we ignore the influence of the horses environment, and the harmony, or lack of it, that occurs between horse and rider before the rider mounts. When horse and rider have a grooming and tack up ritual that is enjoyable and harmonious for both, harmony is established before the rider ever mounts. Confidence in one another is established. Then rider and horse only have to work towards balance in the saddle to step in to the ever-spinning circle of increasing balance, confidence and harmony. When the horse and rider do groundwork that increases the horse’s balance and the handler’s confidence, harmony is created that sets the stage for better riding. When the horse’
s environment is balanced, with satisfying and nutritious food, adequate time out, a comfortable and secure place to sleep, kind and understanding handlers, good health care and all of the social factors that make a harmonious lifestyle for a horse, the horse is confid dent and relaxed and ready to work in harmony. He doesn’t start out with an uncooperative attitude. When the horse has a harmonious life, he is mentally and emotionally balanced and confident.

For many riders, establishing good balance on horseback is the first and most intimidating step that they take on the journey of becoming great horsepersons. If you are one who struggles to improve your riding, know that first creating harmony with your horse through a good, enjoyable grooming routine, and through balanced groundwork sets the stage for easier learning of balance, confidence and harmony while mounted.

That said, once you get in the saddle, confidence can get you to harmony faster, but it is only fuel for the vehicle of balance. All the confidence in the world won’t make up for lack of balance. Good balance is based on the laws of Physics, not style of riding. These are the Laws of the nature of matter and energy in our universe. Gravity always acts in the same way on the mass that is you and your horse. Good balance sets the rider’s center of gravity squarely above the horse’s center of gravity. The faster the horse goes, the farther ahead the center of gravity becomes. The stronger and more collected the horse, the further back the horse’s center of gravity can be. Thus, flat racers squat close to a forward center of gravity. Dressage riders sit vertically above a more central center of gravity. Jumpers crouch, ready to be more vertical on the flat, and to launch above their horse over jumps. The trail rider or pleasure rider shouldspend most of their time in a vertical position with some standing, or adjustment forward or back to keep their center of gravity in line with their horse as they travel over uneven terrain. Any time that the reins are used as a balance tool for the rider or the horse they cause discomfort for the horse, and the circle of harmony begins to spiral down instead of up.

Balance, confidence and harmony increase or decrease one another. A great horse and rider team cannot be created without all three. Educate yourself through reading, taking lessons, watching videos and learning to feel when you are in harmony with your horse. I guarantee that any input that improves your balance, confidence or harmony will lead towards “en-light-enment” and that perfect, relaxed, harmonious ride that we all crave.

Why Do Horses Do That? - The Full Bucket Theory

The other day I was talking with a student about her horse’s behavior, which she found mystifying. The horses had been in the barn for several days, due to cold rainy weather, and today she had come to get her horse out for exercise. “I took Isadora out to the round pen and longed her for a little while and she was very laid back” she said. “you know, she just kind of trotted around la-de-da, so after a few minutes I went ahead and took her to the covered arena and rode. She was ok until she saw a horse out in one of the round pens.
Then she began to act like she wanted to buck and act crazy. I tried to ride her through it, but she just kept on acting like rodeo was on her mind, so I finally got off, took her back to the round pen and longed her.” She went on “Well, she just exploded and bucked and bucked and cantered around. What do you think made her do that after she was so laid back when I gave her an opportunity to play in the beginning.?”

It’s a good question isn’t it? Why do horses DO that? I think it is an accumulation of factors.

Horses, as you know, are herd animals and prey animals. They have survived as a species by responding to stimulants and reacting according to their anxiety level, after checking in with the herd to see if every body else thinks it’s dangerous too.

Horses have a physical and psychological need for movement. Lack of movement builds this need to an explosion point.

These factors and how they create the horses’ need for movement can be compared to a bucket that can overflow, causing a flood, when too much stimulus accumulates in the bucket. I define stimulants as things which cause the horse to feel agitated, (not necessarily afraid) and therefore push it towards acting from instinct or emotion rather than thought.

Factors that may increase the level of stimulants in the bucket are the horse’s character and breed type, weather, the horse’s happiness in its work, poor fitting tack…. I’m sure there are more, and if you think about it you can think of a few which affect your horse and increase the level in the bucket.

For instance, every horse’s bucket has some level of stimulants in it all the time. A horse with a nervous character has a higher level of stimulants in his bucket to begin with, so it doesn’t take as many added stimulants to “send him over the top”. A hot-blooded breed of horse has a higher level of stimulants in her bucket than a cold-blooded breed. Horses stalled regularly have a higher level of “need to move” stimulant than horses turned out all the time. Horses fed high protein or high concentrated carbohydrate diets have a higher level of stimulants in their bucket all the time.

Add to this the environmental stimulants. The horse that is not happy in it’s work has a higher level of agitation. Cold weather can cause agitation in the form of “need to move”. Poor fitting tack can definitely be a stimulant, causing the horse to want to buck or “run out from under it”. Remember, to your horse, on an instinctual level, a saddle that stabs him in the back with a predator (you) perched on it is not all that different than a big cat. This is not to say that horses can’t tell the difference. They are incredibly more intelligent than most of us imagine. But agitation can short circuit thought, and then your horse acts from instinct.

So back to Isadora, the perplexing horsey Queen in question. Lets see if we can add up the stimulants in her bucket to understand the “overflow” and why such a small thing as seeing another horse in the round pen might send her “over the edge”.

Isadora is a wamblood of the generally laid back type, so she doesn’t have as much in her bucket of stimulants all the time as say, a typical Arabian. She is still a horse, a hunted animal in instinctual terms, so her bucket has a certain level of “high awareness” type of stimulation in it all the time. In this case she had been stalled for several days with minimal exercise. Add a half-bucket. She is fed a diet with a moderate amount of concentrates. These were not eliminated during stall confinement. Add another quarter of a bucket. The weather had been cold for several days. Add another big dollop. She originally went out to the round pen and the arena alone. Add a some more for leaving the sameness of the stall, getting circulation and movement going, and stimulation of sights and sounds of the area. Poor fitting tack? Don’t know—could
be a stimulation factor. We are getting close to the top of the bucket now. So here comes a herd member moving around freely in the round pen. On another day, or even this day with fewer stimulants filling the bucket, shouldn’t be an issue. But this day, the bucket of stimulation is already full and this last bit causes the overflow. Once Isadora erupts, she needs to move in order to lower the level of stimulation back to the level where she can think, rather than react.

If you learn to notice all of the stimulation or agitation factors filling your horse’s bucket, you will be more able to predict when they will have an “overflow” situation brewing. Give them a chance to move and dispel some of that agitation and stimulation.

If , like Isadora, you have reason to believe that they are “on the verge” you may want to add stimulation to push them into movement mode, or you may want to do some anxiety lowering movement exercises like TTEAM groundwork which will help them think and not react. Either of these strategies may help them be better able to think and respond to your partnership requests in a cooperative manner. Which one you choose depends on your horse’s character.