Six Directions
There are six directions that a horse can move in; forward, backward, right, left, up and down – seemingly all at once at times! Being able to cause your horse to move in all of these directions will help build rapport, respect and communication with your horse as well as developing his range of movement and impulsion.
By nature, horses don’t often go backward or sideways unless they are being yielded by another horse, or have taken fright. Both of these directions are deemed submissive as a yield and as such can easily evoke opposition reflex in your horse.
Being able to cause your horse to yield positively backwards and sideways will improve all of your other yields, build respect levels, help improve rapport and increase your leadership abilities in your horse’s estimation.
How Long To ‘Play’
Many people talk about ‘working’ their horse when referring to time spent with their equine partners, so when it comes to practising their Foundation tasks as laid out in the Quantum Savvy programme, they ask how long they should ‘work’ for each session.
By the very nature of the QS programme, which has been designed to give you tasks and challenges to experiment with, you will find your sessions more closely resemble play than work. As you look for more provocative and imaginative ways to hone your skills, increase your awareness and become more fluent in the language of the horse, you’ll find your horse’s interest and curiosity heightened also.
While it’s not advisable to ‘work’ a horse for long periods, provided your sessions are stimulating and interesting for your horse, you can ‘play’ for as long or as little as you like. We mention ‘as little’ because there is no need to spend marathon sessions with your horse to get great results. Just by developing good habits around your horse in your day to day activities, i.e. feeding time, grooming, general handling, you will be constantly improving your horsemanship skills and your horse’s positive responses to you.
Not having enough time to do everything is no reason to do nothing. As little as five minutes here and there will help and if you are planning on spending a few hours with your horse, try to keep it fun, appealing and stimulating … for both of you.
Building From The Ground Up
For truly great results with horses, we encourage you to start your new relationship on the ground first. Some of you will be asking, “What has all this ground work got to do with riding?” When you buy a new computer, vacuum cleaner, mobile phone or toaster, they each come with instructions on how to use them. Yet with horses, so many people begin their partnership with their new ‘acquisition’ without so much as a users guide. Add to this the fact that nobody seems to have told the horse that someone actually ‘owns’ him!
Horses are living, breathing creatures with minds, hearts and wills of their own. They do not know that we expect them to do what we want … they just know how to be a horse. If we expect to have any success with horses, then the place we need to start is the beginning … right where the foundations are set.
Anything of worth needs strong foundations upon which to build and with horses that foundation has to be forming some kind of relationship. As with any relationship, the first and most important keys are good communication, trust and mutual respect. It’s fairly safe to say that a horse is not likely to ever learn to speak the language of the human, so it’s up to us to learn to speak their language in order to be understood.
We have already discussed the way in which horses think and respond to their surroundings and we understand by now, that to just catch our horse, saddle him up, get on and go, would be acting in an extremely predatory fashion, full of make, force and direct-line logic. Even if our horse succumbs to our wishes when we proceed in this way, what kind of foundations are we building this relationship on? What has happened to building trust, rapport and mutual respect?
Begin your relationship on the ground, on your own two feet. We encourage you to take the time you need, to establish a solid, mutual relationship and communication before you get on. This will help you build rapport and avoid many of the problems people come across in their ridden partnership. Rapport with horses is something you either get on the ground … or you don’t get at all. Everything you are ever going to do when riding your horse can first be prepared from the ground.
‘There is nothing more important than the basics.’
The Road To Horsemanship Lesson Videos
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- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.