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Neeping the Horse Fantastic
Apr. 10th, 2004 07:45 pmIt was a bit of a tough day--some PTSD, some shock at the insensitivity of others, like that--but part of the process of Dealing With It involves focusing on the good things.
After all, it was Lesson Day. Lesson Day comes once a week, usually. Trainer-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, whose name is Joni, drives all the way from Marana (about 45 miles from here), and stops at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
casacorona on the way to or from, to teach there as well. Today she was severely jetlagged after returning yesterday morning from Hawaii, where she had gone to salvage another Lipizzan/human partnership (successfully, I should add), so we didn't have the usual number of lessons. However I did get in a lesson on da Pooka, and that was good.
Da Pook has been a Challenge. First stallion, hypersensitive stallion (oy!), built like an exercise ball with warp engines (and saddles are not made for this shape of entity), and have I mentioned that he won't let anyone else sit on His sacred Back? This can present a problem when the Chosen One (who ain't no Buffy) runs into her lack of either talent or experience, and there is no option button for Put Trainer Up And Let Her Help Him Figure It Out.
However, after two and a half years, we have not only survived, we finally seem to be making progress. We spent the first year on the longeline or being turned loose without reins and having him do whatever seemed logical. This fact causes strong horsemen to blanch. "You did what with your young breeding stallion?" But we had to do it. Then we spent a year Discussing little luxuries like steering. And brakes. And who got to say where we were doing, when, and at what speed.
A sidebar to this: This is a Lipizzan. Lipizzans can only successfully be ridden by one method, the method developed in Vienna, which is logical enough when you think about it. This method works well with any horse you aim it at, but for a Lipp, it is the Only Reasonable Way. The trouble with it is, it is seriously horse-centric. It operates on the principle that if the rider is perfect, so will the horse be. Or, you don't fix the horse, you fix the rider. And if there is a mistake, 99% of the time it's rider error. The rest of the time, it's probably the horse, but the rider is responsible for fixing it.
This is a problem if the rider is not perfect. It is also a problem in that almost no trainer in the US, and precious few elsewhere, knows how to teach this way. Add in a further wrinkle: Instead of making the horse do things, you position yourself and apply seat (itself an entire lengthy dissertation) and leg and rein in such a way that the horse is supported, balanced, and encouraged to move in the most efficient way for his biomechanics and personality. Or, to put it another way, you set up the parameters, then get out of his way so he can do whatever you're asking. This means you don't grab hold and control him. You have to be a whole lot more subtle than that.
As a result, steering is not about pulling the reins in one direction or another. It involves positioning your body in such a way that the horse, when moving, finds it most comfortable to move in the direction you want to go.
Bear in mind, this is happening while sitting on a moving object. One that has a mind of its own. And Opinions about what you are doing up there. And Objections, often, to such horse-killing objects as birds, motor vehicles, and pieces of trash blown against the fence. Add in testosterone (and attendant ADD) and you've got Interesting Times. Then, just for kicks, make that movement Reeeeaaaallllly Beeeeeg, so you're falling on his neck when he gets confused and hits a sudden stop, or being thrown six inches out of the saddle when he tries to trot on with his normal happy boingitude.
We've conquered, mostly, the boingitude problem--he makes a spot on his back to sit on, and I stay there, and we hit orbit as a unit. His Objections are extremely minor for the most part, he is not a spooky horse, thank god. And the testosterone, this spring, is amazingly under control as long as I'm in the saddle, though when I'm out of it, we may have Archiness and Snortitude and general Machismo. But that's OK as long as he keeps one brain cell on me (he has, we think, three--two more than usual for his age and gender).
Now we are tackling Steering. And Balance Under A Rider In Walk And (the new addition) Trot. Since I am not allowed to just haul his head around, that means delicate negotiations, a degree of fine motor control that challenges me, the Body-Stupid, to the limit, and a lot of technicalities involving which leg is on the ground at which time and to which degree and they'd better be even and in the right place or we start over. And I had better not clamp, grab, tense up, or overstate my case, either, or we get reactions ranging from stopping short to humping his back and swinging his head from side to side and saying Very Bad Words. He has been known to sit down behind and march forward with the front end up and his front legs only touching the ground on occasion. Which was more interesting than I can possibly ever want to repeat.
The past two weeks have been pretty much a wash--often literally, with all the rain--for getting any riding done, so he had a two-week vacation. This was actually a good thing, thanks to the concept of latent learning. We had a short ride on Thursday in which he had clearly done all his homework and figured it all out and lo! steering! brakes! transitions!
So today we tried to duplicate the experience, with pretty decent success. We had woobles. His walk is so big it gets pacey when his back (which is very short) gets tense, so we worked on fixing that (half-halt by lifting the chest and toning the abs on the downbeat, for them as speaks Advanced Neep). He wanted to drop the left rein and throw the left shoulder, and I kept wanting to throw the left rein away altogether and pull him around to the right, which was a Wrong Thing and Trainer had to correct me a lot in that department. And he wanted to drop his back and go Yaaaaa! on the (vanishingly slight) downhill slopes, which I had to fix without grabbing his mouth or clamping my legs on his sides. Nevertheless, we managed occasional understanding and even a bit, once in a while, of correctness. He was happy. Trainer was happy. I was happy. Best of all, he went where I told him a solid 95% of the time--for us, a new record. We may even attain that elusive 100%, given a little more time and some more practice.
And that was our lesson. The storms moved in after that--thunder, lightning, and blasts of rain. I am ever so glad we put the top back on the hay storage yesterday.
After all, it was Lesson Day. Lesson Day comes once a week, usually. Trainer-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, whose name is Joni, drives all the way from Marana (about 45 miles from here), and stops at
casacorona on the way to or from, to teach there as well. Today she was severely jetlagged after returning yesterday morning from Hawaii, where she had gone to salvage another Lipizzan/human partnership (successfully, I should add), so we didn't have the usual number of lessons. However I did get in a lesson on da Pooka, and that was good.Da Pook has been a Challenge. First stallion, hypersensitive stallion (oy!), built like an exercise ball with warp engines (and saddles are not made for this shape of entity), and have I mentioned that he won't let anyone else sit on His sacred Back? This can present a problem when the Chosen One (who ain't no Buffy) runs into her lack of either talent or experience, and there is no option button for Put Trainer Up And Let Her Help Him Figure It Out.
However, after two and a half years, we have not only survived, we finally seem to be making progress. We spent the first year on the longeline or being turned loose without reins and having him do whatever seemed logical. This fact causes strong horsemen to blanch. "You did what with your young breeding stallion?" But we had to do it. Then we spent a year Discussing little luxuries like steering. And brakes. And who got to say where we were doing, when, and at what speed.
A sidebar to this: This is a Lipizzan. Lipizzans can only successfully be ridden by one method, the method developed in Vienna, which is logical enough when you think about it. This method works well with any horse you aim it at, but for a Lipp, it is the Only Reasonable Way. The trouble with it is, it is seriously horse-centric. It operates on the principle that if the rider is perfect, so will the horse be. Or, you don't fix the horse, you fix the rider. And if there is a mistake, 99% of the time it's rider error. The rest of the time, it's probably the horse, but the rider is responsible for fixing it.
This is a problem if the rider is not perfect. It is also a problem in that almost no trainer in the US, and precious few elsewhere, knows how to teach this way. Add in a further wrinkle: Instead of making the horse do things, you position yourself and apply seat (itself an entire lengthy dissertation) and leg and rein in such a way that the horse is supported, balanced, and encouraged to move in the most efficient way for his biomechanics and personality. Or, to put it another way, you set up the parameters, then get out of his way so he can do whatever you're asking. This means you don't grab hold and control him. You have to be a whole lot more subtle than that.
As a result, steering is not about pulling the reins in one direction or another. It involves positioning your body in such a way that the horse, when moving, finds it most comfortable to move in the direction you want to go.
Bear in mind, this is happening while sitting on a moving object. One that has a mind of its own. And Opinions about what you are doing up there. And Objections, often, to such horse-killing objects as birds, motor vehicles, and pieces of trash blown against the fence. Add in testosterone (and attendant ADD) and you've got Interesting Times. Then, just for kicks, make that movement Reeeeaaaallllly Beeeeeg, so you're falling on his neck when he gets confused and hits a sudden stop, or being thrown six inches out of the saddle when he tries to trot on with his normal happy boingitude.
We've conquered, mostly, the boingitude problem--he makes a spot on his back to sit on, and I stay there, and we hit orbit as a unit. His Objections are extremely minor for the most part, he is not a spooky horse, thank god. And the testosterone, this spring, is amazingly under control as long as I'm in the saddle, though when I'm out of it, we may have Archiness and Snortitude and general Machismo. But that's OK as long as he keeps one brain cell on me (he has, we think, three--two more than usual for his age and gender).
Now we are tackling Steering. And Balance Under A Rider In Walk And (the new addition) Trot. Since I am not allowed to just haul his head around, that means delicate negotiations, a degree of fine motor control that challenges me, the Body-Stupid, to the limit, and a lot of technicalities involving which leg is on the ground at which time and to which degree and they'd better be even and in the right place or we start over. And I had better not clamp, grab, tense up, or overstate my case, either, or we get reactions ranging from stopping short to humping his back and swinging his head from side to side and saying Very Bad Words. He has been known to sit down behind and march forward with the front end up and his front legs only touching the ground on occasion. Which was more interesting than I can possibly ever want to repeat.
The past two weeks have been pretty much a wash--often literally, with all the rain--for getting any riding done, so he had a two-week vacation. This was actually a good thing, thanks to the concept of latent learning. We had a short ride on Thursday in which he had clearly done all his homework and figured it all out and lo! steering! brakes! transitions!
So today we tried to duplicate the experience, with pretty decent success. We had woobles. His walk is so big it gets pacey when his back (which is very short) gets tense, so we worked on fixing that (half-halt by lifting the chest and toning the abs on the downbeat, for them as speaks Advanced Neep). He wanted to drop the left rein and throw the left shoulder, and I kept wanting to throw the left rein away altogether and pull him around to the right, which was a Wrong Thing and Trainer had to correct me a lot in that department. And he wanted to drop his back and go Yaaaaa! on the (vanishingly slight) downhill slopes, which I had to fix without grabbing his mouth or clamping my legs on his sides. Nevertheless, we managed occasional understanding and even a bit, once in a while, of correctness. He was happy. Trainer was happy. I was happy. Best of all, he went where I told him a solid 95% of the time--for us, a new record. We may even attain that elusive 100%, given a little more time and some more practice.
And that was our lesson. The storms moved in after that--thunder, lightning, and blasts of rain. I am ever so glad we put the top back on the hay storage yesterday.
