I would like to share a big ahhhh moment I had a few weeks back, just in case any of you guys find anything useful and maybe have a small ahhhh moment of your own. Whenever I ride Puzzle, I am always in my saddle and bridle, mostly because I can only ride weekends and there is normally a show coming up that we need to work on something. Its just become automatic to put on his saddle and bridle and cute little booties to keep his clumsy legs and hooves from bushing and cutting himself, and to protect his precious tendons. I still ride my first 5-10 minuets with the reins on his neck, getting him to listen and respond to my body and do Follow the Rail before I pick up my reins and start working on some movements. I still add in a few patterns to help him really listen and ask questions instead of just doing what is asked, nothing more. A few weeks ago on one of those really hot days, I was playing with Puzzle on the ground getting some really good stuff. When we were playing stick to me and getting him to draw at the trot, I pushed myself too far and had a little bit of heat stress and collapsed on the ground. Once I got my energy back after a break, I decided to see how Puzzle would work from me sitting on the ground. He put on his best what the bloody hell are you doing down there??? look, but he still tried to figure out what I wanted him to do. I still wanted to have a ride, but the effort to go and get all of his tack!! yeah, Im a bit lazy! So I decided to have my second bareback ride and fourth time in a halter, first time with a carrot stick! When I first got on, I planned just to go for a nice lazy walk and not do anything, because we never get to do that. But as we were walking around, I still wanted to test how good our breaks and steering was. The breaks took a good 20 meters to kick in and the steering only worked when we turned to go back to the gate. Well! there goes the lazy ride idea! From there, we worked on how little I could use to get him to stop and turn. We got to the point where I just rolled back on my hips slightly and BANG! no more move. To turn I just had to look with my eyes and he was already there. I didnt get to use my shoulders, belly button, or hips! Once that was feeling awesome, I wanted to test out my balance and pushed him up to a trot. Every other time I have ridden bareback, i have always used a bareback pad, so i was so worried I was going to slip and slide everywhere. but I didnt. Not once did I feel out of place or had to hold onto some mane. Puzzle was being very good about the whole trot part and did such a smooth, level, slow trot for me. He really felt like he was trying to look after me and without my help, he was holding up his shoulder around corners (something that we are always working on!) so I wouldnt slip, and did really smooth up/down transitions. Lately he has been wanting to either not preform an upwards transition or leap into it because he doesnt have the power. It was a real change for me to see him be really calm and not have an argument with me. Once I was feeling really comfortable, I tried picking up the reins to hold him in a frame and try some of our dressage moves like leg yielding, lengthening and collected trot, 10m circles, even a little shoulder in and half pass! I decided to have a little challenge to see how much we could do with as little rein as possible. So we started off leg yield with our normal working contact, then with each step, let the reins slide little by little until they were resting on his neck an he was still going over! next time we started with half the original contact, and let the reins slip at the same speed. A few more goes and we went up the centerline, leg on and looking the way I wanted to go. Not once did I touch the reins!! By this point, I couldnt stop smiling and wanted to have a go at his best gait: canter. The whole time he was still doing his slow, level trot, so we had a few running steps before we got a good canter depart. But once we got going, holy crap it was perfect! He still kept up with his slow, level, balanced canter without dropping shoulders. I tried slowing him down with just my seat, reins on his neck, and I swear i could have walked next to him it was that slow! then to really test out my balance and hoped to all hell the breaks were still there, I leant up his neck and clicked a few times. I could feel him change from 2nd gear to 5th in about two strides and we went flying up one side. Then sitting back down and he came straight back to his 2nd gear canter. I called it a day after that because I couldnt stop hugging his neck, still cantering of course! (dont change gait, dont change direction at its finest!) So I bet most of you are going, well thats pretty awesome, but where is the ahhh moment? My big ahhh moment was finding out how crap our breaks and steering is without a bridle and how much I use/dont use my seat to control him. That was a big eye-opener for me that I dont think I would have discovered if I didnt have that bareback ride. I also realized I dont need to go around holding the reins and correct every time one hoof steps slightly off track. It made me see that I can trust him. He is still going to look after me, something I havent let him do of late, because of his recent opinions of somethings. It also got me thinking that maybe its me riding differently when bareback that causes him not to drop his shoulder or that I can do a movement without reins because I can influence him differently. The most important for me was that i can still have fun with him!! For the past few months, riding him has been just something that ive been told to do, and i didnt look forward to riding because we just kept doing the same boring things over and over and all the time I spent with him, I could be inside working on that assignment or studying for an exam. (for those who dont know, I just completed yr 11 doing all of the smart people subjects!) By riding him bareback, it made me remember what we can do together and that he can still make me laugh and smile. In my last few rides with him (back in the saddle) I have remembered what I learnt in my ahhhh moment and related that to what Im doing. I have been working on using my seat more and seeing how little I can do to get him to do more and focusing on my position. In these rides, not once had he tried to have even a minor argument and has been asking whats next, mum? Hes asked a few questions on the ground, but never when riding before. I now add a little bit of fun to each of our rides at the end, whether is using his Thoroughbred blood to go for a gallop or pretending to be a cutting horse or even attempting a reining spin and sliding stop. I just wanted to share something that was really important to me and maybe inspire you to go out and have a bareback ride to help with other aspects of your training or to do something fun like lengthening and collecting. If you got this far, thanks for reading! Its a fair effort! haha :)
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 22:21:02 +0000
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