Straightness Training for Horses: movement science approach

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@SigneofHorses 3 жыл бұрын

Preferred side where the horse is more dexterous is what we usually call the ‘good side’ . I have found the ‘bad side’ usually begin the strong side, where the raw power is. For example Blizz would alway offer his ‘weaker’ left canter when sudden speed was in order. Even make a leadchange midcanter when he needed extra speed or go uphill. Situations mostly called for when we were hacking out. In the arena these qualities were pretty much useless. Having a supple bend and an articulated hindoes stepping far under was not what this side was for. Whereas going round the other way it would come naturally. I consider is as being right handed. The left hand is not useless, but there for strength and support. If we need to open a door with a key, which hand is carrying The groceries? Or which hand will open the heavy or stick door? If we kick a ball into a goal, precision is needed and we use our right leg, but our left is supporting our weight even when we are teetering unbalanced. Of course tegvsame thing applies when you are lefthanded. We can train our ‘weaker’ hand and leg to become more dexterous if we want to, but is there a need? For me there was as a righhanded kid in a lefthanded household :) Anyway.. if your still reading this long comment, back to horses. We mostly seem to need straightness when we ride in arenas, going in circles. And we also tend to make our horses more crooked riding in arenas. As both horse and human feel more comfortable going the right way round and feel resistance and struggle going the wrong way round. I feel we need to embrace the qualities of both sides and train lightheartedly towards more ambidexterity by letting go of the shape of the arena. This is neurologically very very hard to do for us humans as the arena has rules we learn at a young age. Stay on the fence, make round circles and straight lines. Humbug I say.. go play, direct let you horse make patterns and go where he wants to go, make use of those. I love ‘drifting’ with by horse. You known like they do with cars? Just moving the hind or front end in directions on a loose rein whilst going forward is proprioception at its best if you ask me. Brisingr will willingly offer the ‘correct’ lead in canter, because I’ve never struggled in pushing him in the right one. I just ask a canter and go in the right direction for that canter. And now when I go in a certain way he offers the canter that suits that. I have stolen that from watching the stallions play and race about in the arena, the are hardly ever on the wrong lead. (The highblood dressagetype horse has more struggles btw with knowing where his legs should go Ive noticed) I have only just started Brisingr but feel happy training this way. I have never understood the difference between renvers and travers.. it’s irrelevant when you train in the middle of a field. I love having so much knowledge I got to experiment on with Blizz who got a lot of -R next to +R (we didn’t had those names for it) With Brisingr the experiment is to find more intrinsic ways to make him just as strong and fit as my old boy. Thank you for this video Kathy.

@KathySierraVideo 3 жыл бұрын

I love all of this, and agree. Especially the whole… “… irrelevant when training in the field…”. A lot of “formal” exercises were designed to help enable *other* movements, and a more authentic approach is to … just…do…the…actual movements, rather than FIRST trying to train something that is (in theory) supposed to support it. If lateral movements were meant to help with agility (which ofc I agree that agile is the goal), then we want to train for real agility itself. And it’s soooooo much fun, as you know. Your young guy really seems to be blossoming! I’m inspired by what you’re doing as I am just at the start of my journey with young Nimo…