Thursday, July 28, 2016

Taking a step back (and notes from June 2016 Liz Graves Clinic)

Poptart and I are taking a step back. After Old Dominion (he was fantastic!) I already had an osteopathic recheck and foundation training clinics scheduled in July.   At Poptart's osteopathic recheck we realized he just was not building his topline and hindquarter muscle as expected and desired for a horse with his mileage and conditioning schedule.  We were missing a piece of the puzzle.  I decided that building his foundation, posture, and efficient biomechanics, were more important than getting more competitions under our belt.  The competitions can always come later (and will!).   With work and life balance, I can only focus strongly on 1 goal with Poptart, so for know it will be training.  This simply means slightly more arena work and slightly less trail riding, but I still consider trail riding very important to maintain both mental and physical fitness. My goal is 2 arena training rides and 1 trail ride per week rather than 2 trail/conditioning rides and 1 arena ride per week.

We had our 2nd clinic with Elizabeth Graves, hosted by Joe London Training, in Culpeper Virginia two weekends ago.  It was, of course, fantastic!  Liz is a very knowledgeable,experienced, an exceptionally positive trainer with almost a 6th sense or intuition with horses.  The clinic was based on the 6 essentials of horsemanship (aka essential foundation training for every horse!)

The 6 essentials (well worth repeating again):
  • Connection (relationship)
  • Straightness (defined as the horse being perpendicular to the ground)
  • Engagement of the hindquarter
  • Lifting of the base of neck
  • Forward motion in weight bearing posture (aka 'collection')
  • Bend through the rib cage
Other than connection/relationship which always comes first, the other essentials can come in any order depending on what the horse needs.  We re-visited the groundwork exercises that I learned in April's clinic.  This time Poptart was much quicker to relax and enjoy his 'massage' instead of worrying about the arena and other horses; and, of course, he rolled first thing in the lovely arena sand. 

The clinic re-enforced what I learned in April (remember to BREATHE, LOL!).  Some additional things I picked up include:
  • Use 4 fingers on the reins, not the common 'english' style of 3  and your pinky on the other side. The 3 finger method is traditionally for riding with a double bridle and double reins on a trained horse.  4 fingers on the reins creates a much smoother and softer opening/closing of the fingers which translates as a smoother signal to the horse.
  • Ask for releases (lateral poll release) by feel, by the time you see the give or release you have missed your best timing and caused an unnecessarily exaggerated movement.
  • A vertical poll release is necessary for a proper back.
  • Backing aids under saddle  are mainly your core and your INTENT.  If the horse is being re-trained or does not understand then you can use your leg to gently nudge the front leg that needs to move back next.
It was neat to have objective measures of progress between the two clinics. In April I was nervous about cantering at all in the arena and Poptart was hesitant to comply. This time we were able to (with just a little nerves) canter the arena fully in both directions on the first day.  This seems ridiculous because we canter all the time on the trail, but somehow cantering on the trail is much easier because we have an obvious place to go.  In the arena Poptart does not see anywhere to go or any point to cantering  in circles so I have to give him the reason and direction through my intent. He still offers the protest bucks and head shakes which keeps me a bit unerved and having to really focus on intent and breathing.   He also readily rounded his back and telescoped his neck to the 'bit' (we ride bitless in a bosal during arena work) at the walk and trot.  Poptart did want to bite and generally strongly interact with the other horses in the arena when we passed them, as well as chase a dog.  This is where I should have used more intent and direction so he did not focus on the horses or dog, instead I also focused on the horses and dogs which resulted in unwanted behavior-- Lesson learned!

I wanted clearer understanding and help with our lateral work so Liz introduced me to her thoughts on lateral work (which I love!) on the first day as well.
  • Shoulder-fore: is just a lateral poll release at the walk, trot, or canter. There is not any bend in the rib cage. The rider's body is straight and not rotated. (You only need to have a lateral release so you can see the corner of the horse's eye, the head is not bent around)
    • This really simplified it for me and it was way easy -- at least at the walk and trot!
  • Shoulder-in: shoulder-fore + bend in the ribcage (or lateral poll release + bend in the rib cage) The rider is rotated to the direction of bend in the rib cage (see Connected Riding for rider rotation). 
  • Lift the inside rein up (not back, which is my habit) for lateral poll release.
  • Leg yield to half pass. Master half-pass at a walk before going to leg-yield at a trot (Whoops! We have been leg-yielding from one side of the trail to the other at a trot for a while now)
    1. Leg yield with bend opposite to the direction of travel
    2. Leg yield straight with no bend
    3. Leg yield (or now Half Pass) with bend in the direction of travel
Day 2 was actually  a separate clinic, so the same groundwork, etc was repeated for the new participants.  Liz then grouped the the participants that had previously attended her clinics for the riding sessions so we could all work on what would help us the most.  For our session she started out by drawing a figure-8 of two 20' (or about 6 m) diameter circles in flour in the middle of the arena.  Poptart immediately thought she was spreading toxic poison dust, not flour.  I used strong intent so we could safely continue in our warm-up around the outer arena.  This was a challenge for us as Poptart only wanted to stare and spook at the flour circle-making and I was determined we were going to calmly walk and trot around the rail.  I succeeded, then we moved closer and closer to the toxic poison circles until he worked up to sniffing it and realizing it was actually edible.   When we started our session with the circles Poptart could sniff the flour and walk next to it, but the moment he inadvertently stepped on it he leaped backwards like it was electric flour.  Unfortunately, the goal was to walk the circle precisely on the flour line, let's just say that took a few laps.  Liz then moved us up to progressively walking then trotting the circle in shoulder-fore and shoulder-in.  Then, from an audience question about rider twisting, she brought out very effective shoulder cup tattle-tells.  They were firm pieces of a c-shaped mold attached to a string and close-pin.  Each shoulder cup rested on your shoulder and attached to your shirt via the string and close-pin for easy retrieval.  They stayed on okay at a walk, but then Liz asked me to continue my trotting on the circle. They didn't even make it through the transition, oh boy!  We were able to eventually get about 4 trot strides before they fell off-- I sure do know what I need to practice!  I apparently tend to drop my elbows during transitions and when steering; the shoulder cups were very effective in developing my awareness.  Now I have to figure out how to make my own set!

Then Liz, very laissez faire, said to pick up a canter on the 6 m circle.  Now, I have never ever cantered a 6 m circle, but being a good student I did as Liz instructed. I think Poptart was surprised and he did some protesting, but then we had a few absolutely amazing strides where I felt his inside hind leg come under and his back lift a million miles into the sky (not bucking, just engagement, LOL) and we stopped and I told him how awesome he was! Wow -- we cantered a 6 m circle, so alright maybe it was an egg or an un-definable shape, but we did it!! And it felt amazing, and now we have more homework!

Now I have been practicing this but that will be another post... Next is more practice and a 3 day clinic with Theresa McManus, a semi-local trainer (Liz lives in Minnesota, Theresa is in Virginia). Theresa has been strongly recommended by several professionals and friends to help me learn to help Poptart use his body well. Theresa has some impressive credentials but is now focusing on helping riders. She was great to talk with on the phone, I can't wait to learn from her!  We may also set up some lessons with Joe London in Culpeper as it clicked with me that he is also an excellent local trainer to help both Poptart and myself.






Friday, July 1, 2016

47 miles, drinking from a pipe and now a rest

Poptart is drinking from a mountain spring pipe on Judge Rye Rd

























Poptart and I rode 47 miles this past week, WOW!  That was a a little unintended as I try for 20-30 miles per week, but I put in this weekend's riding a little early so Poptart can rest over the 4th of July holiday weekend while I visit family.  He did seem a little less forward at the end of today's ride, I think that may be due to 2 main things 1. he was tired 2. I may have trimmed his feet a touch too short.  Either way rest will do the trick.  Today we rode by ourselves and Poptart behaved very well, maybe riding a lot helps, LOL!  He felt more balanced, relaxed and engaged, easily trotting up the mountain on soft rein.  And best of all he drank out of the mountain spring pipe! That pipe and falling water jumped out to eat him this winter and caused a baby bolt down the mountain.  Today he was just thirsty and greatly appreciated the steady flow of fresh water.  Tomorrow he gets an osteopathic recheck to see if we are making progress on physical therapy to keep his pelvis from tilting forward and 'sticking'.  His pelvis needs to have normal motion so he can raise his lumbar span and 'coil his loin' so he can really use his hindquarter engine to push up those hills.  The saddle is working still and I feel like I am achieving a better 'connected riding' position.  I haven't fixed my girth problem, but he has not been sore on any of our training rides.  He is wearing the crupper in the field for a few hours at at time and I will try a new girth and different rigging when my new freeform saddle base arrives. We are planning on the 50 mile at Ride Between the Rivers, but have to work on hoof protection as my regular farrier (not trimmer) will be out of town all summer.  I will either have to use self-applied glue-on's or find a another farrier...  Have a Happy 4th of July!