Episode 18: Improving Your Aids When Riding Your Horse

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Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses.

Today's subject illustrates how the riders mind and the riders body are both equally required for improvement. Today, I'm going to be talking about balancing your aides and your mindset. James sent me an email that says Stacy, I love your podcast. I've listened to your podcasts when you were a guest and now you're the one running the show. Love it. I heard you say on a podcast a while back there is a catch between feeling like you're allowing something to flow and feeling like you're making something happen. I would love to hear you expand on this. This is a strange tension that literally seems like a crossroad every time. Thanks for the email, James. And I absolutely agree. I would say this the quickest summary if I wanted to shorten all the way down to one sentence to answer your your question, it would be that the writer needs to be able to make a request followed by a willingness and ability to back it up. Here's what I'm talking about. Let's take this big topic and break it down. First, get that teeter totter in your mind again. The idea that there's a balancing point in the middle of a teeter totter and that anything can be taken too far, left or right. So the idea here is that we're going to find this balance. A request followed by a willingness and ability to back it up. The mental part of that is the willingness to make the request and then be able to back it up.

The ability to back it up a lot of times is what we physically are required to do. Let's look at four different aides that we talk about a lot when we're discussing horses and riders. We have the riders hands and the riders legs, the riders seat and the riders voice. The hands are traditionally the first thing that people think about using to control their horse and the legs are a very quick second. The seat and the voice fall into a different set of categories that I put into what I would say are please. So another way to look at it is the hands and the legs have some way of reinforcing or backing up the request where the seat and the voice are more of a please. Quick way to illustrate this for you is that we can think about a rider who wants the horse to go faster. They could use their legs a little bit, and if the horse didn't respond, they could use their legs more firmly and they could change the degree of pressure applied by the legs. In the same way, a rider could potentially ask with the voice for the horse to stop. But I call the voice, please, because if you ask the horse to stop by saying, whoa, if the horse doesn't stop and you scream, oh, it's not going to get any better.

Hope I didn't hurt your ears. Their apologies. Basically, the two that fall into the `please category, the seat and the voice are not that able to back themselves up or the hand and the legs. If you were on the ground and you were doing groundwork, we could maybe put the halter or a lunge with a stick and string or something like that could fall in to the category of something that we can apply varying degrees of pressure or release. Because if you can add pressure, you can also at release. When we are looking at the idea that I just proposed a request followed by a willingness and ability to back it up. I think a lot of riders are comfortable making a request. Sometimes they're a little unsure if they're requesting in the right way. So they're not sure if they've applied the exact cues to get a maneuver, but they're willing to make a request. But then the willingness to back it up is often where they start to get fuzzy. Let's read a few of these questions that have come in through e-mail or some of these are more comments that we're going to discuss. Roxanne makes the observation about her horse and I pulled just this sentence out of a longer email quote, She knows what I'm asking. This isn't new to her. It's just when she gets frustrated that she acts like I'm bothering the princess.

End quote. Kelly says, quote, He tends to get testy, especially at the transition from the walk to trot or trot to canter. He'll cow kick buck and sometimes hop up to end-quote. Cindy says cue's are the most frustrating thing, not knowing if I'm asking my horse in the correct way makes me get frustrated because I'm not sure of myself. Then it seems my horse is not understanding what I'm asking. And I'm going to make a side note that in most of the emails that I get when people are having issues like this, I'm actually really impressed how many times people have had the vets go over the horse to rule out physical causes. If you're having issues and you're not sure if the horses resistance could be coming from a physical pain problem, you should always have that checked out. Most of these people have already done that. And if they haven't, that's the first step I would recommend. However, I have also dealt with horses who had no physical problem, but they had these issues because I like how Roxann says it's like I'm bothering the princess. Basically what's happening there are a lot of times is that the horse has drawn kind of a line of what they're willing to do and the riders bumping up against that line. And for a lot of riders, they're unsure of what to do with that.

This isn't a condemnation of a particular horse or or anything like that, because this happens with people all the time. I use kids a law as an example, but it's super common that a parent might ask a child to clean their room and that the kid might just blow that off. And what happens is it is that dance is that act of a request followed by a willingness and ability to back it up. That's what's happening with the child. Cleaning the room. That's what's happening with an employer asking an employee to do certain things. That's what's happening when we're asking the horse to respond. And that is why when James mentions this idea that there's a catch between allowing something to flow and feeling like you're making something happen, very often people are really excited about the idea of, let's say Bridle is riding. I love riderless riding. However, I'm aware that the horses are playing a part in the choice to be held accountable. This means that when I make a request of a horse and let's say it's bridles, I could make a request for that horse to slow down using my voice. And if that horse didn't slow down using my voice, I could try using my seat. And if the horse didn't slow down using my seat, neither one of those is really going to back it up very much.

So the ability to back it up is still missing. Those are both just requests. Then I need to move to something else in my system of training the horses. I have a queue where I bring my legs forward up near the horse's shoulder and I can tap on the shoulder. And just like you would tap to ask a horse to go forward with your legs. I have installed a button on my horses where when I tap on the shoulder, it means go backwards. So therefore I have a backup cue that is with my legs that can apply varying degrees of pressure and I'm willing to use it. So our request. Slow down, please, followed by a willingness I'm willing to tap on the horse and an ability to back it up. And when I say willingness and ability, it gets a little bit complicated, because this is where in some of the conversations we've had, people are afraid of holding the horses accountable, especially because there does tend to be a physical aspect to training the horses. I feel fairly guilt free when I look at the idea that a physical thing would back this up, because when I watch the horses turned out in the round pen together, the system they use is a request. The more dominant horse or the horse that's asking somebody else to move, we'll make a request. They will pin their ears, they will maybe lower their head, maybe they will turn around and start backing towards the other horse, threatening to kick.

They're making a request with their body. And then the ones that are the leaders have a willingness and ability to back it up. And this makes me feel a little more okay to apply pressure to the horse in different situations. So a lot of times when people are asking the horse to, let's say, get into the horse trailer and they are reaching up and they are tapping on the horse with something that doesn't sting. So a lot of times I say a stick and string because I like that firm stick. Much better than, let's say, a dressage whip in this case, because I want to tap with something that has a solid, not a stinging biting feel, because it's not my intention to punish the horse. Just like with my legs, I can use my legs with rhythm and pressure without it being a stinky kind of a feel. And I like that because it can feel firm without feeling like punishment. So there are a lot of times people are asking the horse to move forward, to go into the horse trailer. And as they're using that cue, they the person becomes uncomfortable with the pressure that the horse is requiring. The way that a horse requires pressure is the horse will say, nope, not moving.

I love presto, my little rescue horse from Last Chance Corral. He's not so little anymore. He's over 16 hands now, which makes him bigger than all the other horses that I have on my property that we own. And what's interesting about this is he's very willing to say, nope, not moving. And so a lot of the horses will make a request. They'll be like, move presto. And he'll say, no, not moving. And then they'll say, OK, I'm willing to back it up and they'll kick him. But apparently they must not kick that hard because the ability to back it up is apparently lacking because he doesn't move, he doesn't perceive the kick to be that much. So he doesn't move. And a lot of times he'll reach out to bite at them or actually his preferred method is kind of just walk right through them and run them over because he's like a giant bulldozer. So his ability to back up his stance of no, I'm not moving is greater than the little horse that just kicked at him and then left town because she was like. That didn't work. I'm getting out of here. So it's very interesting to feel how some of these horses have different tolerances levels. And a lot of times that's what's happening when people are working with their horse. This strange tension that James references is this tension between I want to be able to make a request of my horse and I want my horse to willingly follow it.

But a lot of horses, let's just say 50 percent of horses, just to get a number in your mind, let's say 50 percent of horses are going to say, hmm, I don't know. What are you gonna do about it? A lot of times these tend to be the lazier horses, the horses that are more willing to question in that lazy way, like presto, there is a whole nother set of them. The other 50 percent that that tend to get almost too light and and they're trying to avoid things. And so they all have their own pros and cons that happen here. But the idea that I'm tackling right now is that part of balancing your aides is you mentally accepting that the aides are okay and that were you're willing to use them. So if your hands if it bothers you to use your hands to shape the horse, whether you're riding in a side pool, whether you're riding in a snaffle bit, whether you're riding in a shanked bit, if it bothers you to use your hands, the horse is going to figure that out if it bothers you to use your legs. The horse is going to figure that out. Almost everybody's okay with using their seat in their voice. Unfortunately, that doesn't fit into the ability to back it up typically.

So when we're working on this tension between being able to figure out how you get it so that horses, it feels like something flows. And at the same time, like you're willing to make something happen. There's this tension that's happening in your mind where it really gets sticky for people. Is that this mind problem, this this tension or question in your mind is affecting how you use your hands and legs. So if you use your hands, it's important to note that hands can be used fast or slow hands can also be used light or firm. They're not the same thing. A lot of times people move slow and light. And fast and firm. But you can go slow and firm. And most of the time, hands fast just isn't a great idea. Hands fast. There is a few exercises where I will teach my horses to bend as an emergency stop and you can see that on YouTube on like the Stacie's video diary, Jack. Before I mount up on a colt, it's a it's it's it's almost fast. It's quick and smooth and firm because if a horse gets spooked and bolts, you're not going to go artificially slow because you might have only like three strides before you're gonna end up jumping off a cliff or in front of a car on the side of the road or something. So you're gonna need at some times to be able to move to move smooth and firm so that you can tell that horse that jumping in front of traffic's not a good idea right now.

This is where people tend to struggle, is not with the request, it's with. How slow or how fast or how light or how firm they should be using these aides that I'm going to label for simplicity right now. Just the hands and the legs. It absolutely goes deeper than that. But here's the rub. The horses won't hear your pleas. They're not going to work effectively and well and consistently off from your voice in your seat until they understand your hands and your legs as they understand these bigger, broader and these things that we're actually going to use as follow through until they understand some of those. It's it's a lot harder for them to listen to your see in your voice because a lot of horses won't be paying that much attention. If it's just this really light request. And again, this depends a lot on the horse's personality type. But for this right now, before we dove into the horses, which we're gonna do in the next couple of seasons, I want you to reflect back on the idea. What you think is changing how you ride when James says a quote from a podcast. I was in quote, There's this catch between feeling like you're allowing something to flow and feeling like you're making something happen for me.

I said that. And for me, that is what the middle of the teeter totter feels like. It feels like I'm allowing something to flow. I ask the horse to go here and do this, and I'm allowing that horse to flow. But if necessary, I'm going to step in and I'm going to make things happen. And that's how we end up with this amazing dance partner. When I started this podcast, it was because I really have the desire to help people understand what is happening with their horses. The one thing I never did promise, though, was that this would be easy to execute. And at times, I think it's a bit of a challenge to understand at this point. I've seen the layers of this over so long that it's clear to me, but it's very important to me that it becomes clear to you out of today's episode. What I'm hoping you get is that the mindset you have towards using your aides, your hands, your legs, especially your willingness to use those and to be effective in how you use them is going to be key going forward because it seems contradictory, but it is so true. The more the horse understands my hands and legs, it is what happens for me before my horses understand the bridle lists and that complete freedom that comes because it's not a freedom from TAC.

It is a free and true understanding of each other that you're witnessing with the bridle is riding. Thank you for joining me today, and I'll talk to you in the next episode.

If you enjoy listening to Stacy podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall dot com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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