Episode 205: Planning transitions and revealing habits

Episode 205_ Planning transitions and revealing habits.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 205_ Planning transitions and revealing habits.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Stacy Westfall:
This is what I think most people experience, is the team effort of how that turn went as opposed to what I'm describing, which is my habit when I go straight and turn to the right versus Willow's habit when she goes straight and turns to the right.

Announcer:
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.

Stacy Westfall:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I help riders become resourceful. In this episode of the podcast, I'm going to talk about transitions and planning. I was teaching inside my course this week, and one of the things that came up got me really thinking about how differently I ride transitions now versus when I was growing up, and I thought that would be an interesting subject for a podcast. Transitions are one of those subjects that gets talked about a lot. And because of that, it's almost easy to think that you must certainly understand it by now if you've listened to a lot of it. Yet, I know for me when I'm out riding my horses, I am always studying my transitions, which is the opposite of assuming that I know about transitions. Do you see how that works? If I assume it, I'm not really looking at it. If I am studying the transitions, then there's almost still a fascination, a curiosity, an interest in understanding them even better. And even as I say this, I picture myself at like 15 or 16 years old listening to what I just said and thinking, That sounds kind of miserable. Like, why would you want to study it that much? So I want to outline why I study it so much and what it benefits if I do.

Stacy Westfall:
So the biggest thing that stands out to me is that when I am planning my transitions and when I'm studying my transitions, that becomes the dance. The transition has to involve planning for me to study it. And if I do a transition and then study it, it's going to automatically result in better planning for the next one. I'm going to get into an example of riding a straight line to a turn in a moment. So picture that. Picture riding a straight line and then riding a turn to the right. There is a transition that's going to happen there from going straight to the bending line of travel. And then let's say you're going to go straight again. And so what happened is that the planning of that line of travel will change the way that I actually ride. So here are the three ways that it helps me. When I plan the line of travel it grows my awareness of my own habits. Planning that line of travel also grows my awareness of my horse's habits. And the planning smooths out my transitions. So in this example, I'm going to be talking about the transition from traveling on a straight line to a bending line. But you very commonly hear transitions being spoken of as in transitions of gait, meaning maybe canter to trot. So when we think about transitions, I want you to think about it being any change that is not simply staying the course, which means you're probably making way more transitions than you think you are if you use my definition. So let's get back to the planning and what happens when we look at riding a straight line to preparing a turn. And this happens, by the way, in a lot of different events. I mean, if you think about it, that is a crazy common thing to show up in a ranch riding pattern, in a dressage test, with a reining horse, even in other things like mounted shooting or barrel racing, you're going to have straight lines and a transition to a turn. So no matter what discipline you picture, when you picture this straight line to a right-hand turn, there will be planning. And then inside of that, I want you to think about the mental transitions and the physical transitions. When you are constantly planning ahead you're going to begin to notice that you're thinking ahead and becoming aware of what is working and what isn't working ahead of time, which means you can actually start to adjust before you arrive somewhere and suddenly realize you're five feet further from where you wanted to be. So, for example, if I'm riding a reining horse and I'm circling and I'm supposed to be coming to the center cones in the middle and I suddenly am aware that I am five feet to the inside, so I actually didn't line up with those middle cones. That would be like a sudden awareness where I wasn't looking ahead and planning ahead. So simply determining a line of travel lets me begin to ride proactively. But the big three are that it's going to increase my awareness of my habits, my awareness of my horse's habits, and it's going to smooth out the transitions because of those.

Stacy Westfall:
So when I'm riding this horse and I'm just going to picture going down the long side of my indoor arena, but staying about ten feet away from the wall, rounding the end. So not doing a little short, straight line on the short end, rounding the end, and then riding another straight line down the other long side. When I'm picturing that the planning that is involved is going to increase my own awareness of my habits that happen when I ride that type of a line of travel that is different than if I rode straight down the long side of the arena, deep into the corner and straight across the short end of the arena. I actually have different habits depending on the different turns. And so the habits that I have, it's interesting. I have a set of habits on the straight line. I have a set of habits during the turn. And so if I'm doing that gradual turn across the whole end of that arena, that's a different turning habit than if I'm going to ride that as a squared-off corner. Those habits in me, just my habits, are different when I turn to the left versus when I turn to the right. One side of my body is tighter than the other, so I have a different habit turning left versus turning right. And I have different habits depending on how sharp that turn's going to be. So planning grows the awareness of your habits because you'll know your own particular habits better when you start to plan these transitions. And notice I'm still focusing just on the transitions of straight line to turn. I'm not even adding in the transitions of speed or between gait from walk to trot, trot to canter. Planning this line of travel also grows my awareness of my horses' habits. So each horse that I ride–this morning I rode two and I rode this same line of travel with both of them. Each horse is going to have different habits. Even though I stayed the same. Same rider, different horses.

Stacy Westfall:
Here's another interesting one. There are different habits during the turn at different gaits. So if I'm walking that straight line and that end-turn versus cornering that straight line and that end-turn those are different habits. On top of that, each of my horses has their own differences turning left or right. So I already said I have a difference in my body when I turn left versus turning right. My horses also have differences in their body, meaning different from each other, which means there's something different left or right that isn't 100% being caused by me because I am the consistent between the two. I'm going to have my own habits when I'm riding, and yet the horses have different habits. That means they're bringing some of that to the table, the way they're built, the way they have tightness or whatever's going on there. So can you start to see how planning the transitions of just going on a straight line to a turn, you're going to start planning that line of travel, and it's going to grow the awareness of the rider habits and the awareness of the horse habits. And then those habits are going to interact. This is what I think most people experience, is the team effort of how that turn went as opposed to what I'm describing, which is my habit when I go straight and turn to the right versus Willow's habit, when she goes straight and turns to the right versus Gabby's habit, when she goes straight and turns to the right and overlay on top of that speeds and transitions. So you can start to see where breaking this down into even just as simple as the transition of straight line to–to bend can actually be something that you can break apart and start to really study your own habits and your horse's habits. And what's going to happen, even if you just simply plan the straight line to the turn, is you're going to start to smooth out those transitions. So this is a major difference from me when I was a teenager to me now. I used to vaguely plan getting around the end of the arena and then I might be surprised when I ended up really far away from the end wall. So I might make a quick move with my hands, which is more likely to make my horse throw its head because there was no warning and the horse didn't expect anything and I'm asking for something that's not in position. So what happens is just by nowadays planning ahead, I start to smooth things out just from the planning. But when you overlay on top of that that the planning can then help me identify my habits and my horse's habits, what starts to happen then is when I start to see these as individual pieces, then it starts to create my training plan. I start to be able to evaluate what's going on, separate my habits, my horse's habits, and that plan, that transition from straight line to turn in this case. And what that does is it starts to give me a lot more detailed information that's going to help me decide what I'm going to do when I ride tomorrow. So if I noticed yesterday that during the turns to the right, the horse was keeping the shoulder kind of hanging out there to the left. So maybe they were overbending to the right and the shoulder was drifting out to the left. Then I'm going to be able to think about that from the ride that I noticed it to the next ride, and I can start to ask some better questions like how can I communicate more clearly that this is not the body position that I want and I can even think about or rewatch the video that I made when I was riding and think, Is there something I'm doing that's causing this? Am I sitting a particular way? Where am I looking?

Stacy Westfall:
So I mentioned a minute ago that there's a mental transition that's happening and a physical transition that's happening. What I want you to picture is that going on that straight line and then riding that turn at the end, the mental transition for the rider is the planning, and it's also the decisions in the moment that are being made as you ride that transition. So, for example, if you want to keep it really simple, you can go out there and you can say, I'm going to ride this particular way around the arena for the next five laps. I'm going to stay ten feet off the long side, go all the way down, I'm going to round the end and I'm going to go up the other long side ten feet off the wall. So now you have your first level of planning for that ride, which is also planning the transitions from straight to bend. But you have another transition point as you're riding it, because as you're riding and let's say that your arena is 200 feet long and you're going to begin your turn about 30 feet from the end, somewhere on that straight line, and it's not 30 feet from the end. Maybe it's 50, maybe it's 80. Somewhere before you get to that turning point, you're going to start thinking about your habits and your horse's habits. And the most fascinating thing, if you record this, is that when you start thinking about the habits, you're probably going to cause some wobbles in your horse. Because a lot of times until you practice this a lot, when you think about your horse's habit of, let's say, drifting out through the shoulder, a lot of times what happens is when you think about that horse's habit and you're still on the straight line in your planning, you think about that horse's habit and you start to physically change whether or not that would happen. So you start to maybe want to push the shoulder in while you're thinking about the mistake that the horse hasn't made yet, because you're not even to the turn. But in the thinking about it, if you're not really aware and very present in your body as you're thinking about this potential problem coming on this turn, you actually almost start causing a problem by moving your body in response to what you're thinking. This goes back to last week's podcast, and so it's fascinating to me that there is the mental transition, oftentimes will reflect in the rider's body and you'll see that if somebody is trying to ride a perfectly straight line towards the camera and then make a turn, a lot of times you'll see a wobble in the straight line when they're coming down through way before they're going to make the turn. And that a lot of times is the mental thought that the rider is having. And then they signal real subtle, but they do signal with their body and they cause a wobble in the horse. So we have that mental transition. And again, two different layers of it. One layer if you're not planning ahead, then you're probably reacting and that's a whole different thing than the wobble I was just describing on the straight line when you're thinking. Those are two different types of–of mental wobbles that could be happening there. So then we also have the physical transition. So planning how you're going to support that horse from riding straight onto the bend and how you're going to keep that a stable and nice and rhythmic end-turn and then straight again.

Stacy Westfall:
So it just fascinates me that transitions, even this one that I'm talking about, which is basically a transition from straight to bend–And again, I left out the more common transitions, which would be transitions of gait or through the gaits. Transitions are what advanced riding is. When I think about advanced riding, advanced riding is just better and better transitions. And typically–let's just put in a show situation, those are happening closer and closer together. Now, if you want to take it down to one maneuver, you can take a movement like a lead change, and a lead change is an advanced transition because a lead change is a transition from the left lead to the right lead. It's a transition from one gait, left lead gait to right lead gait. It's an advanced transition because it happens in one stride. Then when I picture a reining pattern or a dressage test, what I start to see is a series of transitions. And depending on what level, let's say dressage, you're riding, you're going to notice that the intro level dressage tests are a series of easier transitions. Then if you go up to like a fourth-level dressage test, then you're going to have a series of much more advanced transitions. So just remember that if you start thinking about any of these changes of direction, straight to bend, walk to trot, walk to canter, canter to trot. If you start thinking about these common, I'm calling them common, "common" transitions. If you start to really look at those much more common transitions in detail, what's going to happen is you're going to start to see your own habits and then you'll be able to study your horse's habits. And then what that will do is it will start to show you the next step you need to take to expand or stretch or increase your ability or your horse's ability. Inside my program, the Resourceful Rider, I teach riders how to plan and evaluate, and I actually give you the plans for what you're going to do, what pattern you're going to ride, and what technique you're going to use. And I also created things that I call audio ride guides. So it's actual audio, just like this podcast that you can listen to while you're riding. So I will actually be telling you step by step what to do. So I really took care of the planning aspect of it so I could take the time to teach you how to evaluate. And this is where it gets really interesting to me is that I teach you very specific things and then I teach you how to stretch it for your own unique uses. Because that's the part of being resourceful, is that we all have different long-term goals for our horses, but we all need those foundation building blocks to be able to go there.

Stacy Westfall:
So this success story came in from Ann, and it requires a tiny bit of back story, which is that she had shared a success story back in September in one of our group calls. And I read her success story, but I also explained her own success story from a different point of view. Basically, in her success story, she had said this line. She said, "On our last ride, my mare had a mindset shift and I felt it in her body." And I added to it and said, If you read the full-blown version of your success story, you had a mindset shift and then your mare had a mindset shift and you felt it in her body. So your mare noticed your shift in your body. And this is what Ann wrote back after hearing my view of her success story. She wrote, Stacy, your commentary after you read my success story on the September 29th Zoom call was spot on. In my journal entry for that ride I wrote, I wonder how my mayor would describe the experience if she could. I absolutely agree with you. She'd probably say my rider had a mindset shift and I could feel it in her body. The next most obvious step was to take advantage of a windy day. I am becoming a more resourceful rider and ride the cloverleaf pattern while carrying a three-by-four tarp as a flag. My horse has had plenty of sacking out with tarps, but not while being ridden. I mounted up with tarp in hand and asked her to move forward. She offered a side pass away from the tarp. I continued to ask for forward. She took that first forward step and relaxed into a better mindset. This whole conversation took less than 2 minutes and we calmly rode the pattern while I held a flapping tarp flag in one hand for 10 minutes in each direction. Thanks to you and all my fellow students, this course is so much more and better than I expected an online horse training course could possibly be.

Stacy Westfall:
Ann, thanks for sharing your story. And I agree that you are being very resourceful. If you want to learn how to apply the ideas I talk about on the podcast to your riding, come join me in my online program, The Resourceful Rider. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Announcer:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit stacywestfall.com for articles, videos, and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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