Episode 240: How to relax your body and communicate clearly when riding.

Episode 240_ How to relax your body and communicate clearly when riding..mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 240_ How to relax your body and communicate clearly when riding..mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
The indirect cues are also including things like your tension or relaxation in your body. So for the majority of riders, when that horse is doing something over and over again, if you start having a building frustration that's going to color, it becomes a piece of your cue system. But the answer isn't just to take a deep breath and relax. You may need to take a deep breath and relax and figure out why that direct cue of pulling in the left rein, is confusing to your horse.

Speaker2:
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.

Speaker1:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy, and successfully train your own horses. In today's podcast, I want to share an audio clip from a recent teaching that I did on Zoom. If you have not signed up for my email list and did not know I was doing free teachings, go ahead over to my website and sign up now so you'll be notified of the next upcoming teaching. Here is a segment of that teaching. Right now. We're going to jump in to the class How to relax your body and communicate clearly when riding. When you signed up for the class, I asked for some of the symptoms that your horse might be displaying. That would be confusion. And this is a small sampling of what I got back. So the problem that you guys are experiencing oftentimes is these. These are the symptoms like jigging, head tossing takes extra steps. When asked to stop heavy on the bit, stops moving, speeds up without being asked. And then it's hard to slow down, dropping the shoulder in the turns, not engaging in the hindquarters coming above the bit. And what I want you to remember is these are all physical symptoms. The real problem is that the horse is unclear, confused, or has questions. But this is only a problem if you are unclear on the process and unclear on what part is not working. So when you're unclear, this is when you're most likely to give conflicting cues.

Speaker1:
Here are a few of the common reasons writers give conflicting cues. If the horse appears confused and you're not quite clear, it is common for the rider to think I'm already doing this, but the horse doesn't seem to understand it. So I'm going to add this and this. So they think. Adding more cues will help fix what isn't working. Often this leads to conflicting cues. Other times, the rider doesn't recognize that one of the bass cues, one of the fundamental bass cues is becoming blurry. Don't worry, I'm going to clarify that with examples in a minute. And oftentimes when riders are unclear, they fail to see it from the horse's point of view. And many of the things when we move from elementary school to high school and to college, as we move up through as the language gets more complex as opposed to left, right, stop go, as those things move and get more complicated as the language develops, there are places where the horse may perceive it as a contradiction. That's where if the rider can get clear, then they can go, Oh, I see how my horse is confused here. I see what my horse is confused by. Let me clear this up for you. But when the rider is unclear, they're more likely to give conflicting cues and snowball the problem further. When I was thinking about how this works and how to really make it clear so you could test it a little bit more simply for yourself, is that when riders are confused about the horse's behavior, whether that's jigging or head tossing or won't stand still, when riders are confused, they tend to go to two extremes.

Speaker1:
Either they try to oversimplify the problem or they try to overcomplicate the problem. If you try to oversimplify, I'm coming up with an example, so keep following me. When you oversimplify, it means that you simplify to the point where a distorted impression is given. The way that I summarize this is it sounds like a beautiful, simple idea, but if the horse can see holes in it, that's when it's not going to work anymore. So let's anchor into an example of something that you could possibly oversimplify in your thinking and then run into more problems. So for many people, getting the horse to stand still is a problem. So basically, if you're on this call, there's a chance that your horse is either going to lean towards being a hot horse, Hot reactive, wants to move go. That's going to have a certain number and symptom of problems, or you're going to have a horse that falls into the more like laid back no rush about it. Sometimes I'll even say lazy because I have a good relationship with the word, but you'll have that more quiet laid back. We don't need to go anywhere kind of a horse. And then there's going to be those of you on here who think you have Jekyll and Hyde because you're like, I have one horse and I have both symptoms.

Speaker1:
Don't worry, we're going to talk about all of it. But what I want you to think about for just a moment is the halt or the standstill when it's oversimplified. If you look at this picture of me sitting on Willow out in the woods, standing in this river, one of my favorite places to be on my horse when I'm sitting here, it looks like I'm doing nothing. So it looks like I have released all of the aides not pulling on the left rein, not pulling on the right rein, not pulling, not using my legs. It looks like I'm doing nothing and we're standing still. Where the challenge comes is if you are out riding and your horse, you ask the horse to stop, you're out on a trail ride or you ride into the middle of the show arena and you ask your horse to stop and it's dancing around because it doesn't want to stand still. The oversimplified version most people come up with is My horse is dancing, I will let go and they let go and the horse goes forward. So they shut that door and then the horse goes and you can start to see where we get into my last webinar, which was the reactive rider, the oversimplified side view of how you get a horse to stand still is releasing all the aides, those of you who have the lazier laid back horses like.

Speaker1:
But that one really works. Don't worry, there's other symptoms where you'll have problems. And I want to know, does it work when your horse is excited? But let's just anchor into you can oversimplify. Oversimplified doesn't work if the horse can ask questions and see through the gaps. So there's some times when I am in a minute explaining like elementary school cues as opposed to high school and college, what happens a lot of times is the rider wants to stay with the elementary level cues and that's okay. But the problem is when the horse starts to see the gaps, then you don't have a choice. You have to start progressing up through at least into the beginning of high school because just like I have a puppy that's a year old now, she once she got to a certain age, she she could see the gaps or the holes or the flaws in the simple thinking. If you've ever been around children or had children of your own, like you will know that when they get to certain ages, they start to see the flaws in your logic. So they ask more questions. So when I say your horse is asking questions, a lot of times what they're pointing out is gaps or flaws in your thinking. So if your idea of standing still is releasing all the aids, there will be a lot of horses out there that are like, I see a gap here and I'm going to test it.

Speaker1:
The other version is when we overcomplicate this again, when we go to overcomplicating the number one way to know if you're over, complicating is if the horse or the rider becomes unclear, you could be over complicating it for you If you are applying Aids that you don't understand why you're doing, then you're not going to know how to release and have good timing. If you're trying on a system that's more complex than what you've trained your brain to think, if you haven't really thought it through, there's an edge of finding your comfort zone. But you got to know what you're doing or you won't be clear with the way you show up over complicating can also show up. If, say, somebody like me gets on a horse and on the second ride I decide to use all the cues that I know that's going to be over complicating it for the horse because horse on the first 1 to 10 rides, 30 days doesn't understand enough to listen to all of my aids because all of my aids, I know a lot of things. So it can be too complicated for the horse. Now, I put a little image of a dam up in the corner here because I want to tell you another way that you can know if you're over complicating. If you're riding a horse and you're riding around and you're thinking, I want to do this, so I'm going to pull on this rein.

Speaker1:
But when I pull on the left rein, his hip goes to the right. So I need to hold my leg back here and then I need to do this and then I need to do this and I need to do this. If you feel like you need to stick six fingers into the dam. To hold back the water, you are actually over complicating it. Over complicated is making something more complicated than necessary. So the layers of training, whether we're talking about the horse or we're talking about the rider. The layers have to be added without adding confusion. So when we look at the halt, it's fine if you have the quiet horse that appears that if you release all the aides, they'll stand still. Again, I want to know, will they stand still in all situations? How could you help or support them if they weren't? So in this other picture that I've added here, you can see that I'm doing what I call the hug when I'm in this dressage and I've come to the middle of the arena and I've come to my nice square halt, I'm lightly closing all the doors, so I'm lightly closing all of the aides, the left rein, the right, rein the left leg, the right leg. They're all closed. And my core is steady and my horse stands still. But that will not work on the first ride on a horse, because even though these aides are correct, the horse is on a learning journey.

Speaker1:
So while you're evaluating during this call, I want you to be thinking about like your horse is at a certain level of training, and so you're both on a journey you can ride super correct. But if your horse is confused, you've got to listen to their feedback. Your horse is not a computer. You will not apply the correct Aids and have the perfect result because that only works when the horse and rider are up at a matching level where you can apply those aids and the horse has had their questions answered and then you get that correct result. It's like developing a language. So if one of you just showed up at my door today and I put you on Willow, not an invitation, just an example. If you showed up today and I just plopped you on Willow, you would not get the same results because you too would have to develop that language, even though she knows a lot and you might know quite a bit. So how and why the system changes as the horse advances in training. What I want to do for you in the next few minutes is I want you to understand the system better and I want you to become more clear about where the problems are coming from. Because at the end of the day, if you want to become a rider that can handle the safety issue, problems that come up, which I call, those are elementary problems.

Speaker1:
So if you've got we're going to there's a chart here in a minute, but if you've got elementary level problems, then what that means is those are safety issue problems. Typically, you need to know that even though you might be working on something a little bit more advanced, as soon as one of those pops up, you need to be able to go back down and know how to effectively deal with that safety level issue. But the tools that you use to deal with the safety issues, those are going to be slightly modified as you continue to move up into what I'm just going to summarize as high school and college and as you move up through, you need to see where those possible contradictions are for the horse so that you can be the teacher they need you to be so you can help clarify which you need to be clear on it before you're going to be clear teaching it to your horse. So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to bridle up my computer screen so I have a set of reins and I want to run through where the horses often get confused and also where the riders tend to get confused. So now that we have reins on my computer screen so you can see a little bit more what you're going to also notice as I want to use my like my elbow movement, like this is going to represent my legs.

Speaker1:
So when we think about first riding a horse, when we think about the very first cues that a horse learns, oftentimes we'll teach the horse to bend before we even mount up to ride. So that would be just one single rein, You're standing on the ground. You teach that horse to bend, to stand still. And so the horses are often learning individual things in elementary school. It makes sense. So real common, they'll learn what we call direct Reining left rein means go left. Good job, Horse. Right rein means go right. Good job, Horse. Both reins means stop moving. Good job. Get your release. And when I'm not pulling on the reins but I'm using my legs, I squeeze, I bump. Whatever you do when you add that leg pressure, leg pressure means go. So the simplification and what we're teaching the horses in elementary school is much like when we're teaching children in elementary school, we don't start with Shakespeare. We start with teaching them the basics. So we teach. Go is the legs we teach. Whoa! Or stop. Is both reigns. We teach left Rein, means go left. Good job, horse. I pulled on the left Rein, You bent your head to the left, you followed with your shoulder. Good job. I'm happy I pulled on the right Rein, your nose tip to the right. Your shoulder went to the right. Good job, horse.

Speaker1:
I'm happy. This is what the horse learns at the beginning. And for many people, you're going to fall into one of two camps. I did for a huge part of my life. I grew up, and the majority of what I did when I was growing up was trail riding. And this was the system that I wanted to use on my horse. Now, have any of you ever been and you can use this as trail riding? I then moved into barrel racing. My horse also saw the flaw there. You're going to be able to find it in many areas, but I'm going to stick with trail riding for a moment. I saw the flaw show up in my horse when I was riding down the trail and there was a pre tree is here. I can see the line of path. My right leg is about to hit the tree I'm riding down through. I pull on the left rein to have the horse go left and the horse goes, Hey, you know what I discovered on the last few rides is an interesting thing Horse is thinking. It's an interesting fact. I discovered when you pull on the left rein, I know that sometimes left rein means take and go left. But watch what else I can do. The left rein can bend me and I can continue on straight. Anybody ever had that? If it wasn't the tree that was coming up that you were pulling and trying to get away from and your horse was like, Hey, look, I noticed I can actually walk straight with my head bent to the left if that wasn't your example.

Speaker1:
A real common one is when you turn around to head home from that trail ride and you're headed home from the trail ride and maybe you realize you dropped something or you realize you want to go back. I used to like to go back and pick a flower. I rode by. And so you pull on a rein and you go, Hey, let's turn back around. And your horse goes, Great idea. I can bend and I can continue towards home. That is an example of your horse beginning to see the flaws in the simplification. So just think that when those happen, it's not you can see it as like, Oh my gosh, what's happening? But it's actually to me it's a learning development stage where the horse is like, Hey, look, my body functions and I can do this, this and this for me. That's when I go, cool. That's true. You can bend and follow. You can bend and go straight and you can actually bend and go left. And I actually discovered all of those in unwanted and unwanted examples when I was growing up by running into trees or after barrel racing, my horse figured out, we're going around that to the to the right, and I would try to pull her out and it would just let her go falling over in that direction.

Speaker1:
So there's ways that we can look. And without judging the horse, we can say they begin to see some of these flaws. We just need to be able to answer them. So that's step one. Let's see, there is left Rein,. Left, right. Rein, right. Legs mean go both reins mean stop. Let's talk for just a moment about where some of the finished finished cues are completely different. So since I was really well known for reining but also will tell you this applies to dressage, the phrasing is just different. When you go into ride a horse, let's make our let's make the reins a little more narrow. When you are neck reining the horse, you're riding along on the horse. Your hand is not as high as mine is. You're riding along on the horse and when you neck rein, think about it. So this is my left. When when we're direct, reining left rein means go left. So you pull on the left rein the horse turns the head and follows and goes to the left. That's when our horse was first learning. We taught them that. Now, when you want a neck rein, you go like this, which pulls on the right rein, but you want the horse to go left. So neck reining is a contradiction to the base. Cue of left rein means go left. And I know some of you are going to answer it. Yes, yes, we can fill in with the leg.

Speaker1:
There are other things that come along when you fill in with the leg. And I'm going to tell you that this is 100% true. A horse can be trained to understand that the rein,. So both legs are applied evenly, the rein goes like this and the horse can understand that. That means bend your head to the left and go to the left just off from the indirect rein. But for that to happen, your horse has to have had some other steps in there that not only change the way they use their body, but change the way that they think. And so when we're going through, it's important that you see the possible contradiction in left rein means left and now right rein means left. You just need to first acknowledge that there's a possible contradiction. One other possible contradiction that we're going to talk about in just a minute with some other charts and graphs, which I also enjoy is the idea of collection. Think about what collection means. When we're collecting a horse, we are often basically applying something with the reins. Whether you want to think that you're bending or you're bringing the nose back, or you're raising or lowering the head, or you're changing the direction, you're doing something with the reins and you're doing something with your legs. It leaves a lot of room for the horse to go, Wait a minute. I thought the reins meant stop.

Speaker1:
Shouldn't we stop and back up now and or the horse goes, Wait a minute. You're using your legs. Shouldn't we go now? So you have to understand the contradictions that come up as you go through training so that you can understand how to break it down and help clarify things for your horse. Okay. Let's jump in to a couple more examples now that I've got you rooted in some of the fundamentals. So here we go. These are some of the things that I saw come in that I put into the safety issue category. When you write to me and you say that your horse will plant herself and lose all forward momentum as a trainer, this is a red flag for a major safety issue won't go forward. It's a different phrasing for it stops moving, different phrasing for it. These are all basically the horse saying the fundamental go. Is somehow confused, like the horse has lost or never truly understood. Go with the legs. Speeds up without being asked and then is hard to slow down. This is a different symptom of the horse not understanding. So this one's speeding up on its own. It's like a gas pedal is stuck on. So imagine driving a car and the accelerator is slightly stuck on. That explains speeds up without being asked and then is hard to slow down. So tell me, what would you do in a car if you were driving down the highway and the accelerator was stuck on? There is a particular thing most riders would do, most drivers would do.

Speaker1:
And it also helps explain blowing through the aids because the horse that's speeding up without being asked and is hard to slow down. It's a series of symptoms. The horse then becomes blowing through the Aids. Well, tell me, what Aids is the horse blowing through? What is the horse over exaggerating. And what is the horse not responding to? Just out of those four simple go stop left right now, blowing through the aids could have been more than a go forward one. So feel free to fill it in the blank with whatever you want. Jigging. Jigging is a higher level safety issue, but it's a little bit like if you've got a pot on the stove and there's like steam and it's kind of building up and it's making the lid pop up and down. That's what jigging is. To me. Jigging is like we are seeing the edge of the safety line, head tossing and head shaking. This depends on the severity of it, but I will put it into the safety issue if I really imagine it being very exaggerated and it could be in the next category. I'm going to show you in just a minute if it's a little less exaggerated. But before we go there, I want you to look at this strange little chart that I've created over here on the right. What I want you to think about is that this red arrow and these little lines right here, these this red arrow, if I am looking at this whole entire arc, I'm thinking that this is a horse's first ride.

Speaker1:
First understanding all the way up through high school is up here in this top of the arch. And then this other part over here is college. So in the beginning, when we have elementary school, this this safety line right here, this red dotted line for me, when I'm riding a colt, when I'm deciding to get on, that's the line. I'm just going to get just above that line to be able to get on and ride. I'm going to need to be able to have direct reining work where the left rein means goes left and I can even bend the horse to a stop. Right rein means go right, the legs mean go forward and the reins mean stop and back. Either a single rein bending the horse to that stop or both reins. There's a safety line, however you want to imagine in your mind. I'm sharing with you mine. Just remember, there has to be something you consider the safety line so that you can know when you're getting close or you're falling below it. So in those first ten rides that I have on a horse, I might feel like I'm somewhere between this red line and this kind of a light blue line. Like there's this wobbly part that's going to be normal to go from zero rides to, you know, 10 or 20 rides.

Speaker1:
But after that, I actually even though the safety line is this red dotted line, I actually want to get more skilled and move my horses understanding to where I'm further above the safety line so that I'm consistently above that. I'm not dipping down below into moments where the horse just won't go forward because again, won't go forward, is below the safety line, won't stop, is below the safety line. I pull on the left rein and the horse goes right or speeds up, doesn't go left, doesn't go some version of left. Those are examples of falling below the safety line. And the cool thing about training a horse is, number one, I didn't make this a perfectly straight up line because I want you to know that it's worth putting this investment in to get up to, let's say, around here where you start to get into high school. Because when you get about halfway through high school, the training all starts to snowball and get easier. And I think that's a very important thing for you guys to know because just as this graph kind of shows, it's a bit of a steep start at the beginning there. So I want you to guys know that it's kind of normal for the steep start to be there, but you also need to know that the further you move away from that and further up through then, then what's going to happen is you actually feel safer and safer because you're not falling below the safety line.

Speaker1:
So even though I just jumped to a different slide, follow my mouse down here on this chart. Imagine if you're riding a horse that's kind of up here in this area and they're starting high school and they're learning some new cool things the further up you are in this. If you've done this and you've been solidifying things along the way, what happens is you have a lot more room for questions that don't fall below the safety line. That is an encouraging thing for you to realize why it's important to pursue a little more than you think is necessary for what you're going to do. So I often find trail riders are the ones that are saying like, I just want a trail ride. Yes. But the further you move your horses, understanding, even if you don't ever go over into college and up into like high, high level things, the more you can isolate and add money to the bank, the more you get up into this this beginning high school level. What it does is it gives you more room where the questions your horse asks aren't falling below the safety line. So let's look at some advancing issues for a moment. So advancing issues include taking extra steps. When asked to stop, you can see how that's a little bit of a version of speeds up without being asked.

Speaker1:
And it's hard to slow down. It's like a super baby version. It's basically they're just not slowing down as fast as you want. Takes extra steps when asked to stop. That's going to be more of an like now we're up around high school gets tense in their back. I mean, if that's the main complaint, is that there there's tension and we're not getting bucking and rearing and that kind of stuff, that's going to be somewhere along that line braces in the body and doesn't bend as nicely. Do you hear how that's more advanced tension in the ears and neck? Again, some of these are short and they need more detail. But you can see this is not somebody expressing horse flat stops, pins its ears and refuses to move, backing up, reluctant to lope off. Again, this is a higher level problem, but it's a higher level problem of a lower level issue won't go forward. Not engaging in the hind end. Again, this is actually like a lack of forward motion type of an issue, not engaging in the hind end, dropping the shoulder in the turns. There can be several things happening there, but a lot of times it's miscommunication is going on. Sometimes the horses thinking that they're supposed to be doing a certain thing. Maybe the rider's being fast. We have to start being able to diagnose more, but dropping the shoulders in the turn is completely different than my horse turns around and runs home with me, which is a safety level issue.

Speaker1:
Heavy on the bit. This one again leaves some gray areas that heavy in the bit, like you wish it would be lighter in that transition or heavy in the bit as in you're getting run away with comes above the bit. That one again could just be the horse hollows out a little bit or it could be that the horse is flipping the head. So now we start to see that we need a little more clarification from ourselves on what it is that we're looking for and what the actual problem is. Because between elementary school where we wish that it could be as simple as left Rein, is left right. Rein, is right. Both reins is stop, both legs is go. So there is truth in that. First, just pause and think there is actual truth in all of those aids. So don't get lost in the fact that there's truth there. Start going, Oh, but what's the next level challenge? The next level challenge of, let's just say collection, which is a version of having the brakes on a little bit and the gas on a little bit. That's what gives you the feeling of collection. Don't worry, I can even produce this collection. Bridleless It's not about exactly. It's not exactly about the reins and the legs. It's not about pulling super hard having a wrestling match. It's about developing the understanding with the horse that when you are gathering up or collecting your reins and applying some legs, that now the system is a little more complex.

Speaker1:
It's not stop, go. It is Hey horse, when I'm gathering this up, I want you to coil your body up. So all of these photos show different levels of a body coiled up. And what's interesting is that in some of them where you can see me making direct contact, you can see the powerful steps in the hind end and the shape in the horse's body. But even in the ones where you don't see the direct contact, like when I'm walking up through this field on Willow, what you see in Willow's body is an echo of her understanding of collection. So she's carrying herself self carriage. She's carrying herself in a collected frame because of what she's understood or learned through understanding higher level aids. Down here in this bottom right corner, this one with Gabby. Gabby is loping and she's not quite as collected. She's a little bit more open in her frame, but she's collecting she's learning to how to move in that frame. And what all of this means is that you're finding that balance where in elementary school it was as simple as both reins are stop, both legs are go. But when we're working on collection, we're adding other layers. We're asking the horse to soften, to continue movement. Not that much movement, a little bit less movement. That's good. We're finding a balance in that communication and that's where things tend to get a little bit messy for the rider who doesn't understand and for the horse who is learning.

Speaker1:
So even when I am training Gabby, I understand she's going to have particular questions as she's moving. And that's part of the process. This is why it's important for you to diagnose if your horse is confused or resistant, because it's going to change how you handle it when you are looking. At your horse. Always remember my four square model is always in play. I'll talk about it a little more, a little bit further on. But the four square model is the rider's mind is interpreting things. So when your horse has a particular response with their body, your mind is making up a story of how to respond. And what I want you to understand is that you need to decide. You have the power to decide if you're going to view this as confused or resistant. So when your horse is tossing its head or as the horse in this photo is doing, is pulling on the bit, you deciding whether or not to label it confused or whether or not to label it resistant. That will show up in your body. Because when I think a horse is confused, I have empathy. That doesn't mean I quit working on what I'm doing. It doesn't mean I stop. That would be an example of oversimplifying. I don't need to completely stop, but I do think, how can I help and make this more clear? Why is this horse in the photo where you can see there's only pressure on the left? Rein, Why is this horse confused? Why isn't this horse bending to the left and traveling to the left? Instead, the horse appears to be pulling on the rein,.

Speaker1:
The horse is either going to be labeled, confused or resistant, and when you go with resistant, you're going to be more likely to actually approach it from that simplified. And you won't look at how you played a part in creating this situation. So for you to understand how to relax your body and communicate clearly when you're riding, you're going to need to develop some skills. You're going to need to learn how to evaluate your rides from a neutral space. You're going to need to understand and the individual base cues that I outlined today and how they work in different combinations without making it over complicated, you'll know. Because if that horse that was just pulling on the left rein,, you should. If your system is working, the horse can ask that question. And if you know how to work through it and not overcomplicate it, then what'll happen is five minutes later you won't have that problem. So even though I'm a professional, I can get on your horse. When you show up here, your horse may still ask that question. It's not just about me relaxing my body and sitting correctly and applying the aid correctly.

Speaker1:
I can do all of that and the horse can still have the question How I answer the question. I will get feedback from the horse within five minutes as to whether or not I am helping to clarify or if I'm adding more confusion. So one of the other skills you'll need to develop is you'll need to recognize tension in your body and be able to identify the cause. If that was your horse pulling on the left rein and you start feeling a bubbling up of like tension in your body, is that because you feel unsafe, because you're about to end up in a road, or is that because you're thinking, I've tried this the last 30 rides and it's not getting any better, so you're getting frustrated. You need to understand it because that is where your tension is. Coloring the cues. The direct cue is the pulling on the left rein. The indirect cues are also including things like your tension or relaxation in your body. So for the majority of riders, when that horse is doing something over and over again, if you start having a building frustration that's going to color, it becomes a piece of your cue system. But the answer isn't just to take a deep breath and relax. You may need to take a deep breath and relax and figure out why that direct cue of pulling in the left rein is confusing to your horse.

Speaker1:
That's going to come back to choosing techniques that are appropriate for the current training level. A lot of times riders want to think that their horse should be more advanced, but you got to look at what the horse is telling you and see their question and answer it, and that's going to cycle back around largely to seeing your habits. A lot of times we've got that that horse pulling on that left rein. That can be a misunderstanding with the cue. And it can also be your horse reporting that you tend to do a certain set of things over and over again. And now the horse is like, Hey, this is what you've been telling me for the last ten rides. So you've got to start to see your emotional and physical habits and those are going to greatly increase your ability to communicate with your horse. When you understand the cue system, it's going to calm down your mind and body. It's why a professional or somebody with more experience can get on a horse. So if I get on a horse and this is happening, I'm not having an emotional response, but I'm having a response where I can stay calm and I can evaluate the horse from a more neutral space. And so a couple examples for you guys to lean into would be it's like driving a car when you're learning to train your horse and communicate more clearly. Do you remember you were tense when you were first learning? It's like driving a car.

Speaker1:
It took practice. It's like learning a language. Understanding simple words is good. I can have a conversation with you, with yes and no, but it's not going to have a lot of depth. But as we start adding more combinations, there's more room for conversation to develop, but there's also more room for confusion. I just want you to hang on to this idea. Simple changes can profoundly improve the connection you have with your horse, because as my last podcast said, a lot of times people are confused and they think it's a connection issue. And when I watch it, it's like you're confused about the words you're saying to your horse, and the horse is like, I don't understand French, so I think I'll go eat some grass. And you think it's a connection issue? They're not offended by you. They don't understand. I hope you found that segment useful. The best way for you to put this into practice, either while you're listening or after you're done is to think about situations where what I was teaching could apply to you. Make your brain do the extra step of actually putting it into a usable situation. That's how you're going to make it memorable for yourself. That's how you're going to remember it the next time you find yourself in a similar situation. Thanks for listening. And again, if you haven't signed up for my email list, head over to my website. I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy westfall.com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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