Episode 296: From Theory to Saddle: Building Your Equestrian Toolbox

Rough 296.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Rough 296.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
And the test of this is not whether or not you can put your hand down and ride for five minutes on the trail without picking up on the reins. That's not the test. The test is how the horse responds when you do pick up on the rein, even though it doesn't feel like, quote unquote fixing or changing something. The awareness of what is happening is a piece of that application. Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to help you understand podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the.

Speaker2:
Stacy Westfall podcast.

Speaker1:
You can probably tell.

Speaker2:
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:
The advantage of being in the office is that I can have notes in front of me, and I can have the topics pretty organized. The advantage of recording when I'm out on the trail is it's stream of consciousness, and it's beautiful out here. So let's go with the little stream of consciousness and see if I can tie together a few different theories and concepts that I've been thinking about. Because I'm out here trail riding, I'm always thinking about the aids that I'm using and what I'm doing and how that might interact or be an example of what I'm teaching on the podcast. And so the first thing that it got me thinking about was last week's podcast on allowing. And I mentioned that when a horse is becoming more and more advanced, one of the ways you could look at allowing would be that if we're looking at the rein, contact as the rein, contact, and again, it's in relationship to the legs, go back and listen to last week's podcast. The interesting thing about the Rein, contact is that as the rider allows different things, the horse has to ask questions. So if my hands move forward, the horse could be allowed to lower its head and neck, or allowed to move its body faster, or allowed to change its frame, which would be both changing the head and neck position and changing the length of stride. Stream of consciousness also involves cantering when the trail allows.

Speaker1:
So back to allowing. In last week's podcast, I talked about how the rider could allow the horse to do things. For example, when the rider moves their hands, it could allow the horse to stretch the neck, or it could allow the horse to change gaits go from like, say, a walk to a canter. There's going to be an allowance that would be happening, because the opposite of that would be if the rider was blocking. Now, what's interesting about this is that as I head out here on the trail ride today, I am on Willow and one of my default states with her is to put the reins kind of loose, and then set that rein, hand on either the saddle pad or the saddle horn, or somewhere stationary. And I've done this because years and years ago, I used to have very little awareness of where my hand was, and it would kind of randomly move. If I turned to look, then my hand's going to move an inch. And so instead of doing that, what became apparent to me as I became a more educated writer was that I was sending mixed signals. So my hand was moving all over the place, but maybe my body was still sending the horse forward down the trail. And the trail itself is drawing the horse forward down the trail. And so that combination a lot of times will dull the horse out. The horse will start to think, this isn't really communicating with me.

Speaker1:
I actually think of this frequently when I'm recording podcasts on Willow because as I'm going along, I can tell that when I first start speaking, if there's been a long time of silence, there's words or tones or phrases that she will listen for. And then there are other times that when I start recording a podcast, I can tell she just kind of tunes me out and tuning me out when I am talking and recording a podcast or having a conversation with another person makes a lot of sense. But tuning me out because I'm riding down the trail with a lack of awareness and moving my hand all over the place when I don't really mean anything, actually has more negative consequences in the future. Mostly for Willow, because if you think about it, if I'm the one that's responsible for staying consistent with my cues, with what I request and what I require and those kind of things, then I've also got to be mindful of where I could be sending conflicting signals. So although I am riding down the trail talking to you, Willow has been able to discern that when I'm talking to her, I really only have a few different phrases or voice cues or things that I do. So, for example, if I wanted to stop and I wanted to actually make that a voice cue that I would do even in the middle of speech like this, I'm going to test it out.

Speaker1:
Whoa. And you'll notice that not only did she stop, you can probably hear that the saddle stopped squeaking. But what I saw was I saw a hesitation, and I felt a hesitation in her because she was sort of listening to me go, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And then she did hear the massive difference in my tone and the application, but knowing her at home and knowing her and her response right now, that was a little bit sluggish because she was essentially, you know, having her own thoughts about wandering down the trail while Stacy records a podcast. I keep meeting people on the trail, and when I see them coming, it is a little bit awkward because, you know, I'm sitting here talking to myself. So I do stop the recording and then start up again. Uh, anyway, so back to what I was saying about Willow and the Voice, cuz, well, in a very similar way, the the rein, cues are something that I could dull her out to if I'm not paying attention. So for me, when I'm trail riding, my preferred place to put my hand is going to be in kind of a neutral position on purpose. But that's also because this is a more advanced horse, I promise you. My first trail rides on Ember will not involve my hand being set on the saddle horn while my reins are really loose, and this is one of the spots where I see riders desire a more advanced system of communication, without really knowing that what they're desiring is a more advanced system of communication.

Speaker1:
In a way, it would sound like putting your reins loose and setting them down would be a simple means of communication. And in a way, you could make that almost seem true. If you aim your horse down a path, something that looks like a deer trail or something, where there's not a lot of other options and that horse is likely to follow it. And in that moment, you can put your hand down and can feel like it's working like it would for an advanced horse. But the challenge becomes what is the horse's response when you retake the contact? What is the horse's response when you want to change speed, change direction? I do completely understand the desire to be able to lengthen the reins and not use them very much. One of the main things that this does for the rider, if we want to look at it in relationship to last week's podcast, is that if you loosen the reins, you no longer have to think about blocking or allowing. So in one vein of thinking, there is a simplicity because you're no longer having to think about whether your hand is allowing or whether your hand is blocking. Where the challenge shows up is when you need to communicate with your horse about changing direction, changing speed, or something that would require you to use the reins.

Speaker1:
So the challenge that riding on a really loose rein has is being able to communicate your wishes and desires to the horse. And the other challenge that really comes with riding on a loose rein is the actual transition from the loose rein to the contact. What I mean by that is that on a loose rein, you're not going to see the horses thought about whether they feel blocked or restricted or allowed. And you're not going to experience the practice of whether or not your hand has the feel that would block or allow. And so in a way, when you put the horse on the loose rein, you're no longer having the conversation. You're no longer really communicating in that way. And the test of this is not whether or not you can put your hand down and ride for five minutes on the trail without picking up on the reins. That's not the test. The test is how the horse responds when you do pick up on the rein. The area that I'm riding through right now is where a tornado went through two years ago, and so there is an amazing amount of damage that was done. And we're in the regrowth phase where there's a ton of underbrush because of all the trees and damage that was left behind.

Speaker1:
And so there are tons of rabbits out here this year. There might be more rabbits than squirrels, which is saying something. Anyway, I'm about to go down another rabbit trail in my thinking, and it is this. Right now, when you're listening to this podcast, you are acquiring information. You're acquiring new thoughts, new ideas. Like when I was talking last week about contact and giving and allowing, or this week when I'm bringing up the idea of the challenge of riding on a loose rein isn't the loose rein part, it's the retaking of the contact part. So when you're listening to something like a podcast, or you're watching a video that is you acquiring the information, but the information doesn't really become part of you until you begin to apply it. Acquisition. Acquiring information feels amazing. It's very easy to go down rabbit trails of learning, learning, learning, learning. But the true learning starts to happen when you apply it. One place where people tend to overlook what that means when I say apply it is to literally go ride the next time. And if you tend to ride on a loose rein, noticing your horse's response when you transition from a loose rein to contact to make a request that is part of the application, even though it doesn't feel like quote unquote fixing or changing something. The awareness of what is happening is a piece of that application you moved out of, just acquiring it into a version of application, even if that version is is the very beginning of it, which is like, well, what is currently happening.

Speaker1:
And the reason this is important is because when you begin applying something, when you go on your next ride and you notice you're on a loose rein and you pick up on the reins to ask your horse to turn or to slow down, and you notice your horse's response, and then you notice your response to the horse's response. That interaction actually shifts the way that you will next receive information. Every one of these moments where you acquire information and then you apply it in just a little bit of a way, just enough. It doesn't even matter if it worked or didn't work. If as soon as you apply it, you actually crack open another level of understanding so that you could go back and you could watch the same instructional video again, you could listen to the same podcast again and you will get another level of understanding out of it because of your application of the first level that you understood. Are you following me? Okay, this is another favorite part on the trail. I have a lot of favorite parts on this trail. This is the one where my website header has me riding willow through water. The water's really low right now so you can hear most of the rocks, but it's so beautiful.

Speaker1:
Consistently across the board, the people that I see make the fastest progress are doing this. They are acquiring information. They are applying it to the best of their ability. And then they are going back and they are studying it again. It's something that I notice with professionals also. So what happens when you become a professional is you tend to end up with friends that are professionals, and you tend to end up going to events or gatherings where there are lots of other professionals. And one of the things that shifts when you're a professional versus when you're first learning, or as you're moving up through the stages, is that when you are a professional, you have access to a lot of information that you have actually acquired and then applied and then touched. Now, let me start putting some numbers in this so that you could imagine it a little bit better. So imagine that you are newer to owning horses and you're out riding your horse. It might feel like you have about, I don't know, 5 to 10 tools in your toolbox. So you know that your legs can ask the horse to go, and you know that your reins can ask the horse to stop. And you also know that the reins can ask the horse to go left and go right. And you know a few more things than that. But let's just pretend you have a toolbox. And in that toolbox you have ten separate items.

Speaker1:
Now, when you walk into somebody's garage, if they're a professional, what you will probably notice is that their entire garage is full of tool boxes and each toolbox is maybe a specialty toolbox. And each toolbox has drawers or shelves, and each one of those contains potentially hundreds of different nuanced tools. And so inside of that one garage and inside of that one, let's say mechanics skill set is the ability to use each and every one of these tools. They don't necessarily need to use all of those tools, and they're for sure going to have a top ten that they could go to, but they're also probably going to have a top 50 and a top 100, where when you turn around and look at your newbie toolbox, you might only have ten tools in total. And one of the reasons I think that this is an interesting way to think about it, is that it makes sense that you could acquire a lot of knowledge. It would be like going around and buying a lot of tools. But if you don't know how to use the tools, if you've never really applied them, if you haven't been in a situation where you took a class or used them or studied something and even built a tiny little home project, if you haven't done that, there's a very good chance you have a lot of unopened boxes on the shelf and that shelf.

Speaker1:
When you're listening to podcasts or you are watching videos, that shelf is your mind, and it can feel like you have a lot of information. But until you actually start applying it a little bit and understanding how each one of those little nuance things would show up and be used, it's going to remain a little bit of a mystery. It's going to remain sealed in its little box the way that you bought it off from the shelf, which takes me to the last piece of this, which is the true understanding of using each one of these tools. So when I think about that, when I'm riding the horse and I think about riding willow right now, and I think about the acquiring information that I've done and the acquiring information that she has done, and then the application and the understanding of each of these different, let's just say the aids. So the reins, the legs, my seat, my voice. When I think about that, I think about the number of repetitions that went in to us moving from the acquisition, the idea to the application, and then into the soaking in or the understanding of it. And the soaking in and the understanding of it came from repeated application from repeatedly going back. So, for example, in last week's podcast, I talked about an allowing hand or allowing the horse to do things in different situations. There is information out there that can explain to you how to take a horse that is being reactive, and teach that horse to not be as reactive.

Speaker1:
Take that hotter or more reactive horse, and give it another level of understanding to where it becomes a more balanced horse. A less reactive horse. A horse that responds rather than reacting. And through all of the repeated applications, that's how we start to get to the point where the information soaks in and as it soaks in, that's how you get to the part where you have a horse, where you can experience some really cool things, like riding willow out here on the trail and being able to have her on the loose rein and being able to trust that her first response when I pick up is a desirable response. Meaning she's not tossing her head, she's not pulling on the reins. She's not nervous about the rein contact. She takes the contact as information and she doesn't react to my hand movement. Growing up, I rode horses that did not have a desirable response, and it sure felt like riding on a loose rein, was the answer. But what happened was that consistently, the riding on the loose rein did appear to work until you had to make contact to do something. And then a lot of times the horse's first response was to toss the head or to pull the reins through your hands, or to resist. I did a lot of cantering on this trail ride, so as I'm sitting here editing it, I'm taking most of it out.

Speaker1:
But this one section I thought I had hit pause, so I didn't know I was still recording, and for some reason I find it really funny that you can hear me counting when I was practicing my lead changes. And then I think it's funny what I say to Willow when we go over the mud. So I'm going to cut this out and put it at the end of the podcast after I sign off. If you want to hear what I say when I don't know I'm being recorded, enjoy at the end of the podcast. Okay, I have to admit that after that gallop, I, uh, lost my train of thought. So let's go back to the idea that there is acquiring information. There is applying information, and then there is letting that information soak in. And the people that I see make the fastest progress are the people that are willing to do all three of those areas they're willing to acquire, and then they're willing to apply it, and that application is going to look different your first time through with the information than it is on your 50th time through with the information, because every time you go through the information, it's going to be a little bit deeper understanding on your part. You're going to see more of the pieces and you're going to understand more of the nuances.

Speaker1:
If we go back to the toolbox analogy, you're going to think, oh, that's right, I forgot about that tool over there in the red toolbox in the fifth drawer down on the left hand side. Let me give that one a try, because I do remember that that was a piece of it, but I just didn't know how to use it yet. But now it just occurred to me this would be a great place to use that information. And one last thing. The people that I see make the fastest progress, allow themselves the time to let it soak in. They have some sort of way that they repeatedly exposed themselves to new information, new teaching, and then they have time for soaking it in and applying it. Then they go back for another round of information, help with the application and the time to let it soak in. Think of it like this. If you had a horse and you were like, okay, I really want this horse to learn some stuff, I'm going to send it to a trainer for four days. There's a trainer right over there. They'll take the horse for four days, and I'm going to go see how much information they can get my horse to retain in four days. Now, I'll tell you, there are really skilled people that can get a horse to do a lot of stuff in four days. But the question I have for you is, do you believe that in four days it would have soaked in to the horse? So when you look at yourself, I want you to think about the idea that you can receive a lot of information in a short amount of time.

Speaker1:
You can apply the information while you are receiving it, and you can begin to see those changes almost immediately. But that soaking in there is a reality to that. So that same horse, that same trainer, and four weeks instead of four days makes a huge difference, even if they are given the limitations, especially if they are given the limitations to only cover the same amount of information that they were going to in the four days, within the four weeks. Do you hear that? Take what you could legitimately do in four days, and then practice that over the four week period, and now we actually get some soaking in that can happen. And this is true whether we're talking about the horse or whether we're talking about you. Okay, one last thing. While we've still got the toolbox analogy going, it's fascinating because it's easy to think that when you were first learning things with the horse, when you only had ten tools in your toolbox, it's very easy to think, won't that be amazing? When I have 100 tools, 200 tools, 600 tools, 800 tools in my toolbox. And it is it's amazing to acquire all of those tools.

Speaker1:
But the one thing that you've got to remember is that all of those tools still end up being segmented into sections, and they really end up being broken into different utilities, different things that they do. So you might have a lot of nuances inside of a ratchet set, but it's still a ratchet set with a specific thing that it's going to do. A shovel is still really valuable for what a shovel does. Let me try to clarify this by breaking it into three categories. It's easy in the beginning when you have ten tools to think that life will be so much different when you have a thousand tools, and there is some truth to that, you have a lot more to choose from. It's also normal when you're in the middle, and you now have 200 tools, and you're a little bit confused about which tool you might want to use on that project, because you actually have a fair number that you could choose from. So there's actually almost a confusion state that can come as you acquire those tools, but you haven't figured out the nuances of the application. But let me tell you the rest of the story. When you get to the point where you have a thousand tools in your toolbox, it's super cool. But you'll also notice when you have a thousand tools, that there'll be some over in the corner that you haven't dusted off and used for a while.

Speaker1:
There might be cobwebs over there. So if you think about a well-organized garage, the tools might be in different categories. So there might be a gardening section, and there might be a section for painting and home improvement that involves painting. And you might have another section that involves more car maintenance. So even inside of having a lot of tools, you're going to find that the tools are still going to break into categories. And what you might just find at the end of the day is that it's going to come back to something real close to that original ten tools that you had, but now you just have tool boxes that fit into each of those categories. So if you're out there and you're acquiring information but not applying it, please apply it just a little bit of something. The next time that you go out and ride your horse, and if it feels like you've collected a lot of tools and you kind of thought you knew how to use them at one point, but you're a little bit confused because you have a few hundred. Just know that's a normal state. And if you have hundreds and hundreds, if you're pushing on a thousand different tools in your toolbox, know this there's a reason why professionals ride with other professionals, hang out with other professionals, and go to events where other professionals are. Because a lot of times, being around someone else and seeing them pull out a tool and use it reminds.

Speaker3:
You.

Speaker1:
That you have that same tool available to you. That's what I have for you this week in my stream of consciousness teaching. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you again in the next episode. As promised, here is the cantering clip where I thought I had paused the recording, but turns out I didn't and it's slightly entertaining to hear me talking to Willow.

Since this Okay, here we go. One two. Switch one two switch one. To switch to switch to switch to switch to switch. One two. Switch. There we go. That was good I liked it. Ah, mud.

Speaker1:
And this is where I looked down to hit record again and realized it had been recording the whole time. The sound of a Canter to collected Canter to walk.

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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