Kyras_Mom wrote:Chisamba, I guess I am not sure what you mean by treading water?? What has been working fairly well is to do some counter bending for 2-3 strides then allowing the reins ‘forward’ (not dropping the reins at all just a forward suggestion with my hands or going to neutral if you like). If she softens and comes over the topline we proceed. If she braces again, I rinse and repeat. I do a demi arrete if she starts bearing down on the bridle but mostly lately she is stuck popping out her lower neck, not really heavy but most definitely not ‘through’ or even in the contact.
Susan
Whatever you did that caused the stiffening, repeat identically gently lifting the bit til the horse can no longer use the bar of its mouth to hold and softens. For example. Do not change bend, do not allow the horse th change posture. Whatever posture you were at, stay there and make to only request be that she chew softly before anything is allowed to change.
Most of us change something to achieve a desired result. Add leg, go sideways, change bend, add impulsion. Horses get very good at knowing this so if you ask then to do something they do not like, or do not understand, they grab the bit because they have trained us to change something rather then wait to get the correct response before offering the reward of correct contact.
I tell my good riders to learn to
a) immediately identify the moment the undesirable change occurred.
B) tread water. Ie maintain the exact same speed rhythm, posture and position.
C) change only one thing be very consistent and very quick to reward when the horse understands and accepts whatever caused the problem.
I'll describe an example. My friend bought a horse I had trained. All of a sudden he had no left lead. When she got the left lead he would rush and not collect or break. So she trailered in for a lesson. I watched her warm up and noticed that whenever she put her leg on he would throw his head up, she would squeeze the bit. He would tuck behind the vertical and rush. So to her intense frustration we didn't even get to the canter. Every time he threw his head up I would ask her to put her leg on, not let him rush and not let him tuck. The key was to keep his neck in the exact posture it had been before the leg was added, and repeat. ( tred water) my goodness it too about 30 minutes of my patiently repeating. After about 30 boring minutes of insisting she remind him no tucking. He quit tossing his head and when I asked her to canter left, she didn't even remember it was his *bad side.
So the problem was not really the canter, it was the small evasion that had crept in to every time she applied leg.
You just have to be a very observant rider to do this. Try to notice the moment something goes less well, identify the cause and tread water til you have created an improved response.
For example with a rider. Every time the rider tries to half pass she curves her spine. I do not allow her to even attempt the half pass. I make her tread water and T her body. Over and over until she is capable of applying the aid without arching. She gets so mad at me then frustrated at herself and by goodness she goes away and rides by herself and turns into a pretzel and fails to ride a good half pass. Then one day in a lesson she finally rewarded herself with the correctness and suddenly understood the correct feeling and started to apply the technique on herself. She is still my only rider who cannot do the barrel challenge but she had finally understood that the had never progressed past second level because of her lean and arc and is applying herself to improve it every time she rides instead of expecting me to magically fix her horse so she can ride it in her comfort level.
Horses, we humans, we often do not even realize the self defeating things we do when attempting to reach a goal. My cursed dropped shoulder in pirouette is mine.
Video is so educational.