The Art of Natural Dressage

lovely videos!!!

Would be great to meet up, since I now moved to Vienna

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Smile, and the world will smile with you.

Colinde~,

I think your idea of a section or thread on body posture, seat, etc. is a great one.

Vids and pics of course, but also exploration by members of these challenges.

Our bodies are our tools to communicate to the horse, and with the horse. Makes perfect sense to study it closely.

Donald, Altea, and Bonnie Cupcake

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Love is Trust, trust is All
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So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.

We already have a body language sticky which has been rather empty so far. Feel free to use it.

Oh, I almost missed that comment! Hi Angel! Do you have your horse here near Vienna as well?

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

no unfortunatel I dont :(((( I had my rent horse back in Tallinn but since 1.5 years we r no longer together :( maybe later I find a horse somewhere hear as well =)

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Smile, and the world will smile with you.

Yesterday we tried again to get the Compliment working. My goal was to show Mucki how to do it without interfering too much, so he can figure out the correct movement. Well, he got it a couple of times right, but I have to show him how to place his front foot more forward, so he is more comfortably down there.
I have two different approaches on video. In the first one I helped him more, which resulted in me kind of dropping his foot :(. Not very nice of me... His right front foot was positioned too much backwards, so he knelt down - OK!? .
In the second one he makes the dropping on his own, which worked a lot better. Only the front font has to start in a more forward position again.

Trying to figure out the bow

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Volker, rather than worry about moving the front foot more forward, you can easily teach/reward Mucki for stepping the hind legs back. When the horse needs to lower the front end, it is actually quite natural for them to step the hind legs back to maintain their balance. It is less natural for them to think of putting the front legs more forward (although it can be done is easy for some horses).

When you pick up the front leg, just hold it and stretch the front leg slightly back. You can put your free hand on the front of the knee while the other hand holds the lower leg in the horizontal position. Then simply move the leg slightly back toward the hind legs. At first, Mucki might only lean back a little...maybe only a very slight lean. Mark that lean with "good" or a click or whatever you use to tell Mucki he is correct. Then let the leg down to a standing position. Repeat this movement without actually asking for the full bow. The focus is on the leaning back only. Within a trial or two, you will see that Mucki will then guess to step one hind leg back slightly. Reward THAT. In no time at all, because Mucki is so clever, he will begin to offer stepping both hind feet back while you help him hold the foreleg up, which will leave the other foreleg planted in place and will ultimately be stretched out in front of him as you reintroduce the actual bow portion of the behavior.

Does that make sense? I can try to explain it a different way if it's at all unclear?

When I ask Tam to bow, this is the order he approaches it.

1) He lowers his head

2) He slightly unweights the near foreleg (at this point he usually keeps that toe on the ground and just lifts the heel)

3) He steps his hind feet back

4) He then fully lifts the near foreleg and holds it up

5) He leans back and down to the bow

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Thank you, Karen! That is wonderful feedback!

I think he did put back his hindlegs before when we were just doing the bow between both front legs. Now I guess I´m progressing too hastily, too ambitiously. I will step back a bit and teach him the steps more clearly - like you described. That sounds very good to me.
I was not sure if holding his leg with my hand is actually helping him, or keeping him from figuring out the movement by himself...

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

It is good to hold the leg. In time, you simply hold it more lightly, or less, etc until he's confident to hold him himself. There is an interim step if needed, where you hold the leg with your foot.

On this video, at 1:30 you can see where I use my foot for a little support (very little). In this video, he actually is not stepping back the hind legs much. He steps back more now than he did then, and he no longer needs my foot for support unless he chooses not to pick the foot up very much at all and catches his toe in the soft arena dirt. I then use my foot to help him lift the foot a little higher.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2r6U_3wDGI

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Oh, thanks for reminding me of that video again - I like it so much! I´ve watched it when I first came here, I remember. It´s funny how I can now actually use the information in there . The last time, I was just gaping at it...

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

In those older videos, I was just beginning to figure out body language. I can look at them now and see what was annoying to Tam...LOL. arms flailing in front of his face and such. I blocked him a lot then!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Ah, you shouldn´t have said that! That´s just fuel for my petition for a new video of Karen

But I think I can see what you mean. I do a lot with my arms now and I can imagine that one day I will look back and think that I was talking to Mucki like a street preacher. But right now that´s all I have - and it could be worse .

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

We did some fine tuning on the bow exercise. He is still very excited about it, as it´s still a quite new exercise, but I think we are getting better. Sometimes he spreads his legs too much as you can see in the beginning of the video, sometimes he lands in a way that makes him get into a kneeling position. Probably also because it doesn´t require as much stretching as bowing
But all in all the bow looks much better now. I find the video very interesting, as I can study his posture and see what kind of muscles he is using. At 00:47 for example one can see his belly muscles contracting and the lumbar section of his spine lifting. I take that as good signs, that Mucki is doing that exercise to his benefit, but I´d really appreciate your combined evaluation, criticism and tips for improvement .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1mmIFGKmI

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Oh again all those ideas to work on :o

I'll just have to postpone my homework and work with Fina first now

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kirsten
time is what you make of it

Great videos. Mucki is wonderful to watch. It is very inspirational.

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Jessie and Little Billy