The Art of Natural Dressage

The Bow on one knee



Hi,

I read the bow explanation, but what i'm missing is(because i'm all new to this) when and how do you teach your horse to place a frontleg under the body(i don't know how to say it but i hope you understand)?
Thank you

Kind regards,
Jasmijn

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A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.

i do not realy know how you train it. But i had it yesterday by accident.
It was a windy day and there was a white sack moving around the farm. My horse was spooky, so i decided to go after the sack and no riding.
I know it would take a lot of time, but i saw a great opportunity.
So i started, i we passed the sack, i was between the horse and the sack, so no problem. I go every time that we passed the sack a bit more to the sack. We were very close, suddely the wind came in the sack and it moves...woeshh you hear..my horse ran away..#$* he turned his neck and i could not hold him..so he was realy gone...i go and get him and try it again...we reach the sack. I let see him that it was no problem, i can stand on it, pick it up, and lay down again. He looks interested, but scarry..i ask him to go with his nose to the sack. (he know this game) and yes a quick touch and a YES treed and move on.
When we got away from the sack the wind was there again. He run away for the second time and did the same with his neck..jee..too late again
So he run away..
At the end of the parking place there is a storage of hay, it is covered by plastic. One of those plastics was laying on the ground, so i saw a new project..
I go with my horse to the plastics and i walked on it. Just a few steps. I sit down and ask my horse to come to me with his nose, so i new he had to do a little step forward to reach me, but he was scared and did not move.
But his nose came very slowly towards me...
little by little more, suddenly he was totaly steched out..i did not know what i saw..i had try it several times in the arena, but nothing works. But now he did it..because he does not want to stand on the plastic...but the treed he likes very much... So i give him a yes and a treed of course.
Stand up and walked to him. And do it again..and yes he did it again...
It was not the point that i wanna reach at that time but i was happy that i had found something to let him do this kind of movements.

Then i go stand next to him and join him together to the plastic and touch it with his nose..so he did finaly..so i had two things at the same time that day. Although it was not planned at all.
But i was happy and he too after all.

I think it is not the correct way...but it worked for me yesterday. Next time i will try it again in the arena without the plastic

Jasminum,

I have approached this in two ways.

First with Cisco, it was a matter of getting him to reach between his front legs for a cookie, and gradually asking him to reach farther and farther until he had to move one leg out of the way. He did this by lifting that leg (which happened to be the one nearest to me). Then he could reach even farther with the leg lifted and over time, I would ask him to reach farther and farther by holding the treat farther from his nose and more underneath him. Finally, one day, he reached far enough that his knee touched the ground.

This is a pretty bow, but the head ends up on the ground also. Cisco's forehead touches the ground when he bows.

With Tamarack, I hope to use the bow to mount him (when the ground is soft enough to ask him to go down on one knee), so I wanted his head to be more up and his weigh more back on his haunches when he bows. So with him, I would ask him first to lift his leg and be able to hold it up mostly on his own. I will keep my hand on his leg to help him. Then he also needs to learn to rock his weight backward. This can be done by gently pulling back and down on the cordeo and rewarding the horse for leaning back. This can take a long time.

When the horse understands that he can laen back and down, then you can ask for the front leg to be lifted, and help support it, and then while the foot is in the air, ask for back and down with the cordeo.

It took time for Tamarack to put it all together, but he finally did. It took even longer for him to be able to do it without me holding his leg for him, but he's finally got that too!

This is only one a couple of ways to teach it.

You can also teach a front crunch first, then teach them, basically, a front crunch with one front leg held up under them (with your help initially), and a front crunch becomes a bow...but be careful to try and use different cues for the front crunch and the bow, or you may lose your front crunch in the process.

thank you karen for the good explanation .
I haven't taught the front crunch yet.
Can you also use a rope instead of a cordeo?
Think i'll try it like you have taught it to tamarack.

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A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.

The way I did it was to hold her leg and rock it back, like Karen stated. Eventually, she put her leg on the ground. Each little step, I would give her a treat. When she was super close to putting her leg on the ground, that's when I started using the word "bow" along with a treat.

This does take time, patience, consistence and knowing when to ask for more.

We're very close to actually having the bow on cue. She'll just lift her leg and rock back, but she doesn't have it on the ground yet, I still have to help her so she can have her treat. But we're close. Her left side, I'm still having to hold her leg up and I'm still waiting for it to touch the ground. We're close to having that.

I've been working on this for 2 months. I don't ask of this everyday or even every week. It's only when it feels right to me.

April

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Horse's idea becomes your Idea...

April

I'm new to all of this. I come from the parelli program. I only ever go up to phase two if that. My horse and I have an amazing relatioship we can play for hours and at the end of it all he still wants to be with me but I can't get him to reach through the legs to get a cookie? I've tried showing him I have a treat using a halter to lightly guide his head I have considered getting under him but that is dangerous maybe I coud teach him to put his nose on a rubber spot and he will cookie then take to spot away when he understands? Help is really apreitiated.

Thanks
Mare and Bear

The answer, of course, is increments.

Start with the smallest increment possible. Take your time, and click and treat for each increment of lower height.

It he stops following the target (I presume you know, from what you've said above, you know about targetting) back up an increment or two, and start again.

Hi, and Welcome.

Donald Redux

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

There are several components to the bow that can all be trained seperately.

Your horse has to understand to bring the head down, but not necessarily between his knees for a one knee bow. Just lowering it is fine. It's good that he's reaching a bit between the legs, but he hasn't figured out how to make the rest of his body help him. So you have to show him all the little parts, then give him the guidance and the time to put it together.

I will try to think of all the parts to this type of bow.

1) head down (or at least lowered)

2) lift the front leg on your side of the horse (If you are on his left, then you choose the front left leg) with head down.

3) lean back slightly with one leg lifted and head down. (holding the leg -one hand under the hoof and one hand in front of the knee - and rocking the leg gently back helps - release and reward for even the slightest shift back at first until the horse feels confident doing this). Try not to drop the leg unexpectedly. Rock back and then forward again with the horse and let the leg back down gently.

4) move the back feet farther back (not every horse will have to do this) with all of the above in place, head down, leg lifted and rocking back.

5) lower the knee back and down - to the ground. This will come as the horse is more and more confident in leaning back on three legs.

Again, the horse will find his own head height. Some need it very low, others don't. It depends on thier balance. Some need to move the hind feet further back, others don't.

So you start with one aspect and then add in each element, or you can train all the parts very separately, then gradually being them all together. There is no perfect way that will work for all horse/person combinations. As you try this and that, your horse will show you how he wants to do it. Never rock the leg back farther than the horse is willing. Always be gentle and work for one more centimeter or an inch at a time. Allow the process to take as long as it takes. It could be a few sessions for some - months for others. Don't get in a hurry!

Hope this helps!

Great answer, Karen!

Another thing that I would add, is don't use the halter to guide the head down! It's quite risky and you want your horse to discover her own movements.

I would also not use food to lure her down for the same reason: you want her to be conscious of the movement and of the moment that she gets rewarded, and not just blindly follow a carrot.

If I were you, I would first teach your horse a rewardsignal (like in clickertraining and Bridge&Target or SATs), then teach him to target (touch an object on your cue) and then slowly move that target lower to the ground untill it is on the ground, and then slowly, over several training session, drag it backwards between her frontlegs in order to ask her head to follow.

It's good to remember that the bow isn't just a trick, it's an exercise that is important for the fysical wellbeing of your horse, and how you teach your horse this exercise, teaches your horse a lot about how you see her. If you would use pressure to get her to move down, or would prevent her from putting the head somewhere else, she will still do the exercise but will also know that she didn't learn it on her own because her real responses were overruled with a restraint. That's how the bow usually is trained in tricktraining, but that has a different, more result oriented goal and philosophy than AND, which always focuses on the relationship in every part of the learning curve of an exercise.

So just take your time, and let Bear explore the movement on his own!

We have a little mistake that sneaked into our bow.

At first Twilight did it perfectly: I touch his belly with a wip and then he kneels down on one leg.

But now he just goes straight down. So he bends his front leg, which is quite dangerous and not good for his joints, because sometimes his hoof is completely twisted.

So I have decided to teach him first to spread his legs : move frontlegs more forwards and afterwards ask for the bow so there is more space between the front and hindlegs.

And this is where I fail. I cannot seem to make him clear that he should not move his hindfeet, but only move each frontfoot a little bit more forward.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean...
Can you explain it in another way? Which leg is doing what, and in which frontleg is the problem, the outstretched on or the kneeling one?
Thanks!

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean...
Can you explain it in another way? Which leg is doing what, and in which frontleg is the problem, the outstretched on or the kneeling one?
Thanks![/quote]

Sorry, I'll try to explain it better.

Lets say I would like him to kneel on his left knee. So the right leg must be stretched out in front of him.

He used to do it perfectly, but know he doesn't place his knee enough backwards and he doesn't shift his weight enough backwards. So he goes straight down and bend his right leg, instead of stretching it. The left knee is on the ground but almost next to his right leg. And he bends the right leg that far that sometimes his hoof cannot be on the ground anymore, just the tip of it, so there's a lot of pressure on the joints (kroongewricht, kogelgewricht). And when he pushes himself up, all the weight comes on the point and I mean really the tip of the hoof. Soooo bad for his joints!!!!

Hope I explained it better this time

Now I understand!

You can try various things - one of them indeed is to ask him to stretch out first (for example through the bow with two legs stretched, or the back crunch) and then ask him to kneel on one knee. You can also use a target to direct his nose further back when asking for the kneeling on on knee, instead of straight down. You can also use this target backwards motion when he is already sitting on that one knee, in order to move the body further back which will stretch the straight leg more.

And if he isn't doing this for months, I wouldn't really worry about it, because it just sounds like your horse is trying to figure out how to bow on two knees.

I tried to make a picture of his wrong bow.

But this time I had to help him a little bit :



On this one you see it very well :


Kneeling to eat some grass:

I would try really stretching his legs BEFORE asking for the bow.

Maybe there is something about hte stretch that bothers him- may mare had this same tendecy with her right leg- that leg has some scar tissue and wasn't as flexible as the left. Once she did it more often she figured out to keep it stright on her own.

Maybe it is a flexibility thing??? Oh,well- if he is doing it on his own it can't hurt too much! Although I do understand your concern.

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Learning to put the relationship first.

hi there i am going through this at the moment, because flossy, my little mini, accidentally offered this while playing. she stubled over my legs and did a bow. so i played with it. i started slowly and used the treat to encourage her to stretch. she is such a twisty little thing, but she found that her leg got in the way, and she would nearly do a summasult!!! so while she held t and tried to put it somewhere i put my hand under it and she rocked back perfectly, and down into bow. i have seen this done by pulling the horse down with ropes and things and i dont really like this, but i felt ok with just supporting her leg. what are the thoughts here? i am loading a you tube to put on here but i will take all night i think!!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!

i am wondering what techniques people have used in this to encourage them to do it by them selves? to maintain the stretch? and to gain a good head position? i would love some advice, as i am just playing with things that flossy offers, and this was just one that took me un prepared.

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

Direction and duration are the goals. Further down, and for a longer time. Increase the length of time you wait to click. For some it will have to be very small increments of time, for others they get it quickly. "The treat comes when I go further and hold longer." This should be their thinking.

Eventually just holding the cue (that is either having a small sound you make repeatedly, or holding the visual cue longer) until you say stop is enough, then click and treat. But you can't start there. You must start at the more immediate cue, click, treat duration.

Donald

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

hi there thanks Donald.

i think that i am going to have to start using the clicker. it sounds so much easier than the way i am doing it. i am so unco-ordinated though maby my saying "goooooooood" is like a verbal click? do you think that it can work the same? i am about to go to bed, and i cant wait, because sitting here and reading answers like this makes me so excited for tomoro to come. i am just wishing my every second could be out there with the horses. i dont think that i even need to come in at all.

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

Expand on the concept of "gooooooood."

If from the moment you give the cue to the execution of the desired behavior, you are making an encouraging sound (I make a soft elongated tsk tsk tsk sound) for the duration you are saying "good you are doing what I am asking good good good good ... NOW!" The "now" being the "click," of course.

Humans speak horse poorly.

This it's our responsibility to teach a language to the horse. And to ourselves. In other words, we open a dialectic language with our horses. Body, face expression, posture, tone, movement, and specific symbolic symbols we think of as "words," but a horse hears as "a sound that is followed by something."

While our means of communication (all those I list in the sentence above, and more) they need to be delivered in a cohesive simple way with, hopefully, a joyful and pleasant experience each time for the horse.

If the horse does not do what we wish there can be only two reasons: he does not want to at the moment for any number of reasons we may not know and do not really need to know to be supportive, gentle, and tolerant of her needs and wants; or because the horse does not understand our request.

If a human friend says, "I don't want to," or "I do not understand, please clarify," if we want to keep that friend do we not comply?

Put another way, in the first instance where my friend or horse might not want to do what I ask consider this: I want my friend, and tell them I want them, to come over and watch my home movies and they appear reluctant, I know that if I also mention (I know what my friend likes) that I'm serving pizza and beer I have a far better chance of the friend doing as I ask.

If, on the other hand, they say, "what's a home movie?" (I have some ignorant friends who I love dearly ) I need only explain and clarify AND MENTION THE BEER AND PIZZA.

This is what we do when we go out in the pasture, thinking toward the future, and give our horse lots of scritches, and nice little food treats, and then walk away to return another day. We introduce them to the idea that we are their "beer and pizza guy."

Bring that into the training regimen when teaching a new behavior and we are cinch to get through to the horse.

When you lower your head, curl your chin in, and lower yourself on one bended knee, I AM THE PIZZA AND BEER GUY.

The "click" is now I tell you that you did it, and here's the beer and pizza.
The sound you make (and it can be a nonverbal signal you can teach the horse too) that tells them they are moving toward what you are asking is extremely important in training.

Many of us do it often without knowing we do it. Remember, the horse reads us like a book. If, after you give a cue, you have a tendency to lean forward as the horse moves toward the behavior, you are doing teh same thing. Being deliberate about it and knowing you are doing it is the trick, if there is any trick to it.



Altea is slow lifting one of her hooves for me. If I give the cue, "right front," and start tsking, she get's it. If I forget the tsking she sometimes will simply lift the last foot I asked for, that is NOT the one I'm now asking for. We think it's confusion, but in fact it is very logical from the horse's point of view.

Last time around, when she heard the tsking sound, and the final click, she got a treat. Besides, right front and left front don't sound all that different to the horse, and "a hoof is a hoof is a hoof, now gimme my treat."

Donald

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

thankyou Donald this is very helpful to read over and think about., it is great to hear other peoples experiences. and sometimes it is hearing things that you have already heard, but in a different way that seems to clarify it a lot, thankyou

here is the video of Flossy and i. i am not forcing her or pulling her back, but she rests her leg on my hand while she takes it back. it seems to make her more sure of wht to do. otherwise she nearly falls over.

VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AHHOBGbLHI

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just keep swimming, quote from nemo!:)
love jessy

i have just started teaching bob this ... i have been using a carrot under his chest and when he gets to the carrott i say "bow" and he is getting it .

Interesting to read all these insightful posts
I have been slowly teaching Charlie this , I ask for him to hold his leg up . But I keep a hand there and hold it , just so he doesn't have to think about it at first . Then I ask him to bend around the side that I am on ( not though his front legs ) . He is now nearly getting his knee on the floor , but at the last moment he thinks he is going to lose his balance and he takes his leg back and goes back to standing normally . I know that increasing his confidence with increments will be the answer , but I cant blame him for thinking about balance . When we bend around we end up very close to his him legs , I don't really think that is right . I have been wondering whether our peculiar way of bowing is good and whether should we continue with our ( right now ) rather wonky bow training ? Our will we end up falling over .....
Many thanks

Was there a particular reason why you progressed that way?
It might feel like a quick and easy way at first, but in my opinion there is a significant drawback to bringing the head to much to the side of the bended leg: the horse loses balance and might even become afraid of the exercise.
It does work and some horses seem to be ok with that, but I think it basically means bringing the horse out of balance up to a point where they cannot control the movement anymore by themselves. That can bring either physical harm if the horse is not flexible enough, or a loss of trust in the trainer.

What I do is I try to keep the horses head as straight as possible, if not even bent to the other side. I know it's hard, especially if the horse is trying to mug for food. A target might be helpful with that...
Then I try to shape the movement so that either the horse is slowly lowering himself to the ground (again, a target can help), or I lightly hold the bended leg and accompany the horse down. I always reward generously for every little approximation towards the final goal.
That way, the horse can choose how far he wants to go this time and I can see if there are any physical (or mental) obstructions on the way down.

For the beginning it may also help if you have someone else to reward the horse from the other side

BTW: In my picture thread, you can find a series of me and a very young Mucki , doing our first successful bows. The sixth from the top shows the feeding position I use to keep the head straight forward and up.

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Interesting Volker , thank you .

We didn't really chose to go to the side of his leg , for some reason it just happened , like most of our '' tricks '' I end up thinking about them long after we have started learning them. Because we never think about tricks , we just do something that takes our fancy , without thinking about it Silly me , I must must must remember to read the sticky before doing something stupid
Going sideways must have seemed the most natural to Charlie , otherwise I am not quite sure how we got to this point ( I don't really remember )

So , How did you explain to Mucki to slowly drop down into the bow ? How were you using the target ??
Sorry for being thick I must be having one of those silly days ......

Oh no, don't stop experimenting! That's so important . It's the way that I found out most about how Mucki thinks and learns and moves. You can always change and refine afterwards.
I know that's rather contrary the what you can hear about horse training (you have to be strict and have an exact plan before going to the horse and so on...), but I think it keeps the whole communication authentic and alive.

First of all, I take it slow . What I mean by that is that I try to really reward the process, not the whole thing. Every little step of the way is important to me. That way, the horse is much more conscious about how to get there and I can all the time shape the process, like if I see for example the head is coming too much to my side.

I have to say though, that Mucki is a charm to work with on such things like the bow, because he has natural talent for them and he is very considerate and controlled about it. With Lily it took much longer, but she does it very nicely now. For her, the physical challenges were much more prevalent.

I have not used a target for both. As you can see, I did the initial stage by holding the leg and also moving it back lightly. One could use a target stick to teach the horse first to touch it with the back of the cannon bone. Then move the target upwards to get the bended leg - then backwards for the weight shift - then down for the bow. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

BTW I always accomanied all my other cues with a mimicry cue - means I did a bow by myself as well, as you can see in my pictures. Now, that is the cue for the bow with Mucki.

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

I agree , with you spontaneous experimenting is fun ( actually all Charlie and I do ) but it does lead to some mistakes , like this one .
What you describe , holding Mucki's leg and slowly guiding it back , rewarding every lean towards that direction . Produces some sort of school halt from Charlie , who understands leaning back very well . But we need to figure out how to go shift weight backwards and downwards , small small small steps are always the answer , but explaining leaning downwards will be tricky ( without leaning downwards to the side )
If you are interested see in the last page of my diary , there is a picture of our best ( so far ) attempt .
Thank you for bearing with me

Try to park out with the front legs first.
I use to make the horses do one step forward with the front legs first, starting with the leg on the other side of me. The hindlegs should stay where the were. Then, when the closer front leg lifts from the ground, I interrupt the movement (by a reward for example, or cueing for the bow) and guide the lifted leg backwards.
When the horse has one leg lifted, it won't step back and so the downward movement comes logical, the further backward it gets.
I found that working on hindleg awareness like school halt or backing up at the same time as the bow is not beneficial in the first phase. Better when the horse focuses on the front legs - the loading of the hindlegs comes all by itself.

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Thank you Volker
After what you wrote , I continued thinking about it and we discovered how to lean downwards as well as backwards .
I wrote more about it in my diary
But It seems that this is Charlie's forte as well
again thank you Volker , what you wrote made me see what we were striving for

Hi all - quick (ish) question on the bow...

In short - how do you connect the parts of the bow to make a complete movement?

My little horse happily and enthusiastically holds his leg up on cue, and will keep it up until i remove the cue - unless i ask for him to lower his head. He will lay his head entirely on the floor - but can only mange this if i hold his leg up. He will happily lay his head on the ground through two outstretched front legs, but this isnt what i'm trying to achieve.

I need to connect the bent up leg and the head lowering (which we do through targeting).. He just isnt making the connection - which clearly means i'm not doing something because he's about as willing as they come.

Also what is the end cue that everyone uses for this - and how do you differentiate between other similar movements like bow with legs out in front, going down on both knees, lay down etc.. Is there a list of cues that are standard or is it entirely up to horse/handler?

Thanks in advance!

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The exact steps of the dance have no importance - it is the joy in dancing that i strive for.

You may find this thread interesting -
Merging exercises , the sandwich
viewtopic.php?f=27&t=3633
I wrote more about how I taught Charlie this in my diary , but I will out line it here

So basically the Idea is that we want to lean backwards but most of all downwards in a fluid conscious movement .
We had been working a lot on the school halt and rearing so we are very good at leaning backward on my body language cue . The problem being is that he would lean backwards as far as he could , but it would just be a very good school halt , we now have a beautiful school halt , as we had missed out on leaning downwards . So we worked on leaning downwards by working in back crunch then asking for a lean back , then immediately afterwards head down , lean back , head down . I was also sitting on the floor so he had to put his head down to get to the treat . We worked on that for awhile until now he have an amazing front crunch ( his legs are nearly horizontal now ) then I asked for the same with his leg up and he immediately just sank downwards to the floor
Most of all it is taking thing slowly in small increments as you would want the horse to be very conscious and controlled in his movements and keeping them as straight and as balanced as possible,( making a new word as it were ) as it is a rather ....strange position and as Volker says in the posts above , it can result in injury and loss of trust in the trainer .
But I am certainly not the expert on this , Volker will give you the expert advice

Thanks for the reply and link. Was very helpful and little horse made phenomenal progress with the sandwich technique tonight. Well, I suspect he's just been waiting for me to explain myself properly. Had a wonderful session and finished with copycat game and got the best passage he's ever done so I think we were both on a high. I have a project horse I've just started work with, and even he came to see what all the frivolity was about!

Sorry for the ramble but on a complete high. One of those days when you and horses can both share genuine joy. Little horse loves to be beautiful and strutted around so proud of himself, and he finished off the session stealing the whip and running circles around me!!

A good day, unlocked with a short paragraph of good advice!

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The exact steps of the dance have no importance - it is the joy in dancing that i strive for.