The Art of Natural Dressage

I´m worrying..how to cue shoulder-in, travers, renvers from the ground. I have seen several possibilities, A.Kurland and most barock-riders are just turning their body for example...
Me and the horses were a little bit confused and for that reason I did c/t moving shoulders or hindlegs towards or away from me..That gave me horses who mostly were stepping towards to me on a diagonal line(grrr*!poorenglish*!??grrrr) because they don´t know better without cue (it´s a funny to watch..me, running away and the horses try to catch up that way).
A few days ago I had an idea to teach them in a way dancers learn leading and following, that means that they have to look for shoulder-hand or hip-hand contact and follow my hands in all directions. This is not easy, I have tried (I`m a poor dancer anyway:-()..but the horses seemed to get it! I tried with the older horses who know those movements from former riding and I tried with the young ones..same result! They all got it after quiet a short time..we are walking not trotting yet (the youngsters perform only shoulder-in).
The idea came up when I had been to a physical-theatre-workshop, we were doing exactly the same thing. We tried to follow another person, running the same frequency together with closed eyes..(interesting that my friend thought this was scary and I thought that it was so relaxing, just trotting along without any responcibility) bending our bodies..
How do you others cue sidewards movements? There might be a more simple solution?

How do you move exactly? It sure sounds interesting!

With the ponies (shetland ponies, low eyes ) I also noticed that the movement of my hips and legs are very important in telling them how and where to move, it tells them even more than the direction in which I move!

Oud cue for shoulder-in: I walk towards the shoulder of the pony ('pushing' that away from me without touching of course), but do that in a shoulder-in like way myself. If I want to ask for a shoulder in to the left (head therefore bending to the right towards me), I cross my right leg over my left leg, and I also lower my right shoulder and point with my right hand towards the frontfeet of the pony as they should cross over as well. My idea behind that lowered shoulder is that it allows the head to turn towards me in the shoulder in, because if I would square that shoulder, I would instead push his head out.
Well, that's my theory at least, because it's mainly Sjors who made up this cue as he will mix up everything if I try to give it in another way.

Travers: I stand next to the shoulder, facing towards the hindquarters and walk backwards away with on hand pointing towards the head/shoulder, and the other stretched out to the side, asking the hindquarters to step in towards that hand. That works quite well, but lately Sjors and Blacky also started doing a travers on their own idea when I stand next to the hindlegs and move away from them in travers myself: if I would ask for a travers to the right, I would stand on the right side of the hindquarters and start crossing my left leg over my right, and extending my right hand to the side in order to point out the direction in which we're moving.

It's a lot of fun to experiment with cues and to discover what horses come up with themselves - most of the time their opinions make a lot of sense!

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

Hi Ari,

I use my hands and targeting and mimicking. For moving away, I use my hand on the shoulder/girth and I target the nose a bit towards me. For moving towards me, I use a hip target and in the beginning I targeted her nose away, but faded that. Also, I used some mimicking, legs, hips, head, etc. trying to keep my body aligned with hers, but haven't decided what is better??

Here's a clip of me teaching Lucy to change from bend TOWARDS me to bend AWAY from me using targeting and mimicking. I was trying to get my footfalls the same as hers but an a bit klutzy in the dance department!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXbHuNCZ ... annel_page

Brenda

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Lucy04574
http://www.youtube.com/user/Jack04574

Hmmm, Miriam..you are suggesting more mimicking..that´s the hard way for my old, stiff body (I have no skills for bending knees or ankles longer ). I think my feet are already going ok, hips too (mostly), but I´m sure that my shoulders are for stiff and not guiding the horses right at all (I´m working on it with yoga ). That is, may be, the reason I´ve startet to use both hands (makes my shoulders moving, I can see now).
Yes, Brenda! You describe precisely the way my horses have learned to walk shoulder-in . But now the horses behaviour is already there, I´m not thinking about how to make the horses move sidewards, they are doing it by themselves. Confusion started when the horses learned to move travers. Problem is that at least Hamar has no clue in which way we are moving. He´s not that good at mimicking, I have a guess that his eyes are not the best (an icelandic trainer had a suggestion about the connection of the silver-gene and short-sightness). On the other hand he is a very careful and reserved horse (or short-sightness made him to be that way..), I don´t want to frustrate him. He´s earning lots of treats, but that´s not helping him to understand better. Most of the time he is just repeating and repeating what he has done before (seems that he feels secure that way), so I have to make it more clear for him what I want to do. My idea was that he might go better with more contact (that he may be is more "touch"-orientated).
Hope, you understand a little bit better (me and the dictionary having a hard time), would be better with a video, wouldn´t it?
How precisely are your cues for travers? You are going backwards, Miriam? Is that working even for trot and canter?

Miriam and Brenda, I wanted to ask you.. when you taught the lateral work towards you, how did you get that first front step towards you at the same time as hip? Sunrise is giving me her hip towards my hand very freely..but almost always her shoulders are moving away at the same time, so she's spinning. Have tried to get her shoulder to move to my hand, with some success,... but then her hip is moving away.

Cheers,
Sue

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I have not sought the horse of bits, bridles, saddles and shackles,
But the horse of the wind, the horse of freedom, the horse of the dream. [Robert Vavra]

Yes!! I had the same problem cuz I had used the hip target for spin!! I used targeting and mimicking? And I think I got each end a little at a time? I think moving a more forward helps too, rather than directly sideways? so I practiced manipulating the nose target and the hip target while we were bending/moving in our lateral work??

Here's a clip from this summer. You can see me move the nose target over to the opposite side and present my hip target hand for the bend away, which eventually became move laterally towards. For my click points, I looked for the front leg reaching diagonally and the hind leg stepping under.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4mBB_l5 ... annel_page

I haven't got the bend AND move towards me yet tho!! Miriam's ponies do that well so she could help you on that one!!

Hope this helps

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Lucy04574

http://www.youtube.com/user/Jack04574

Hi, Sue!
Hope you don´t mind if I´m having a suggestion? We were always standing close to a wall/ fence when trying hip-target..that made it impossible for the horses to move outwards with the front..just a thouhgt..
Regards Ari

Ari, DUH!! The brilliant simplicity of your suggestion simply stuns and delights me! THanks!!

Brenda, yes, what you're talking about is pretty much what I'm playing with at the moment... A step of shoulder towards me hips away.. A step of hips towards me shoulders away,.. trying to draw her attention to the fact that it would be simpler to do both things at the same time.. if you see what I mean. I guess we'll get there in the end.. but I can't wait for tommorrow to try the wall!

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I have not sought the horse of bits, bridles, saddles and shackles,

But the horse of the wind, the horse of freedom, the horse of the dream. [Robert Vavra]

The wall idea is a good one, and what you can also do is simply ask one step after another. The same when you teach your horse to move sideways away from you: one method is to ask frontlegs to step one step away, then ask his hindlegs to move one step away, then the frontlegs etc. Of course with lots of treats in between, but that way you can easily turn a turn around the haunches and around the frontlegs into a real sideways away from you.

With the sideways towards you can do the same: ask the hindlegs to step in one step (ignore the front), then as the frontlegs to move towards you one step (ignore the hindlegs), then the hind, then front etc.And reward!! Quite soon your horse will realise that he will be able to respond faster to your cues and earn more rewards when he doesn't swing the other part of his body out at the same time, and you two cues for hindlegs towards and frontlegs towards will melt into a cue for sideways towards when given at the same time.

Let us know what works for you and how it went!

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

Aaah ... thanks Miriam.. Now about that miraculous lateral towards you while bent away that your ponies do.......?

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I have not sought the horse of bits, bridles, saddles and shackles,

But the horse of the wind, the horse of freedom, the horse of the dream. [Robert Vavra]

Miriams wall is quite smart, too..gave me this "so-simple-why-did-I-never-thought-about-that"-feeling! Thanks!