The Art of Natural Dressage

I was wondering....

In watching the Nevzorov Principles dvd, there is no transition shown from ground work to riding. Do you suppose, if A.N. follows a somewhat classical approach (with it's obvious differences), that he would have someone else sit on a horse while does ground work, as a transition to riding?

I had said that was what I was going to do with Tam, but I haven't . And of course without me besde him on the ground, as he was used to seeing me, he has had a bit of a struggle to figure out my new position in relation to him (on his back, I mean). I know we can sort it out this way...it just takes patience and time.

Do you think it would be vastly better to have another rider sit him while I work with him rather than just getting on and riding? Or is it simply more expedient, speeding up the process, or?

What are your thoughts on it? Does anyone here have any idea how A. N. acually does work through this phase?

Good question!
I personally do not know how AN does that transition. If I would take a guess I would say that he doesn't use another persons help but I really do not know. I Base my guess to that I don't think that mr. AN will allow many people (if any exept himself) to work/ride he's horses. Ofcourse I could be terrible wrong here.

We(my wife and me) do that transition on small steps and we kind of prepare horse for riding all the time we do groundwork. Like putting saddlepad on back while grooming, groundwork with saddle,we lean agains back often. Stand on pedestal and lean, put foot on stirrup etc. When time comes it's not even that big deal to get on back and start riding. We teach cues too from ground so horse understands them from back. This is the way we work with young horses or with horses that doesn't allow to be ridden.

Sometimes at beginning my wife sits on back if I do groundworking. We try to minimize this because horse gets really fast used to that someone is beside him while ridden. It's just kind of backup plan we have.

Althought we don't do highschool movements like AN so I don't know about that.

I read in Hempfling's book that he suggest that people have someone on the ground to help their horse understand things better.
I tried to do things on my own, but one time he just did not get it and Adriaan was there and he showed Beau from the ground what the exercise was and Beau did it immediately. So it was a great help, but hen you need someone who gives the same cues as you or have someone you trust to be on your horse. I don't know what is better. it goes slower when you're on your own, but trying things together is great too!

Hi Karen,

Good question...

My friend Lyndsey has 'volunteered' to sit on Lucy while I do my target lunging for trot and canter this spring. It would mostly be for Lucy to just get her balance and experience those gaits with the weight of a rider. And it would be more familiar for Lucy to have me on the ground. If I had someone who could do that on a regular basis, I would go for it! Unfortunately, I mostly work alone.

I don't know anything about A.N....sorry.

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I tried it today, and I think it did help a bit. Because I could work Tam in hand, and I could actually take the riders leg and use it as I would a touch with my hand. The girl that helped me is a very good rider and understood everything I asked her to do, or not to do...from asking Tam to side up at the mounting block, asking his permission to mount (he stood lovely for her - didn't move a muscle), and not placing her lower leg against him at all unless I asked her to. It was great.

Marko, thank you! Yes, I did about nine months of groundwork with Tam, preparing him for riding. I wanted his first ride to be a non-event. And it was! I went really well. It's just the he cues off of body language really well on the ground, and suddenly I wasn't beside him to cue him. He still remained calm, but it was a big change for him. In the video section, I have posted Tam's very first ride. It looks way more impressive than it actually was. Tam did some wonderful circles...all of them in the oppoite direction from what I was asking, but the thing is, he was balanced and calm the whole time.

I just wonder, because the books I have on working horses in hand, (two!) and even Hempfling, will transition with himself on the horse, while a helper does the ground cues, until the horse learns the cue from his back.

In the Nevzorov's Encyclopedia dvd, there is one shot of him talking, and someone else lunging one of his horses behind him. But in neither dvd, do they show any transition work.

When I started riding Titum and Summy, I also didn´t do any person-on-the-ground transistion work. I started with Titum in the forest during a long walk when I just didn´t want to walk anymore (he has had his previous owner on his back before, but no "real" riding). With Summy I started riding on the pasture, but in his case the transistion was veeeery slow - from touching his back over leaning on him, sitting on him, just letting him go wherever he wanted to acually riding him - within half a year or so. We had all the time that we wanted. So it was a very unspectacular start in both cases.

If I would start a horse again, I think that I would do it in the forest or on the pasture again and wouldn´t use another rider for the transistions. This is because my goal is not that my horse learns to associate the ground work cues with the riding cues and in that way finds the appropriate movement, but that he finds the movement that fits to the riding cue. I hope this is understandable. I just want him to react to a riding cue in a way that is logical for him - not in a way that is logical for me. So I try to sit on him, do something and watch his reaction. Then I try to shape my cue in a way that his reaction becomes what I want it to be instead of shaping his reaction so that it becomes what I think my cue should tell him.

What I find very helpful is to use "transistion riders" for learning new movements under a rider. Like half steps in our case. Titum has done them with me on the ground for a while, and when my neighbour´s little daughter was sitting on him then, he could experiment with them while carrying weight on his back. Unfortunately this is one of the interesting paths that I probably won´t go because of my lack of riding - learning those special movements under saddle. But who knows - maybe we will find pleasure in riding one day... But I really love the way you are working with Tam. I hope that many othe riders will do it in a similar way.

What an interesting thought! I had only been thinking up till now about finding exact cues that would be for BOTH ground and riding, but I think I need to rethink that... no one said you have to use the exact cue for both...

Have you found a good way to bridge between the ground cues and the riding cues, though? I was thinking perhaps of asking for certain exercises (back crunch, moving HQ, ramener, etc etc) from different positions -- up on a fence, sitting on a barrel, etc, so that Caspian learns to respond to the cue even if my body language isn't the same. But perhaps that's not fair, because the body language IS so much of the cue. What do you think?

For now, though, working on groundwork, are there things I can do as I create and work out cues, to make their transition to being under saddle easier?

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"Do you give the horse his strength?"
~Job 39:19a

www.cambriahorsemanship.com

I don´t see why this should be unfair. Maybe it would be if your training system relied on unpleasant consequences whenever the horse doesn´t respond correctly, because then you would make it less clear (and in that way more "dangerous" for the horse). But if you have established a training system where figuring things out is fun, those variations can only add to the variety of possibilities in your communication. It´s like when you have a friend and talk to him in a foreign (or changed native) language. Or when you only use gestures for communication. When your friend gets punished for not guessing correctly what you want, your language variations won´t be such a pleasure for him. But when you make a rewarding fun game out of the guessing, he will probably like it a lot.

And it´s very handy too, for example when you are sitting at the fireplace and can just ask the horse for some exercises instead of stealing the bread and cantering off with it (like Summy did last week). Or when you are sleeping on the pasture and can ask the horse to step away when he stands too close to your head with his hooves... and you needn´t stand up first.



I guess I am too unsystematic for that. But I am sure that others will have great ideas about this question. When I ride, I use the same principle as when I am at the ground: I just try what works best for my horses. What cues I use, I can only say once they are established. I hardly ever plan a cue and then use it, but I do something and only then I try to understand what I am doing. I only use consciously planned cues when we are stuck somewhere and the intuitive things don´t work. So I don´t do a lot of preparation work, but just try to figure out what works best in a given situation - not (or to a much lesser degree) how I can transfer the signs that work in another situation.

Thanks! That makes sense, and I like your analogy about the foreign language. The foreign language still means the same thing, just sounds different, and so is a puzzle to work out...

I remember reading a dog training book that said if your dog didn't respond to a verbal cue when you were laying on the ground, he hadn't learned the cue yet, he had only learned the cue in the context of your body language. So I wonder if teaching cues in different situations (changing where I am physically) would help cement the cues in Caspian's mind, and perhaps make them clearer to him in the long run. Don't know, I guess time will tell.



That's interesting! I can see how that would be very valuable -- it seems like so much can be learned from "analyzing" what is already works, versus "figuring out" a cue beforehand and just sticking to it. The first way would sure teach a lot about the horse.

This forum gives me so much food for thought!

_________________
"Do you give the horse his strength?"
~Job 39:19a

www.cambriahorsemanship.com

Hi Makana!

Good questions! We used to try things like what you describe above, and although it may seem extreme, it is a good exercise for getting verbal stimulus control. Often what most animals learn is what is called a 'stimulus package' which can be a number of contextual cues all balled together with body cues being at the top of the list!! If you want good verba stimulus control, the cues that you don't want need to be 'teased' out!

In dog agility training, we had the mantra 'vary the variables', which meant keep varying everything but the cue. IOW, make it so the only information that is reliable and predictable IS the cue. Body position was one of the most important for independent obstacle performance, but of course location, sounds, sights, and other distractions need to be figured into the training as well.

So YES! I strongly feel that changing body position, location, etc. will help Caspian learn the verbal cues better. And that will certainly help in the initial stages of riding.

I have tried to work with varying my body position with whoa and back with some success. I can be in front, along side, or behind her, not perfect but pretty good. I have just started riding Lucy so verbal cues like walk on, trot, etc. are works in progress! Haven't tried sitting on a fence tho!

I have tried to work with the verbal for trot by saying the cue and trying not to move until she starts to trot, rather than me moving, then saying the verbal cue?? Again, I'm not religious about these ideas but I do think about them a lot when I'm training! And it sounds as if these are things you have been thinkng about as well!

One last thing to keep in mind (you mght already know this tho) is that when you are using a body cue to 'get the behavior' and then later want to fade it and add a verbal it is important to present the NEW cue first. So for example teaching back up, you would want to say the verbal cue 'back', then present the hand/body signal, so eventually the body cue will become irrelevent. This is refered to as forward conditioning.

Hope this helps and does not make you more confused???

Brenda

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I do agility as well, and I can see where that would be fabulous for teaching focus and "cue discrimination". A very neat concept for horses as well, I think.

And thank you for the reminder about forward conditioning. Sometimes I get a bit sloppy with that.

No, you didn't make it any more confusing at all!!

_________________
"Do you give the horse his strength?"
~Job 39:19a

www.cambriahorsemanship.com