The Art of Natural Dressage

I thought perhaps we could collect a few of the ideas about pre-riding exercises here, such as Leigh's Huggy Sack of Potatoes during Riding While Grazing and so on.

What has been helping Caspian and Deo a lot is if I lean over their backs and give them a treat on the FAR side. I used to lean on their back, click, then straighten up and give them the treat. However, it always seemed that my horses (maybe different from other horses) never liked the leaning, and even when I'd click for being over their back, they were always tensely waiting for me to get off their back to give them the treat. But this way, there was a complete purpose in me leaning accross them -- I was going to give them a treat from the FAR side!

The change in the horses was wonderful when I switched sides of treating. Deo went from tense and unhappy to being perfectly relaxed, even happy. Even Caspian, who has a lot of stressful memories about bareback and HATED me leaning on him, became quite happy with this new exercise!

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

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Great idea, Hannah!

I'd love share some of the things we're doing, and have a place where others are sharing what they're doing!

The baseline of my goal for Circe is to find a way that we enfold riding into all of the things we're exploring, so it becomes one of the fun things we do together.

As result, I'm trying very hard to make sure that I have really soft, supportive, affectionate energy cooking in my body/psyche when I do anything with her back, stay away from some (surprisingly strong, I realized!) instincts to flip into control mode while touching her back, and think about ways we can use positive operant conditioning (i.e., pleasurable things happen when I'm on her back) to set the stage.

So I'm thinking about two things consistently when I touch her back:

1. I want every time I touch her to feel like an embrace.
2. I want to touch her when she's doing something she likes. (And with Circe, this often means eating!) :-)

Here's what we've played with so far!

1. The One-Armed Walk Hug
Learning to walk together with one arm thrown over her shoulder. (I think Sue does a lot of this as well.) It started with rubs and hugs and treats standing still, and then I wanted her to get comfortable with the sensation of having some part of me over her back while she was moving. This was a surprisingly big transition for her!

2. The Dinner Time Hug
As Circe eats her dinner, most evenings I lean over her back, and we have a little quiet meditation session while she eats! I close my eyes and focus on her, the little movements she makes as she eats, and send soft, warm, loving energy to her.
This has been wonderful to explore for a couple of reasons. It's building my habits of touching her back with that kind of soft positive energy, and it's getting her used to having that energy coming at her from her back. When we started this, she was okay with it for very short periods of time -- now she'll let me hang out as long as she eats!

3. The Mounting Block Hug
We've played several different games to get Circe used to standing by a mounting block and having me standing over her that I won't go into here, but once that was happening, we began to do the same hug with me leaning over her back from the mounting block. At this point, I'm still standing on the block, doing the same lean as the dinner time hug. (I started this with some hay on the ground, and then experimented with beginning to give her treats from her back.)

We're still working through how treats from her back work -- I found that she can become fixated on the treats and a little nudgy/pingy about getting more, so I've stopped giving treats from her back for the moment and instead have been focusing on letting her eat what's on the ground. This will shift eventually, obviously! But I've wanted being on me to be about calmness to start. So, we invented:

4. Riding While Grazing/Sack of Potatoes Hug
I moved our Mounting Block Hug over to an area of lush grass and apple trees and began to try that while she ate grass -- she wanted to eat more, and began to move, so I then lifted my feet off the mounting block and laid across her sideways, like a saddle bag (or sack of potatoes!) :-) and let her walk as she wanted to so she could get the tastiest grass.

This is about passenger riding, as completely as possible. I'm not trying to control or shape how she's moving at all. When I first got on her this way, I thought I needed to scramble up to a sitting position on her back, but I realized it was really hard not to begin to try to be the driver. So I backed up and tried staying in that position laying across her back. Really interesting! No control here, and instead an opportunity to feel with my whole body how she moves. I really focus on her and her movement when we do this, along with sending that same kind of energy into her back as I do when she's eating dinner. (And I really work at relaxing my whole body, trying to feel her breathing and match mine to hers -- no tension in my body!)

5. Riding While Grazing/Huggy Butt
I have begun sitting up on her again (still trying hard to be just a passenger -- the only time I have a vote is if she starts to walk us into the apple trees! ) and am now working to keep that same soft energy going in my legs as I did with my torso as the huggy sack of potatoes!

It's been really interesting to experiment with this, and I think it's been to both our benefit -- it's changed my energy when on her dramatically, and helps me to stay "horse centric" rather than "Leigh centric" in my thinking. I'm trying to think about what links experiences for horses, and remember that emotion is a big link for them -- so we are working on happiness and calmness and pleasure every time I touch her this way.

I'm just beginning to play with expanding my hugs so I'm hugging her neck from time to time and exploring different positions on her.

I'm also trying to become more and more aware of both my body language and verbal cues from the ground so they are really clear and clean -- I'm looking forward to playing with how we can figure out how those can translate when I'm on her. And we need to work more on targeting so we can use that as a better tool in the future...

But, we've definitely begun to build a foundation that's happy for both of us! She's still quite young (just over three and a half) so these sessions are short and sweet -- I'm thinking about them as vocabulary builders rather than training sessions... As I work on expanding anything with this, it's about my understanding of how to touch her with love and softness. I'm not worrying about each session moving our expectations forward in a traditional training sense. And while I do the One-Armed Hug and the Dinner Time Hug most days, anything where I'm actually putting weight on her back I am doing once every couple of weeks or so, as it feels like it's the right thing to do. Very organic! The stars, weather, time of day, mood, energy level, etc. all have to be right -- I don't ever go over there planning on doing it, but just let it emerge when it feels like the right thing to do that day.


Leigh

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"Ours is the portal of hope. Come as you are." -- Rumi
www.imaginalinstitute.com

This is great! It gives me lots of ideas to try with Lacie, our 4 year old arab. I had already been practicing leaning over her back and giving treats on the far side. However, she seems to get overly-anxious about eating all the treats as fast as she can , so I may have to start putting hay on the ground for her while I lean over her back.

Dinner time hug sounds like just the thing I need to start doing with Lacie! She is sometimes defensive about her food, because she is the lowest rank in the herd. I definitely see how the dinner hug will help her get more comfortable with me around while she's eating her grain, and also get accustomed to having a small part of me over her back. The Riding While Grazing/Sack of Potatoes Hug sounds really fun. I'm looking forward to doing that with her!

I love to hang out with Blade on his back, while he's grazing , and sit in different positions. Like regular sitting in normal position, laying forward and hugging his neck, laying backwards with my head on his rump, facing backwards and laying forward on his rump, sitting on his HQ backwards, forwards, sideways, etc.

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God Bless!
Brittany

www.royalhorsecompany.com

Great topic
I can add another idea. When Evita was wearing a blanket in winter (not on purpose for letting her get used to it, only because of a windy stable at the time), after this she was totally at ease with things attached to her, flapping and things around her belly and even around her legs. Also possible with anti-fly blankets or anti-rain blankets. I've put an anti-rain blanket on Imperia a couple of days ago with bad weather and although she was frightened at first (thank god for the cure for everything ... treats ) and after a day she was totally at ease with things around her body, even after the first minutes she looked at ease already.

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Yes Bianca! Good point!

The same with Lucy and blankets! Now I just fling the blanket over her, straps flying, etc., no problem, just waits for her treat or eats her hay, and it was so good for her to get used to the leg straps, LOTS of treats for that!!

Brenda

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Great idea Hannah!

My favorite pre-riding games are at the mounting block, with as many different mounting blocks that you can find, in many places, so generalizing on that phase of riding! I feel that many horses start out stressed cuz they never learned to love mounting block games! When I was riding other peoples horses for lessons, it killed me to se that sometimes we needed TWO people to hold the horse to mount, when it is so easy to make it a pleasant experience using C/T!

The Drunk Game, explained to me by my friend Lyndsey, is invaluable and my (and Lucy's) favorite! The name says it all, you act like you are drunk , leaning, falling, rubbing, hanging, sliding on and off, etc. It's really fun!!

The idea is that often we are to careful, trying not to 'upset' the horse, and then when something unexpected happens the horse freaks! So being UNPREDICTABLE is the key, tho gradual, keeping the horse underthreshold (low to no reactions), along with LOTS of C/T!!!

Brenda

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

Ah yes, the Spaz Clown game. Love it. Children can teach us about this. They of course love crawling all over their horses, hanging by the horse's neck, letting the horse drag them about in tail tugO'War.

There are two other games I like too. The Ocean game. Where we ride in the softest sand while doing silly things that normally upset the horse, and the Sawdust Up To His Belly game. I kept a special oval ring for that. Same principle. And what fun to fall off into.

Donald

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

Oh, I love all of these, Brenda and Donald!

(And I'd love to see the Sawdust Up to the Belly ring -- how cool would that be!?!)

Thank you for reminding me about these -- I know you'd written about the Drunk Game in my diary a while back, Brenda, but I'd forgotten it.

What I love about these, and the mounting block games (which I've done a little of, but nothing as marvelously expansive as Brenda has) is that is takes all of that tight fussing about mounting away.

I've ridden (and watched other people mount/ride) horses where there is an absolute ritual of exactitude about mounting. All things, including light, wind, position, tack, horse, person, time of day, zodiac sign, placement of forelock, and soundtrack must be in alignment before...the...mounting...begins... (And I think the opening to Beethoven's Fifth is most often playing in the background...or maybe the soundtrack to Jaws...)

It just seems like such a bad way to start -- everyone is nervous and wound up and worrying about perfection!

When I rode as a kid I had no fear about getting on any horse, any time, any place. Even as an adult when I did the occasional ride on a friend's horse, I had no fear. Then, when I started back into training, this was so much a part of the process that I was tense with a fist-sized clutch in my gut every time I got on any horse, because who knows what could happen??!!??

Hated it! So part of my play with Circe is about making that go away -- and your suggestions are marvelous to help with that! Thank you!


Leigh
PS: Ooh, ooh, I'm just now thinking that this could very well be a part of Stardust's angst about being mounted -- it's occurred to me that it's entirely likely that he was held by people and mounting was a big deal for him in his former life. I'd not thought of it in that light before -- this could be a breakthrough for us, as I've been assuming that his uncertainty about being mounted is about being worried about riding hurting. But as I think about this, I'd be willing to bet that part of the problem is that mounting itself has been something that was stressful in his life! Thank you!

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"Ours is the portal of hope. Come as you are." -- Rumi
www.imaginalinstitute.com