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 Post subject: Tamarack's videos
PostPosted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:29 pm 
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Don't laugh too much please :D

He apparently had no idea what I was asking him, but he kept his sense of humor.

FIRST RIDE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ikrwLY9YNs

My new username on YouTube is ciscotam

(Edited with NEW url!!)


Last edited by Karen on Wed Feb 27, 2008 5:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:07 pm 
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What a nice video! If only all horses could experience their first ride in this way... wouldn't that be something!

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PostPosted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:11 pm 
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I've got a notice from Youtube that I can't use the music...I think. So the video may come down. I'll have to redo it without the music!

Update, apparently it's ok. I think. Ugh.

Anyway, THANK YOU! Tam didn't seem to mind being confused with me :wink:


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 10:54 pm 
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I did hear the music, good choice. :D

I thought your first ride together just couldn't have gone any better. Like Ania wrote in your diary, he really seems to be thinking about collecting himself under you already. It also was very weird to see you two casually riding at liberty/cordeo together, then you two walk out of the video and it fades out, and in comes a buckskin horse with bridle, bit, saddle and a rider with spurs. Quite a change of scene! :shock: My first thought was: 'but Tam was dark brown, wasn't he?' And then the two of you just casually walked back into the view, still in cordeo of course. Very nice! :lol:


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PostPosted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:30 pm 
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Yes, good choice of music Karen! :D I really enjoyed watching it, what a wonderful first ride!

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:58 am 
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Miriam, that lady was helping me to try and lure Tam to follow. The mare she is riding is Tamarack's herd buddy, Baby. But Tam was too busy being confused.

It was very nice though...we got to walk straight ahead a little bit, anyway. :D

And thank you Brittany!

I love Cat Stevens. Long ago I saw a movie called Harold and Maude, and that song was in it. It's about being different, and being ok with that :D


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:26 am 
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Wonderful, Karen!! :D :D :D I wish that every horse could have such a nice and fearless first ride. Really great. And Tam is soooo beautiful!!


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:00 am 
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Yes, really great Karen...!


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:14 am 
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Alas I can not hear the music for the sound of my laptop died.

But wow, Karen, I am utterly amazed!
And I do not now where to start!
The fact that you do this all alone, without saddle, only a cordeo and an other horse present in the arena!

Or should I go on about the fact how nicely Tam keeps his balance as if he was carrying you for half a year at least!

If you told me, you were riding him for years I would have believed it!

He is stallion is he not? And you ride like this, first time with a mare present?

There goes my hat, off for you Lady!

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:23 am 
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Lovely Karen! Congrats! My first arena rides on Sunrise went a lot like this. She had the same confusion with going straight ahead because she was so interested in checking out what I was up to up there. Food treating I think also has a tendency to make this a bit more difficult in the beginning, so I tried to use more scritchy rewards instead of food. First time I rode her out on the trail that we've been walking forever.. so that made sense. But then in the arena, which way to go next. oh dear. :lol:
Never mind! we keep it fun, keep it happy happy happy and we find a way to help them with it. Tamarack will be waltzing around in no time! :D

One observation that I made was that some of his backwardness might have been contributed to a little by your focus. Sometimes you seemed to be a little closed, inward and down. I wonder if opening your body up more, your legs and your shoulders, relaxing on an in breath, looking up and focusing your centre out might help him to get more freeflowing forward movement.

Tamarack seems to be SO sensitive, and trying to read your every cue and give you what you want.
What an awesome horse!
Sue


Last edited by windhorsesue on Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:00 pm 
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Waw Karen!
It is amazing! So calm and full of trust!
And he seems to enjoy it. Wow, I wish I could redo this with my horse and I would do it the way you do it. It is great to see and learn from it. Thank you and super well done!
Greetings

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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 1:46 pm 
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Karen I am amazed! I knew what a good relationship you and Tam had from your diary, but still this is amazing for me. This as a first ride! I agree with Josepha, if you wrote you rode him already a year orso I would have belived you. Everything goes so fluently, so calm and the atmosphere I feel when watching the movie is just very good!


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PostPosted: Fri Feb 22, 2008 4:50 pm 
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Wow Sue, I did not even came round to looking at Karen's riding at all, I was to amazed at the whole thing ha ha !

But your advice is brilliant! 8)

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:33 am 
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Sue wrote:
Quote:
One observation that I made was that some of his backwardness might have been contributed to a little by your focus. Sometimes you seemed to be a little closed, inward and down. I wonder if opening your body up more, your legs and your shoulders, relaxing on an in breath, looking up and focusing your centre out might help him to get more freeflowing forward movement.


You are absolutely right! I was trying very hard to think about my seat and legs, and all my energy just sucked right inside myself. Paul said about the same thing. If I want to ride with just a thought, my thought has to be on where I wish to go! :D

Josepha wrote:
Quote:
He is stallion is he not? And you ride like this, first time with a mare present?


Dear no!!! He's a gelding. You know, I have met one Andalusian Stallion. He seemed to fill the whole arena with his presence. He utterly intimidated me!

The other horse in the arena was a mare, but Tam wasn't interested in her romantically...rather, she wears the pants, so to speak. He's one of her followers. Except that at that moment, he didn't seem to be interested in following her at all!

I want to thank everyone for the wonderful comments. I was very nervous to post the video, and you have all made it feel ok!

Tam was such a good boy. He did not seem to mind that we couldn't get in sync with each other. I know what I did wrong though, and now I can fix it. Break it down into smaller bits so he can understand what I'm asking! I shouldn't have expected to just be able to get on and go for a ride!


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:03 am 
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But you DID just get on and go for a ride! :lol:
That was the beauty of it. The difference from the norm was that the ride went where Tamarack thought it should go, and he got no negative pressure or worse :twisted: consequences for not being quite on the same page as you thought you were!

I'm so glad my comments were useful and not taken as annoying. :oops: It's hard for me to shut up, because you're following the same path I've just been travelling with Sunrise, and you're the first other person I've really seen doing it (although I'm sure there are others out there too.)
At risk of mememe-ing in your thread.. :oops:

When I started, I allowed Sunrise to interpret as she could, and take me where she would, only gradually taking over the directing of proceedings over about a six month period of only intermittent rides. There were two major benefits of not being so quick to try to get her obedience .

The first was, she still feels that going for rides are her idea as I've slowy trained my idea to be her idea and avoided all confrontation, and consequently she views riding as a special treat.

The second was it really helped me to see the natural results of my riding, posture, seat and aids. And improve them! In other words, I allowed her to train me, rather than attempt to train her.

So rather than try to say "Okay, a squeeze from the legs means go forwards, so when you go backwards that's the wrong answer.", I would say "OH! :idea: A squeeeze from my legs while I'm focusing in makes you think of taking a step backwards! Cool! Okay, I'll give you scritchies and praise for that, and try to remember to ask you that way next time. Now, what makes you feel like walking forwards?"

And just allowing and encouraging all her natural responses taught me a lot about the differences between traditional aids, which have to be taught, and natural aids, which allow the horse to automatically follow our movement. Her responses were so pure, untainted by her interpretations of what she "should" do, that I got great feedback on what I was doing right and wrong and how to balance and project myself better.

What I found was that it is exactly as Klaus Hempfling has described in his book. Inclining slightly forward, shifting legs back slightly, closing centre, squeezing, precipitates a backward step in any untrained horse. Opening up our shoulders, lifting head, opening legs, and inclining slightly back precipitates a forward step. The exact opposite of what many people do. Same with weight and focus shifts left and right. I'd already read this some time earlier, and practiced it some with our other horses with some good results, but Sunrise was like the litmus test! :D After she trained me, I got much better results with the others.

(Only negative is, when "untrained" people try to ride them, the horses get confused, which is okay, as long as those people are there to learn from the experience and don't think they're going to teach the horse. I have some cool photos of this at work with Footprint.. I'll try to get round to posting in my diary.)

For forward movement, I also decided to cue another signal from the ground that I could use to clarify when riding. So along with the voice, cordeo, my body language cues for walk, I added a tap with a twig in the middle of her rump.. which is a direct signal to move forward, as opposed to leg aid, which is a trained signal.
This allowed me (duh,, having difficulty translating knowledge into action) to really concentrate on opening, focusing outward and forward, avoiding closing in, and then if neccessary, after my voice cue, give a little tap on her rump to clarify, without falling into my usual trap of tensing up. YIPPEE!!! Scritchies and treats, and in no time, she had forward and reverse gears, without any obvious cues other than a slight change in my posture.

In your vid, it seems to me that Tam may be responding in a similar way. He does a lot of backwards, and disengaging hindquarters, and it seems that he feels you're asking him to do this.. so I wonder if it would be useful to assume that you ARE asking him to do this, and praise him for it, then figure out what it is that you're doing, so you can use it again. Later, when he is confident and sure of this, and if you want to, you can introduce the cue that you will eventually want to use.

I also found there's a big sticky bit, when Sunrise had to make the jump from LITERALLY following me, which it seems at times Tamarack is still trying to do.. going round in circles trying to get at your shoulder :lol: , to trusting that I'm up there and "following" me from in front. Patience, clear natural signals and lots of praise helps them through this.

Yes, Tam looks so beautifully balanced and in harmony with himself and you.
I'm sure this is the result of not riding them too young and all the wonderful groundwork that enhances self carriage. I also think that the togetherness they develop with us that allows them to predict and move in harmony with us on the ground directly translates to being able to more easily move in harmony with us on their backs. (Maybe also cause for a little pat on our own backs.. as all the groundwork and relationship building helps US to move better in harmony with THEM better too! :idea: )
:D :D
AND is wonderful!

I was shocked, and I wrote about it in my diary I think, how balanced Sunrise was for me right from our first rides. The first canter was light years away from the feeling from other young "green" horses I've had. I think newly started AND horses are a different colour altogether. Rainbow coloured maybe! :lol: She's still had probably less than thirty rides, in the six month since the first time, but when my daughter rode her out for the first time a couple of weeks ago, she said to me "WOW! MUM! Sunrise is awesome.. She's the best trained horse here!" She's always been scornful that my horse was really "naughty" and full of her own ideas, so that brought a huge smile to my face!

I see the same balance and poise in Tam. (And a better body!! :wink: ) Even when he's trying all sorts of different directions trying to get it right, he's right under you and perfectly in balance.

Here's to rainbow coloured AND horses!
:D :D


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