The Art of Natural Dressage

hi, i am having so many problems with this. Danni seems very comfused when i try to do this. but funny, she actually started to get it when i was not looking. when i just stand there talking to someone and i go on auto-piolet, i think i feed her treats without noticing it. she keeps taking little steps forwards with her fronts, and not her back. as soon as i try to actually do it, it all goes wrong!!!

i love the way you actually bend you knees, you have very clear bodylanguage in the beginning of the video, and it looks realy good. i would love to watch the "evolving of the back crunch" on here. can you keep us updated?

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

Brenda, I have Jason doing this and he seemed to just naturaly move his front feet independantly of his back Not my skill at all, but Storm just cant do it at all, just always brings the back feet up.

What you've done so far looks wonderful, I stood by Jasons shoulder and pointed ahead as he knows to follow my finger, and I said the word 'stretch' and put my foot forward.

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We never stop learning

But that is NOT bad, and you are DR, cuz you DR enough to get the rears at all, and someday when you feel it is right, you will have Titum discriminate between all 6 kinds of rears I'm sure!!! First rule in shaping is to 'get the behavior' and you are VERY good at that!! A noble skill indeed! Once you have the behaviors, sorting them out is all downhill!

Thanks for the input! I think I am just aiming for a levade to start.

Brenda

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Oh, he can discriminate between them if he wants to. But often he does not want to but prefers one version and offers this more than all the others, but that´s just how our training works.



Phew, good plan. I think the levade is by far the hardest of all. I am sure that we will have several Courbette jumps before we will get a good levade - but I am planning to get one in this lifetime still.

Looking forward to your levade development with Lucy!

Thanks for the support Dee!!

Thanks for the tips Annie!

Hey Jess,

Lucy did that exact same thing when I stopped to talk with a neighbor today coming home from hour hike!! Usually she offers head down,m or ramener, but today she offered her latest trick...stretching her front feet forward!! Too cute!! I think when you are standing directly in front you don't see what is happening right away??

How are you trying to teach it to Danni?? What exactly goes wrong??

The bent knee/lunge forward movement helped, as I wanted it to contrast with leg LIFTING?? But now I think I can stand more up front and just use a hand cue, I'm thinking of using a closed fist cue??

I'll keep posting for sure!!

Brenda

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Well, I should have just said a nice low rear with good form since we have thae 'dang duration thang' to figure out first!!

Brenda

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Very nice work Brenda! You and Lucy are a great team, I really enjoy watching you two play and work together

Hey Erika!! Thanks for the support! And glad that you enjoy the clips!

Brenda

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

Hi Brenda, Looks GREAT! Your cues are so minimal.. the sign of an expert cter... When I taught Sunrise, I cheated and used a visual barrier to help her learn to keep her hind feet in place, then I was able to reeeeeealy stretch forward myself, in the same kind of pose that I want from her, with legs well apart, and lure her forward at the same time, with my one hand stretched forward as my "head". Now either cue works, without the barrier. The hand cue has become a sort of circular beckoning forward of her front legs .. sometimes I accidentally cue a stretch when I actually want her to step towards me. She loves it. But yours looks like a much more controlled training sequence than mine did!

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]

Thanks for the feedback Sue!!

And I don't consider that cheating, I'd call it creative instead!!! We used lots of props/targets, guides in agility training to 'help' the dog guess correctly, then lots of reinforcement to cement the moves! Kay Lawrence calls it 'response restriction', just using barriers, guides, etc. to get closer to errorless learning!!

I just did another session with Lucy and WOW is she lowering her hips and stretching now! I am kind of rocking her forwards to stretch,m and then feeding her back a bit, for a break, then stretch forward again, etc. Will get a video soon.

So I'm still wondering where her head should be for the BEST stretch, low or high?

I am thinking that the back crunch is equine equivalent to an UP Face Dog yoga stretch, and the front crunch is similar to a DOWN Face Dog yoga stretch???????

Brenda

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It's beautiful Brenda!

Without knowing for sure where the head should be, I would leave it up to the horse (as you would do too, i'm sure!). I haven't seen anyone do anything special with the head, other than whatever position the horse thinks it should be in to balance themselves.

I know with some show horses, in parking out, they want the head high...but since I don't know enough about it, I can't say if that's natural or not.

I actually haven't played that much with the back crunch yet. Cisco will do it a little bit...my cue is tap under the girth...like I say AN do on his video. Seemed like a good enough cue!

I cue it from the off side with Cisco.

I actually started rewarding him for stretching out to pee...but it also increased his frequency of peeing in the arena, so I stopped rewarding for it.

But you and Lucy are just doing marvelous!!!!!! I can't wait to see more!

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

hi there. i dont know exactly. i think that my cues are a little to similar to the ones i am using to move the leg lifts to spanish walk. i start with specific cues, that are different, and she starts to get it, but then, i think that i get a little excited and then i go to auto-piolot and start doing the same thing as the spannish walk. it is all me!!!!

i actually stumbled accidentally on another way to do it today, but i will have to try tomorro to make sure that i have it right. i did something with my hands and danni lifted one front leg after another really slowly, kept it low and put it a little forward. i stopped after just a few because i didnt want to confuse it. i think that i need to think about what i was doing and try to keep it uniform!

i am glad that you had the same experience as me. i think that i might set it up so that i talk to someone and get videod. then i can look at what i am doing with my body and try to copy it

this is a pic of when i turned around and found that danni was doing the beginnings of crunch.



i feel a little silly that i can do it when i am not looking, but when i try, i cant! i will try a little harder though. i would love to see videos of others also teaching this.

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

Danni - your picture looks so funny - it looks like the humans are being kept in the field and you and your horse are visiting them across the fence!

I have had similar problems with this so I am really happy it is being discussed here.

When I ask I get jambette and spanish walk. I tried Sue's trick of using a small branch as a marker for the hind legs to stay behind it. She did get some of this but then again we got into confusion. There was one time where she also spontaneously started to move her legs out but I didn't manage to mark it as excellent and she hasn't offered it since.

I think we will have another crack at all this and report back again.

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To put down everything I think I know about horses and to listen!

Looking good!

I don't see anything that's wrong either, and I love the way she mimicks your bending through the knees and stepping forward with her frontlegs!

I would at the moment simply focus on moving the front feet, and start incorporating a real back stretch in the movement by offering the foodrewards in front of her and low above the ground so that even when her front feet are only a little bit more forwards, she stretches her back when reaching for the food.
This type of stretch can of course be done in a ramener, but I would personally wouldn't want to ask this exercise with a higher head, as that hollows the back instead of stretching it out horizontally. A hollow back is never that good and it might be painful if the horse is suffering from kissing spines. With the ponies I do these stretched about 90% of the time with a low neck (stimulated by offering the food low on the ground in front of them) and only with Blacky I sometimes do the crunch with a neck in ramener because he can crunch really far and though that lifts his neck in ramener by raising the base of the neck from the shoulder instead of by hollowing the back. But I'm still careful with this, even when Blacky loves to stand stretched out in a proud ramener for hours on end!

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

Yes, I went thru this too! How to keep all the cues different and clear??

About a year ago, after just starting to teach bow on one knee, didn't get very far, and decided to stop. I started to think that there might be a logical ORDER to teach these stretches?? so as to not be AS confusing?? I have started a little hind feet forward, mostly when she is standing with her fronts on a rock! So for now I am going to work on back crunch and GOTM, a clear discrimination between 'move your front feet' and 'move your hind feet'??

I have done mostly knee lifts, but that is clearly cued with the pool noodle/mimicking so I think we can keep the confusion down there. And I have also began to focus on the cue discrimination between rear and knee lifts (hopefully someday Spanish walk??) And I haven't really tried jambettes, just not something she has shown me yet, but I think I will use a pedestal to help teach her that one?? So the knee lifts ar eonly there to evolve into other cool stuff <G>!!

Brenda

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