hi everybody,
as I reported Imke Spilker lives very close and two friends of mine have lessons with her.
Last week I finally managed to watch one of those lessons.
I wanted to report you from this but it's not so easy how to start because I'm a little bit to and fro about what I saw. Probalbly a should watch another lesson to get a fuller picture, I probably didn't understand everything.
Frankly speaking I was a little bit disappointed - Romys interaction I saw at the AND-meeting I liked much better...
Okay, I'll just tell you what I saw:
My friends horse is a 17years old arabian mare called Malisha which has arthrosis in her knees since she was young. So the main goal was to activate her hindlegs and to make her move smoother. What irritated me most was that Imke used the whip a lot. And a lot of that whip use looked for me like pressure / release. She tipped the hindquaters or benath the belly or on the croup and when Malisha showed the expected reaction she stopped.... As my friend explained to me this is not driving in a traditional way but Imke uses this to provokate the horse, to irritate her, to bring her out of her shell – hard to express, especially as I’m not shure wether I got it right.
It took quite a long time to go the way from the stable to the arena as they allowed Malisha to graze when she wanted to. They didn’t really force her to come, but Imke is very skillfull in distracting the horse from the gras (with food) and then making her walk with her.
Then in the arena they mainly run together (Malisha seemed to want that, she always startet to trot by her own) and Imke (she had Malisha on a long leading rope on the halter) run with her, activating the hind legs wiht the whip and by making circles. She said she needed the rope because without it Malisha would always fall apart („vorne heraus laufen = move out in the front“ translated literally).
After a while Imke was quite exausted by all the running and said ot Malisha, if you want to trot more you have to carry me, I can’t run anymore and she complained a little bit. My friend explained that for Imke you always need a good reason to ride a horse, and this is one: the horse is stronger and faster and if we want to run together, it sometimes has to carry us.
For the riding she put a bit in and said she needed it because horses would "go forward differently with it".
When she road she didn’d have constant contact with the rains, but used the bit to propose a certain posture? Again it’s hard to describe as I’m not shure if I understood everything right. Malisha didn’t seem unconfident with the riding, but she had strongly opposed to the saddle (lot of kicking when the gurth was tightend and she didn’t want to stand still when Imke wanted to climb on her back – my friend had to help her
).
All in all it was quite a contadictory experience for me. What I got as inspiration was the activation of the hind legs, I think I have to focus on that more myself (especially because of Filux arthrosis), but the rest... I got much more inspiration by Romy, Josepha and Bianca at the AND meeting...