The Pillar of Focus is all about your mind-set and applying the power of your attention on a daily basis towards bringing your riding goals to life. Focus also encompasses your ability to keep your attention oriented firmly on what you want, not on what you DON’T want, every moment that you are riding.

Today we are moving on to the second support for our riding foundation, the Pillar of Fundamentals.

Pillar Two: Fundamentals

Years ago, when I started taking lessons with my first dressage coach, I was very much in awe of all the other riders that trained with her. I just sort of assumed that they were all light-years ahead of me in every way. Over time, however, I observed that everyone was at their own place in their training, and that everyone kind of respected where the others were in their journey.

But one student in particular stands out in my memory. This person, let’s call her Dianna, was obsessed with the beauty and elegance of dressage. She had a big beautiful brown horse and her burning desire was to ride floating elegant trot half-passes with him (preferably in a big National Show, while wearing top hat and tails!) Nothing wrong with that, right?

Well, here’s the thing. Riding the half-pass so symbolized dressage for her, that she was not satisfied with anything less. Every lesson she took had to include exercises that she could clearly see were part of the development of the half-pass. But, the problem was, she wasn’t ready to ride the half-pass. Not nearly. She couldn’t sit the trot, she couldn’t offer the horse a steady contact, the horse wasn’t connected from back to front, and she wasn’t sitting straight and balanced so the horse was never straight or balanced, either. There was a whole list of missing fundamentals.

Every attempt by the coach to steer Dianna back to the basic exercises that she needed to master first, was met by resistance. I watched this battle of wills go on for literally years. Last I saw, she still couldn’t ride a half-pass, and she was still struggling along, no further ahead in her riding than she had been back then. The top hat and tailcoat were still hanging in the back of the closet.

Remember this, What you resist, persists. You need to accept where you are in your development, and honour that place by always putting first things first. If you master your fundamentals, the fancier movements, like those half-passes, will eventually drop into your lap like a ripe plum!

Sometimes people want to rush past the fundamental work because they think it is boring, or not interesting, or not all that impressive. Nothing could be further from the truth! Personally, I would MUCH rather watch a well-executed Training Level ride, than an over-faced combination struggling with Second Level. I forget who said “The basic work, properly done, is endlessly fascinating,” but those are words to live by. I highlighted the words properly done, because it’s true. When it’s properly done, the quest for perfect practice IS endlessly fascinating, challenging, and ultimately, rewarding!

Don’t think it is any different for the top riders either. They don’t spend all day every day practicing movements. They start out every ride with a focus on basic fundamentals, asking the horse throughout the warm-up exercises a series of questions, “Will you go forward?”, “Will you come back?”, “Will you move off this leg?”. The fundamentals of strengthening, suppling, and improving the basic gaits always precedes the fancy stuff.

An Illustrative Story

To illustrate the importance of putting first things first, no matter what, let’s take a look at this story, which Courtney King Dye shared in the December 2011 issue of Dressage Today magazine.

Some people rush “the basics” in dressage training. Mythilus (her partner at the 2008 Olympics) is a perfect example of why it’s important to focus on them, instead. He came to me having shown Grand Prix twice for a 63 and 64 percent, but when I got on him, I couldn’t do a single flying change. Heck, I couldn’t even do a good trot-to canter transition, much less ones (flying changes of lead every stride).

Every day for the first six months, I cried because I felt so incompetent. In all of my sessions with him, I did about a million trot-walk transitions. My mentor, Lendon Gray, was wondering why I did these endlessly, and she eventually got on him and took it down to walk-halt transitions.

It took me a year to be able to do a sequence. Even though Myth knew the movements, he could only do them if I held him together, which greatly minimized the quality. By focusing on getting him to listen to me and carry himself and by never doing the movements holding him together in any way (even if the best I could do was a turn on the forehand and walk-halt), in two years we were at the Olympics.

To make this happen, I had to go back and work on the basics. The basics allow the horse to move on his own 100 percent and to maximize athleticism.

That was a long quote, but can we just stop for a moment and really think about what she just said there? First of all, Courtney King Dye, world-respected dressage Olympian, cried every day for six months because she felt incompetent. Let’s just let that soak in for a moment, shall we? It’s not just regular riders who feel frustrated sometimes. Now, Courtney felt that way because she was unable to ride this Grand Prix horse in a way that exhibited correct basics. But, look at what happened next. She refused to compromise on her fundamentals, she kept her committment to perfecting the basics no matter what, and in two years (two tiny years!) the duo was competing at the Olympics (the O-freakin’-lympics!!)

On behalf of all riders everywhere, I want to offer Courtney a deep and sincere thank you, for being willing to be so open and authentic in sharing her experience with us. Nothing could more powerfully illustrate that training isn’t always a bed of roses and a trail of sugar cubes, not even for the top riders. And, that’s a gift really, for all of us. Why? Because she proved that by putting her faith and her focus on the fundamentals, it turned things around and brought this horse and rider to the fore-front of the world stage in what is really a very short period of time.

Horse Fundamentals

Courtney goes on to share her idea of what exactly are the fundamental basics which a horse needs in order to do anything well. Simply, “Go, stop and steer”. She says “All three have to be trustworthy; if one is lacking in perfection, the quality is lost. The basics begin before the horse is mounted: respect, paying attention to space, listening to body language. Training for Grand Prix starts the moment we get on their back.”

To those fundamentals of Go, Stop, and Steer, I add the first three elements of the training scale: Rhythm, Relaxation, and Contact. These are the horse basics that I work on with every horse that I train, every ride: Go (forward from a light leg aid, first time, every time) Stop (come back with a light half-halt) and Steer (turn promptly and easily off the outside rein), all while maintaining Rhythm (purity of the natural gaits), Relaxation (suppleness or looseness through the body, which comes together with lack of mental tension) and Contact (acceptance of the bridle and seeking contact with the bit).

Transitions within and between gaits are the ways that we both test and develop how well the horse has mastered these basics, and through this systematic development the horse builds his self-carriage, not relying on the rider to either hold him up, or hold him together.

Rider Fundamentals

It goes without saying that the horse can only learn his basics if we have our own basics mastered. The rider fundamentals are the qualities that WE need to have or be working on.

The list of rider fundamentals is also refreshingly brief, and just about begins and ends with that holy grail, the independent seat. At it’s heart, the independent seat means you have the ability to blend in seamlessly with the horse’s movements, not disturbing his balance or his ability to move by giving unintended, confusing and conflicting input from your body. It includes the ability to control each of your body parts without affecting any other part of your position. If you are bouncing, or using the reins to keep your balance, this is telling you that you need to work on your seat. Lunge lessons, with and without stirrups, are a great way to teach your body what it needs to know.

I like to ride without stirrups at least once a week. Work on tuning your position, ideally with knowledgable eyes on the ground, is something that never ends. Who can forget the pictures of the elegant and effective Reiner Klimke warming up with no stirrups at major Championships? He worked at it. So should we! Your ability to not interefere with your horse’s way of going is a prerequisite to having the ability to actually be able to influence and improve his way of going.

The one other fundamental quality for a rider that I would add to this brief list, is that of being clear and consequent, both with your aids and your expectations. This goes back to my ABC principle explained in the articles: The ABC’s of Training: Always Be Clear, and Putting Your Horse in Front of the Leg.

Building your Pillar of Fundamentals by strengthening your horse and rider basics is an on-going process. Don’t be afraid to seek out help, guidance and support in your quest.

Now in the comments below, tell me your thoughts on the Pillar of Fundamentals, as well as any insights or A-ha’s you may have had while reading this article.

Your success as a rider rests upon the foundation you build for yourself through your physical and mental training efforts.

Each building block that you add as you move up the levels of riding is laid upon your foundation, which needs to be stable and secure to continuously support your advancement as far up as you want to go.

I characterize a rider’s foundation as resting upon three pillars: Focus, Fundamentals, and Fitness.

I developed this way of explaining it because the three-legged structure of a tripod is very stable and hard to tip. Even if one leg is shorter than the other two, the structure will still stand up but it will lean over, pointing towards the undeveloped pillar that needs more work. A tilted foundation will actually support you, but only to a certain point. To properly support a successful advancement upwards requires the equal development of all three pillars.

Today’s article is the first in a series that will discuss each of these three pillars in detail.

Pillar One: Focus

Discipline is the bridge between dreams and accomplishment.
- Steffen Peters, US dressage Olympian

Focus starts with your mindset, and knowing what you want. Focus is intending to do this, and wanting it enough to give it your attention on a regular basis. I’m talking daily. Daily works best. Really.

This doesn’t mean that you have to ride every day. It does mean that you work towards your riding goal every day, and there are many, many ways to do that. Even if you can’t on a given day get in a ride or lesson, work out, eat healthy, visualize your goals, and do some yoga, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do some, or even one, of those things. Don’t fall prey to all-or-nothing thinking that says “I can’t do it all so what’s the point?” That sort of thinking is going to keep you stuck.

We talked before about the power of our attention, and the rhyme I use to stay reminded of that power, Energy flows where attention goes. Your unshakeable focus is going to let you harness the power of your attention. To me, focus is the daily decision to keep your attention on what you want (NOT on what you don’t want).

So, how do you build your Pillar of Focus? Well-developed focus is so powerful I liken it to a super-power, but the truth is, anyone can develop it. The secret is to start small, so that you can experience the thrill and the energy that comes from actually completing successful steps towards your goal! The second secret is so powerful, and yet so simple that I’m afraid you are going to roll your eyes at me. But here it is, in a word: habits. Make a habit of the things you know you need to be doing to reach your goal.

So let’s start at the beginning, and don’t set the bar too high at first. Be willing to be boring and unimpressive. Start with just one thing. Every piaffe-passage transition started a long time ago as a walk-trot. The secret is, it was an extremely well-executed walk-trot. That’s what I want for you. Pick something small to focus on to start, and then actually do it, until it becomes a habit. You want it to become so much a part of you that you don’t even think about it, and if you do think about it, it is to say “This is just what I do”.

For example, say you want to improve your ability to sit the trot. So you take an honest look at yourself and say, “I intend to stretch my hips and hamstrings four times a day, eat healthy and lose these extra pounds, work out on the elliptical every other day to build my cardio endurance, and oh yeah, finally do those core exercises I’ve been reading about.”

Now I have no doubt that if you actually did all that, it would help your sitting trot immensely! But the fact of the matter is, more likely than not, your attention is going to be totally splattered by trying to figure it all out at once. You are taking on too many things and are not likely to experience completion or success in ANY of them.

My advice: Pick one. Focus on it. Do it. Enjoy the incomparable feeling that comes from completion! And, here’s what’s wild, when you do that, very often many of the other things on your list will effortlessly start to come to pass, too!

That is how you develop your big-picture focus, and achieving success with that is going to help you to develop what I call your little-picture focus. This is your focus in the moment, each and every moment when you are riding.

Have you ever had the experience of having great rides at home and then when you get to the show ground, everything changes? You find yourself totally distracted by all the goings-on in the crowded warm-up ring, worrying about the dust and the footing, and listening to your fellow competitors gripe about the judging. All of a sudden your horse feels like he was swapped by aliens during the night, and your body isn’t listening to your commands either. This is lack of focus in the moment, and you need to train for it, and build your Pillar of Focus in that area too.

Again, it all comes down to the decision to place your attention on what you want, and NOT on what you don’t want. I like to say to myself and my horse “that’s nothing to do with us” when something is trying to distract our attention away from our work. I imagine a large bubble of concentration around the two of us, and everything outside of the bubble is “nothing to do with us”.

Just watch that seemingly chaotic warm-up ring and notice the rider who is moving smoothly through their patterns and figures, everyone else magically melting out of their way as they follow their clear lines. That is the power of clear focus.

All three of the pillars of our riding foundation are equally important, but I chose to talk about the Pillar of Focus first because developing this one is going to set you up for success in the development of your other pillars.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

I find the subject of happiness endlessly fascinating.

I love to reflect on what makes people happy, why we think some things will make us happy, but then they don’t, and some of the apparent paradoxes of happiness, such as how taking on a new challenge can cause a lot of discomfort — both mental and physical — in the short- and medium-term and then subsequently a lot of happiness once you’ve met the challenge, risen above, and mastered it.

In fact, over fifteen years ago, we named our Fjordhorse farm after the bird which is the symbol of happiness in poetry and song, the Eastern Bluebird. Bluebird Lane, and the Fjords which live here, have been a very big source of happiness and purpose in my life.

In keeping with my interest, I like to follow Gretchen Rubin’s blog The Happiness Project which often gives me food for thought. One of her recent posts, about watching for moments of transcendence really struck a chord with me.

In this post she talks about how in books, movies, and plays her favorite scenes are often moments of transcendence: “when, in the muddle of existence, characters somehow manage to break through everything to engage with each other, and with higher values.”

Here, Gretchen shares a moment of transcendence from her own everyday life:

And I remember when I stopped by the studio of a friend who is a brilliant painter. His studio was everything you’d imagine: skylight, canvases everywhere, plaster models, coffee cans filled with brushes, all of it.

“Wait, I just have to finish one thing,” he told me, and he added a few more strokes of paint to a landscape he was working on.

I looked around at everything, so beautiful. “Jacob, you are lucky,” I said, in a fierce voice.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

In the rush of our daily routines, it’s so easy to miss moments of transcendence. In art, they are masterfully presented, with language and emphasis that set them apart like jewels. In ordinary life, they rush by. I try to remind myself to look for them every day.

What made that moment transcendent is that she rose above the everyday elements and looked at everything with fresh eyes, realizing the beauty of the surroundings and of the man who was able to follow his passion and use his time and creativity to express himself.

I think of this now when I’m in the barn, especially at evening feeding, with the smells of clean shavings and hay, the sounds of the horses munching and pushing their hay around, looking for the very best bits to eat first, the sight of each horse, happy and healthy and well cared-for. This scene is so familiar that it’s totally commonplace to me, and yet, I realize there is no place I’d rather be and how truly beautiful it is. How lucky I am to be there! I think now of how an outsider would feel, seeing it with fresh eyes.

Even such simple moments as evening feeding can be transcendent!

Julie imported Prisco from Holland in 1996 as a yearling, when she was over there looking at horses with Vivian Creigh. Julie had been looking for a junior stallion prospect who had the ability to sire grey offspring. At the time her senior stallion was the grey, MVF Erlend. Julie was hoping to find a high quality colt that they could breed Erlend daughters to.

They spotted Prisco out in the field with another colt and were impressed by his movement. They knew one of the two boys was a son of the grey Fjord stallion Briggen, but they couldn’t get near enough to them to check their brands. Hoping for the best, Julie bought both of them and had them imported to America.

Dutch newspaper article about the sale to America, showing Prisco (right) with his breeders, the Oosting brothers.

Prisco grew up to be a wonderful Fjord horse with remarkable movement, but he was the one sired by Halstor not Briggen, and he never did have a drop of grey in his genes!

Julie asked me to take Prisco in the summer of 2000. She had recently sold Erlend and had imported Fløtren from Norway. Fløtren did not much like the idea of a second stallion, Prisco, being on the farm and it was starting to cause problems. Tammy was pregnant with her first child, and Julie was thinking of selling Prisco and needed someone to work with him in preparation for the Evaluation in the fall. I had ridden him and driven him when I visited Old Hickory that spring, and quite liked him, so Julie asked me if I’d like to spend the summer working with him.

After having Prisco at my farm for a short time, and riding and driving him all around our fields, trails and back roads, I decided I really liked the horse. I had started dressage lessons earlier that year with the goal of improving my riding, and I wanted to pursue this type of training on a Fjord horse. I thought Prisco had the movement to make him well suited to the sport. So I started thinking about seeing if I could buy him, but I wasn’t really interested in owning a stallion at that point. At any rate he was closely related to one of my foundation mares so he wouldn’t have been the greatest choice for me from that point of view. Julie decided she would sell him to me as a gelding, and thus began my journey with my first dressage Fjord.

Prisco at Dressage at Eastwood

In the beginning, Prisco was very, very naughty. Whenever I asked him to canter, he would buck. Actually, bronc would be a more descriptive term. Trying to go once around a twenty metre circle in a steady trot would involve scooting forward, jumping sideways, and much silliness and mayhem on his part. It felt like he was forever saying “Haha, the joke is on you!”

My motto became “I stay on!” and Ute coached me through every step. “Go forward and use up that energy”, she would say. Things improved and I learned so much riding Prisco with Ute. I always felt lucky to have a horse with such talent and joie-de-vivre, and I thoroughly enjoyed his personality and character. Prisco is a very smart horse and he seemed to enjoy the challenge of dressage training.

This photo of Prisco in trot appeared in Dressage Today magazine

I was honoured to have Dressage Today magazine feature Prisco and I in an article called “Fjords Do Dressage” in May 2003. This was part of a feature they did on ponies in the sport, and they used the photo shown at left, of Prisco and I taken in the warmup ring at Dressage at Eastwood the previous year.

Through the years Ute trained Prisco and me up to Third/Fourth level, and we achieved some great results, both in the show ring and in the pleasure I got from our training rides. I showed him at Third Level for two seasons, winning Champion and Reserve Championships at a number of National Shows, and Ute could ride all the Fourth Level work with him. For our scores on the National show circuit, Prisco and I earned both Bronze and Silver medal achievement awards from Dressage Canada.

Some people were surprised to see a Fjord horse showing at this level of dressage, because it was a bit of a rarity. But he won people over when they saw him working, and he developed quite a following, people always happy to see him out competing at the big shows and there to cheer him on. Julie had given Prisco the barn name of “Dutch” and we were often greeted by happy calls of “Dutchie!” from all the people who recognized him as we rode around the show grounds.

In his breeding career before being gelded, Prisco sired 13 offspring that I know of, all brown dun. Nine were fillies, three geldings, and one stallion registered in Canada who has one registered offspring himself. I owned two of Prisco’s daughters and they looked very much alike, and I had seen pictures of another daughter who also looked just like my two, and yet to my eye they did not look like Prisco at all. I always imagined that they must look like his mother. I started and trained these two Prisco daughters and found them both to be serious-minded hard workers, not at all impish like their father had been at a young age, although neither moved quite like him, either.

In 2007 I sold Prisco to my friend Peggy Peregrine-Spear. She was looking for an awesome horse for riding and driving, and I knew she would be a great owner for Prisco. Peggy has really made Prisco her own, developing a deep and solid relationship with him, taking his driving training to a very high level on the pleasure and CDE scene, and clinicing regularly in dressage with Janet Foy. Together this pair has amassed many more blue ribbons, registry awards, Championships, successes, positive exposure for the breed, and happy memories.

Peggy and her Dad driving Prisco in the Father's Day Class

Peggy and Prisco driving in a CDE

Sadly, our friend Julie Will passed away in 2002. We miss her, and think of her frequently. She was a true friend of the Fjordhorse. I know that Julie would be so proud of what Prisco became, a super-star of the Fjord breed!

The answer lies in core strengthening! But it’s not just about getting six pack abs like Brad Pitt flaunted in Fight Club. For a rider, or any athlete in a functional sport, training the core involves working ALL the muscles around the torso. Weak lower back muscles are often paired with weak abs, so this back extension exercise is a great place to start your core conditioning.

To begin, you need an exercise ball and somewhere to stabilize your feet. You can see in the photos that I have a board set up that I can wedge my feet under, or you could use the bottom of a couch, or have a partner hold your feet down. Trying to do this exercise without your feet stabilized makes it too easy and takes away a lot of the benefit.

How To

Lay over the ball, with the ball under your pelvis, and your feet stabilized. Put your hands by your ears, then slowly lift your torso up until it is lined up with your legs. Pause for a moment at the top, and then slowly lower yourself back down. That is one rep. Repeat a set of 12 to 15 reps. Work your way up to two or three sets per session.

Beginning Position

Correct Top Position

It is important to check your alignment at the top of the movement to be sure that you are not going too high, because doing so will put unwanted pressure on your spine. I use the glass door beside me to look at my reflection and make sure my alignment is good. You could also use a mirror or have a partner tell you when you have it right until you memorize the feeling of what is correct.

Incorrect Top Position (Too High!)

Variations with Weights

Once you have mastered the basic back extension you can add some variations with weights to work your mid-back muscles.

Beginning Position with Weights and Arms to Sides

Top Position with Arms to Sides, Squeezing Shoulder Blades Together

Variation: Raise Up to Top Position with Hands near Ears then Press Weights Forward

Variation with a Twist

We can add a twist to the basic back extension to add in an element of instability (great for riders) and to work the obliques. If you are crooked in the saddle, this is a good exercise to develop both sides of your body to work equally.

To do it, raise up to the correct height for a back extension with your hands near your ears. Once you’re at the top, keep your hips straight on the ball while you turn one elbow to the ceiling and one to the floor, then turn the opposite elbow to the ceiling and the other one to the floor, then lower down. That is one rep.

The sequence is: up, twist right, twist left, down. Concentrate on getting an equal amount of twist to each side to develop your symmetry.

Keep Hips Straight on the Ball and Turn One Elbow to the Ceiling and One to the Floor

Do you ever wonder if you are getting in your own way? You know, wonder if you’re actually making things harder than they need to be?

Could you unconsciously be pushing your own success away, by expecting things to be hard (so they are)? Or maybe by needing to be in control of every little detail every step of the way before you allow things to happen (so they never do)?

The fact is, a lot of times we do create struggle for ourselves where none need exist. We don’t know we’re doing it (how stupid would that be, if we did?) In fact, we’re probably not even aware that we could be doing it. But when things start feeling very difficult and nothing seems to be happening the way I have intended, I have learned that this is my cue to sit back, get detached, and look at the situation differently.

When working towards a goal or an intention, there are lots of possible ways to achieve it. Many roads go to Rome. Some might be arduous, and some might be easy and scenic. What I’m learning is that, if you think about things the right way, you can actually decide to choose the more pleasant way.

It’s like I’m always telling the girls who work in my barn, it’s not just important THAT we do something (get this horse tacked up), it’s important HOW we do it (by insisting that he stand quietly in the middle of the aisle, correcting him and putting him back every time he moves or shifts around). We can have the same level of clarity with ourselves, and constantly remind ourselves HOW we want to be in the world as we work towards our goals.

In learning to master staying out of my own way and allowing things to happen, I have made a mantra of the phrase:

In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way,
In it’s own perfect time, for the highest good of all.

Sometimes I repeat the first line, sometimes both, as I go through my day. This reminds me that HOW I want to be is as important as WHAT I am working towards.

I first learned this technique from reading Marc Allen, the millionaire publisher and owner of New World Library. He learned it from Catherine Ponder, a Unity Church minister. Allen teaches his method of setting goals or affirming your intentions in such a way that you don’t have to become a single-minded driven automaton.

Allen’s work challenges the cultural belief that we need to be working towards our goals with massive effort, facing adversity, leaping tall buildings, and taking rejection like a man, in order to be Making Things Happen! This common belief is what I call the men-in-neckties approach to life and success. While that approach may work, I don’t find it particularly fun. I also don’t think it’s all that effective when it comes to working with horses, who are masters of living in the moment.

Allen’s method is to phrase our goals by starting out with the phrase “In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way”, perhaps wrapping up with “In it’s own perfect time, for the highest good of all.”

For example,

In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way,
I intend that ________________________________________
(examples, “I am now an effective, elegant rider.” “I now have a calm, happy horse who works beautifully for me in all situations.” “My work brings joy to thousands of people.”
In it’s own perfect time, for the highest good of all.

Hey, we’ve all heard this saying: Work smarter, not harder. In fact, we’ve heard it a hundred times. But is it part of our life experience? Do we practice it? This is a good question to ask yourself: Am I working hard or working smart? Play around with this technique. It’s a good way to live!

No matter what discipline you ride in or what level you ride at, your horse needs to go forward willingly from light leg aids. If you need to use strong leg aids to get your horse to go, or to keep him going, eventually you are going to be working harder than he is! When that happens, riding becomes more like work, and less like fun.

We call this phenomenon, when the horse does not respond immediately to a light driving aid, “behind the leg”. When your horse is behind the leg, you don’t have true influence over him, because he is deciding for himself whether or not he is going to respond, when, and how much. Even a hot and go-ey horse can be behind the leg. This type of horse can be covering ground forward, but he may have convinced you that you can’t put your leg on without him over-reacting, or he may just ignore the driving aids and set his own rhythm and tempo.

Were you ever told, maybe years ago: in the walk, squeeze with alternate legs; in the posting trot, squeeze every time you sit, or begin to rise; in the canter, squeeze once per stride? I remember this lesson years ago, no shame, that’s just what some people believed and taught. But you know what? By the rider taking over responsibility for maintaining the horse’s forwardness in that way, two things are going to happen. The first is the horse will get dull to the aids and start to tune them out. He can even get sour and cranky. You can just about see a thought balloon floating over his head saying, “Why is she telling me to go when I’m already going? Whatever!”

The second thing that happens with this strategy is the rider gets exhausted, and needs to take breaks really often. And the less responsive the horse is to the pushing, squeezing, and nudging, the more tired the rider will get, so the more breaks the horse will get. Soon, the horse will have the rider well trained to work really hard indeed, so he doesn’t have to!

Instead, we want to have our horses in front of our leg. When we do that, we require that the horse maintain the liveliness of his gait and his energy all by himself. We want to tell him to go, and in what gait, and have him stay that way until we tell him otherwise.

Training the horse to go forward eagerly from a light signal is a non-negotiable prerequisite to having the type of performance where it looks as though the horse is performing the movements of his own accord. For it to look that way, the rider needs to use almost invisible aids. For the aids to be invisible, the horse has to respond immediately to light aids. If you are using strong, frequent, long-held aids it is inevitably going to distort your position. This will make you look less elegant, be less effective, and take away from the “two bodies, one mind” ideal that we are after.

When a horse is truly in front of the leg, you have him thinking forward. He knows that a light leg aid means “I go forward!” and he will be eager to do so. This will make him a pleasure to ride. How do you train your horse to be this way? No surprise, it all starts with the rider.

First, you have to decide, and promise yourself, that you will not use strong, frequent, long-held leg aids ever again.

Then, from a walk, ask your horse to trot on by using a feather-light leg aid. If he surges forward immediately, perfect, reward him! If he gives you anything less than a 100% enthusiastic forward response, correct him immediately.

To correct him, you need to take his temperament into account, because what is enough for one horse can be way too much, or not enough, for another. So your goal in making the correction is that immediately after he ignored your light aid you either reinforce with your whip or kick him with both legs so that he jumps quickly forward into trot. Be careful to stay with him if he reacts by going really vigorously forward, because you don’t want to punish that correct response by getting left behind. If he canters on, that is great, just stay with him. You want your correction to have enough ooomph that the horse really leaps forward. If he just kind of speeds up a little, you need to amp up your correction, so he gives a big reaction.

Let him go for a while, then bring him back to walk, and wait until he is just going along normally, then re-test. The re-test is the most important part. To do it, you ask again for a trot by using a light aid. Now, honestly evaluate his reaction. Did he give you an immediate 100% enthusiastic forward response? If yes, great, reward him generously!

If not, correct him again, enough so that he really leaps forward. If you find yourself saying “that was better” or “pretty good”, then it’s not good enough. The response has to be immediate and 100%. Be that clear cut. The hardest part of this exercise is not in training the horse, it is having us as riders stay totally honest about the horse’s reaction. His response was either immediate and 100% enthusiastically forward (praise him!) or it wasn’t (correct him!).

It may come across as harsh to use a strong enough correction to get the horse to react that vigorously forward if he ignores your light aid. But it is far kinder to do this a few times to make a point, than it is to continuously nag, poke, and prod at the horse.

If you are consistent with this approach, and always remember to re-test until you get the correct reaction to your light aid, it won’t take long to train your horse to be in front of your leg. Stay honest and consistent in your approach at all times, because every time you are on the horse you are either training him, or he is training you. It is the kindest thing for the horse if you are consistent in your expectations and your reactions.

Once you have the feeling of a horse that is honestly in front of the leg, a horse who is thinking forward and immediately gives you a surge of power in response to your light leg aid, you will never want it any other way!

The foundation of a horse’s training are rhythm and relaxation, sometimes expressed as rhythm and suppleness. These elements form the base upon which all the more advanced work is built. Similarly, for riders our foundation is suppleness, or flexibility.

For riding we are also going to need core strength, cardiovascular stamina, muscle tone and balance, but without that base of suppleness, tightness in our body will have us constantly working against ourselves. The tension or tightness will block the horse’s motion and cause us to fight against our own bodies in order to sit properly and use our aids correctly.

Well, the other day I was reading an article about excellence. This article said that our lives (jobs, marriages, companies, families) are made or broken ‘in the daily’. That it’s not the big things that hurt or heal, accomplish or fall short. It’s how we live the moments of our everyday lives that matters.

That got me thinking about riding, and how — when you are looking for excellence in your riding — you can be tricked into thinking that it all hinges on major things, like getting the time and money to clinic with a big name trainer. But the truth of the matter is, excellence is actually built on the small things that you actually do in the moments of your daily life.

Excellence is not an accident, and it doesn’t require boatloads of talent. Excellence is you, showing up daily and consciously doing the work. It’s you, building a strong relationship with your equine partner. It’s just you, deciding to do the daily steps necessary to build your foundation. A lot of the time, the steps are so tiny, so boring, so baby-step-ish, that you could trick yourself into thinking that they aren’t leading you to excellence. But they are.

One of those baby steps is building a habit of dynamic stretching throughout your day. Taking a one to five minute stretch break will gently move your muscles throughout their range of motion. This practice will build the suppleness which is the very foundation of your riding. In the same way that in our mounted work we use exercises intended to mobilize the body parts of the horse through their full range of motion, dynamic stretching will loosen and limber up your muscles, giving you the best chance to be supple and effective in your riding position.

The following stretch is a good one to start your stretching habit. It is excellent for preventing tightness in your back muscles and hamstrings. Tightness in these areas would prevent you from being able to easily sit the trot, influence your horse with subtle shifts of your weight, and use your leg aids properly.

Fold, Drop, and Roll

The Fold, Drop, and Roll will first extend and then flex the whole back line of your body, as well as stretching the abs and opening the chest. I like to use this stretch first thing in the morning, and before I get on a horse. Your goal when doing it, is to keep flowing smoothly from one moment to the next, don’t stop and hold or hang out in any one part of this stretch.

Start by standing with feet shoulder width apart, knees and hips soft, and pelvis level. You will then fold over with a flat back, aiming to place your hands on your knees or shins. You want the feeling of your seat bones pointing out behind, which you will get if you keep a flat back. This will give a nice stretch to the hamstrings.

Once you are folded as far as you can while keeping a flat back, you will drop your hands to the floor, flopping down like a rag doll. But don’t hang out here, immediately begin the next step.

Immediately begin to roll your spine back up to the vertical position. Where we extended our spine in the last step, now we want to flex it as much as possible, rolling it upwards bit by bit, ending with our neck stacked vertically over shoulders, hips, and heels.

Then immediately bring the arms up forward and upward, and finish with a brief extension backwards, to further stretch the spine and abdominals and open the chest.

Repeat this stretch 4 to 5 times in a row, throughout the day. If you aren’t getting the exact range of motion that you see in the photos, don’t worry about it. The act of going through the stretch gently and repeatedly will loosen your muscles and increase your range of motion. This will immediately have a positive effect on your performance in the saddle. After a while, when your body realizes how nice this feels, it may start to remind you during the day that it is time to do it.

See the related post: Loosen Up to Sit Up, for more dynamic stretches.

When it comes to making a change for the positive, a lot of times we can get all fired up initially, only to come up against internal blocks or blindspots later. Or we can begin to allow external factors to drag us back down into negativity. The important thing to know about this type of work, is that you decide to do it daily.

Becoming Complaint-Free is both a practice and a process. There is no arrival. That may seem faintly discouraging, until you flip it on its head. That means there is no failure, either. We do this work because of who we are becoming in the process, not because of where we end up. So if you slip up, forgive yourself and move on. Just know that every time you succeed in not complaining, you are training yourself to look for solutions within, and to find your own power. And, this is one more step towards becoming who you want to be.

One reader said, “I have slowly started NOTICING when I am griping and whining.” Yes! This is the first step. Note that at this stage, when you catch yourself in the act, you can “save” a complaint and turn it around. You do this by quickly adding the word “AND” and challenging yourself to come up with a solution. For example, “Argh, all these pony riders milling about the ring during my ride are so annoying” becomes “Argh, all these pony riders milling about the ring during my ride are so annoying AND this is a really good opportunity for my horse and I to practice not getting distracted in a busy warm-up ring before show season.”

Complaining should not be confused with informing someone of a mistake so that it can be put right, and not complaining shouldn’t be confused with putting up with bad quality or bad behaviour. My mantra is, “I make requests rather than complaints.” One feels totally different than the other in how it affects your energy and your outlook, and you will know the difference when you are honest with yourself.

It is possible to make a lot of progress in becoming Complaint-Free in some parts of your life, but still be stuck in others. Remember, this is a process! In the article Here’s a Challenge for You: Go Complaint-Free!, I wrote about how one of my horses so vividly taught me the importance of keeping my focus on the solution, not the problem, in my riding and training. What I learned from her was to always calmly keep asking for what I wanted, and not take problems personally.

But still, long after I had internalized this lesson, I found myself working through an issue with whining and self-criticism, this time in relation to the business side of my horse activities. The following method was helpful to me in first becoming conscious of my blindspot, and then to take full responsibilty for taking positive action in spite of the external factors.

This method was to ask myself one simple question:

How does this serve me?

— or —

What do I get out of this?

In other words, if you are having a hard time letting go of complaining or negativity, ask yourself “What do I get out of complaining?” or “How does complaining serve me?”

I asked myself this question when I was working through the following issue, and the answer kind of surprised me, and really changed everything.

What I would do is whine that it was so difficult for me to compete in the horse business against other horse sellers who would represent their horses to be so much MORE than they really were (more trained, more reliable, more accomplished, more mileage, more highly ranked, more everything). I on the other hand would always insist on sticking to the facts, for example not calling a horse a “Second Level horse” until he had actually shown Second Level at a recognized show and achieved respectable scores. I felt I was at a big disadvantage against sellers who would market a horse as a “Second Level horse” when he had done a few of the movements a few years ago, and stood in the paddock since then.

I would put a lot of consideration into listening to a potential buyer’s needs and temperament, and recommend a horse I thought would be their best match, only to lose out to another seller who would tell the buyer almost anything and everything in order to get the sale. I would then whine that it was impossible for me to compete with a seller whose idea of “the right person for this particular horse” was the person who could write the check.

I would complain that marketing was slimy and pushy, and this let me feel somehow noble and above the fray. I had no shortage of people who would commiserate with me and share my view, and no shortage of evidence apparent in the marketplace. Around this time, Seth Godin released his book All Marketers are Liars, just one more piece of evidence of my belief system! Then I would criticize myself, saying “I guess I am just not cut out for this business”.

But when I asked myself the question, “So, what am I getting out of my whining that It’s impossible to be true to myself and at the same time be successful in the horse business“, the answer was sobering. It was that I never had to take responsiblity for my success, or take action to make it happen. I could blame everyone out there for it not being possible to make a living in the horse business. By making it their fault, I didn’t have to stretch myself, figure things out, and grow. Well, that was an embarrassing realization, which profoundly changed me. Once I saw that I actually got something out of my whining and self-criticism, that being the permission to stay stuck, I realized that only I could get myself un-stuck.

Nowadays, my whole viewpoint of competition in the marketplace has totally changed. In fact, I no longer believe in competition OR the marketplace, but instead that every one of us is here to serve the people we are best suited to serve. And that marketing is simply telling our own particular story so that the people we are meant to serve can find us. Interestingly enough, Seth Godin’s book was recently re-released with a new title, All Marketers Tell Stories.

You know, some of this inner work can be so challenging at times that it feels almost physical. But, it is SO worth it. Giving up whining was a big step in changing my beliefs, and showing me that I could stay true to myself, authentic in my marketing, AND be successful in business.

By choosing to believe that we have control over our thoughts, we can see profound impacts our lives. I am glad I made that choice. What about you?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

One of the biggest challenges of riding a good half halt is getting the timing right. This is especially true if you are riding on your own and don’t have someone there to remind you to release immediately after the half halt.

We all know that the release is every bit as important as every other part of the half halt, but sometimes when we’re alone and not getting the feeling, we can suddenly realize “OMG, I’m holding too much and not letting go.” Only by letting go do we allow the half halt to do its magic. If you are getting a heavy, leaning, or pulling feeling in your hand, ask yourself honestly, am I releasing quickly enough?

A trick I use to help me to remember to release quickly, is to never think of a half-halt as a single entity (which I can get stuck in and hold too long) but rather always think of a series of half halts: small-medium-large. I call it ordering my half halts at McDonald’s. If you do a small-medium-large series of half halts, you remember to release right away because you need to, as another half halt is immediately pending.

Over time, by ordering them small-medium-large, the horse begins to anticipate, OK that was small, I better get rebalanced because otherwise medium and large are coming. When you the rider feel that rebalancing, then you don’t need to continue with the whole series but can stop after small or medium. Now you are getting the immediate response you want to your quick light half halt which you have quickly released.

The other trick I use on myself is to call them fractional halts instead of half halts. I ask myself, “Today, can I always do three fractional halts in the time in which I would normally do one half halt? Can I do four?” That would make them one-eighth halts, right? With fractional halts, once again I just can’t forget to release, and as a result I end up with very quick and light half halts where I am not holding and the horse is not leaning on me.

If your horse is still learning the idea of the half halt, or you have a horse that wants to evade the work by getting quick and running through your half halts, don’t resort to holding longer to get a point across. That will only make him stronger and heavier over time. Instead, use the walls of the school to help you teach him what you want.

For this exercise, in trot ride a small circle between 8 to 12 metres in diameter (depending on the level of training of the horse) at each letter on the long side. As you are approaching the wall or the fence of the school, apply your series of small-medium-large half halts or fractional halts to ask for a walk transition, and if necessary steer him with your seat and legs directly towards the wall. The wall will naturally cause him to slow down, transferring his weight back onto his hind end, and he will come back to walk without you holding or pulling. Praise him, trot on, and repeat at each letter. The wall of the school will assist in creating the reaction you want, your praise will motivate him, and your concurrently applied correct aids will teach him that this is how you will ask for it.

As trainers we have to model for our horses how we want them to be. These techniques can help you to remember to be light, quick, and quick-to-release in your aids, so your horse can be likewise in his reactions.