In doing Yoga with hubby, I’ve noticed that men, especially tall men, are generally very stiff and inflexible in the back of the legs. You need to adapt and take it slower into the stretch. Trying to get the total stretch might just hurt you so work into it and adapt with a strap or block.

Yoga is not a contest. Just do what you can and take note of how you are personally improving. There are ways to adapt with straps and blocks so check out some books or classes for assistance.

Note which side of your body is stiffer then the other. This will effect your riding (i.e. most commonly the horse has a problem taking a circle on your stiffer side – which is the stronger side with contracted muscles that don’t fully release).

Try to hold a pose for 3 full minutes. Holding into the stretch gives you the most power of the stretch. Breathing into the deepened stretch is the beginning of meditation and mindfulness.

Breath while holding the stretch. This also translates into riding where we forget to breath while concentrating.

Once you are familiar with Yoga and the poses you feel most comfortable doing, you can do a couple before riding as opposed to a full routine. Although, of course, doing a full routine a few times a week can continue your improvement

Riders have some general problems that are common:

1.) Stiff and locking hips

Yoga Jason Crandell – Hip Openers toward Lotus

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2.) Stiff and rigid back

3.) Crumpled upper body position

Yoga Jason Crandell – Jason Crandell: Shoulder Sequence

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I use a clicker because I want to shape the movement. JMO but the clicker really helps in getting the horse and you on the same page faster then if you do a “good boy” or a pat or even a food reward without the clicker. The click is given at the moment the desired behavior is given by the horse so it serves as a marker.

In this video, BigT already knows voice commands. I am blending my voice with certain body movements so eventually he will respond to the physical cue without the voice. Horses pick up on this much quicker then you think! In the video, several times BigT started the trot just from me lifting my leg.

This was some video we took last year. Unfortunately, the long winter shadows impair some of the view, but I think it still gives the basic idea and the view of what we are doing.

Stage One: Warmup

Warm the horse up with the voice command to walk. Go both directions. Find out if he is responding to your verbal cue to whoa. Add in some trot. At this stage you do not want your horse rushing about – getting him to look to you and paying attention is far more important.

Stage Two: Adding physical cues

To trot, lift your leg higher and in a more animated position. Body is upright. Click and reward when your horse responds. Eventually you will fade out the verbal cue but for now link the voice which your horse is probably familiar with, with the body cue you select. Always use the same body cue for the same command.

To slow, you will bring your knees down like you are about to kneel. The bellybutton is thrusted forward, the back tall.

Your horse will most likely slow, drop from trot to walk, or maybe even stop. In the beginning, reward for any slowing. Eventually, you will remove the stopping and even the dropping out of gait.

Stage Three: Adding a GO!

Once your horse is slowing, add a GO! before he breaks down from the desired gait (in this video it is working in trot, though the same applies to canter work). We are now removing the walk from the trot – and the halting.

Things to see in this video:

In the slo-mo portion of the video, note the huge increase in stride. The hindleg now has an overstride, especially at video marker – 4:50.

After the slow-go command, the trot becomes more rhythmatic (you can hear the hoofbeats in some of it)

The head relaxes and is neither held too high or too low. However, he does push his nose to the outside of the circle and we will correct in a later video.

The back rises but it is very subtle. You may find it impossible to see the back change unless you have an educated eye or are using videotape.

The horse is not rushing about – the work is controlled and afterwards, though he has flared nostrils, he is not out of breath, no pink in his nostrils and neither is he lathered.

You are looking for the horse to be paying attention to you – rushing about and looking to the outside and not obeying your commands means your horse is too distracted. Take a step back in the process and look for connection before you ask for improvements.

If you were riding and turning a horse, you would simply want to see the horses’ inside eye during the turn. That is enough bend for your average 20 or 15 m circle turn.

When you overbend you are causing several problems to occur:

1.) makes the horse go crooked – if looking from above the bend comes from the poll and not the length of the spine. It’s not surprising that horses rode this way become sore in the poll;

2.) puts the horse on the forehand – because this turn puts the horse out of balance, the weight is thrown onto the front. The majority of western horses I’ve seen are on the forehand as well as hunters;

3.) simply overkill – you are teaching the horse that he must have over-the-top requests before responding. I would rather teach the horse to respond to light and small requests for movement.

You will also see, when given the aid to turn, that these horses move away sideways – escaping in the outside shoulder and not using their spine or hindquarters to generate the pivot.

I deliberately put Z in a bad position during turning to take these photos:

In the above photo, too much force is given, too quickly on the side rein. This pulls the horses’ head to the side, but the horse is not providing a bend throughout the body for a proper turn.

As a rough guide, you want the nose over the chest. The red bars show how far we are from this ideal. The horse is clearly only turning it’s head – not it’s body.

You will often hear someone say, “the horse has popped his shoulder on the turn” or he is “escaping in the outside shoulder.” In the above photo, the darkened area shows how the shoulder is outside the bend because the turn is being made out of balance.

A bad turn also results in the horse being heavy on the forehand. In the above photo, Z is landing heavy on her inside front leg. If you were riding, you might feel your inside leg “falling to the ground” or have the feeling you were leaning into the turn.

On the Riders’ part:

1.) We are Toolmakers and our hands are intergral to how we communicate, work and play. We are hand-dominant.

2.) We mistakenly believe we can lead our horses about by their heads. Though this works most of the time we have all had the experience of the horse who refuses to go forward no matter how much we pull on the leadrope and the only way to get them forward is to get the hindlegs going.

3.) Too many riding instructors introduce us to riding by having us either freeze our hands in one position and/or never teaching the rider how to ride off the seat and balance. As riders progress the bad “habit” instilled by those early instructions contine to haunt us.

4.) We use our hands for balance. When we fall – we throw out our hands and unfortunately, too many riders use their reins to keep their “balance” by sawing the up and down when posting, or pulling back when falling down in the post etc…

On the Horses’ part:

1.) Just like people, too many horses have not been taught how to properly balance their bodies with a rider. This produces horses that trip, stumble and move along at a “barely alive pace” pushing a peanut in front of their nose (aka Quarter Horses – and though it’s been banned, continues to place in the ribbons by AQHA judges – seen it so don’t even bother posting otherwise in this blog).

2.) Fad over Function. Western Pleasure horses or Hunter Jumper breed shows all produce the same stumbling, barely awake, tripping horses with gaits that are so poor that one companion once asked me if the horses in the ring were CRIPPLED!

3.) Going with headset over function. Again, putting the horses’ head into a certain position does not correct the problem in the engine (the hindquarters and back). If you improve the engine FIRST, you will find the head naturally falls into the place, the horse needs it to be in order to be at his best.

4.) Physical issues, pain at the poll, pain in the mouth, sore withers, teeth, all contribute to poor head carriage.

It may seem backwards but the hindquarters must be worked on first, before the head will fall into the place it needs to be. For an example of how this works, see the video post about being behind the bit and it’s corrections.

Chunk it down: an idea from TTeam (Linda Tellington-Jones), though it just makes common sense. This is one of the biggest reasons I spent so much time on the leading exercises and will be using a sidepull before (or if) I move onward with a traditional bridle with bit.

In working with different horses, of varying ages and most of all temperments, I’ve found that while Horse A may let you touch him all over his body and saddle him up on Day 1, Horse B will take two weeks before he is comfortable with the saddle being raised over his back. These variations are not noticeable when you watch video or see photos.

If you find your horse not calmly accepting what you are doing, chunk it down and take it slower. The more complex the end goal is (such as riding), the more it needs to be divided into smaller bits.

Multiple Applications vs. Linear Progression: Instead of teaching the horse Exercise A and then waiting until they get it before moving onwards, I am often doing various, sometimes related, sometimes not, exercises. A child doesn’t learn all of his multiplication tables before getting homework about geometry.

I prefer this as it gets more done and keeps the work interesting to the horse and myself (we all get bored!). This concept can be confusing so let me explain further…

I’ve found training a horse to stand still is ESSENTIAL to almost all horse exercises but I can work on the horse standing still in many ways – standing still for fly spray, being tied, being bathed, being clipped, being saddled, being sacked out etc…

While standing still is essential to these activities, you will find a horse may stand still for grooming but move during fly spray; may stand still for being saddled but not for being bathed. However, as all of these activities reinforce standing still, the horse improves on standing still when the training throughout is done consistently.

Steps Accomplished before Increasing Complexity: OTOH, I think we all can agree that standing still, accepting a saddle, accepting weight on the back, etc… must be in place before the horse is mounted by a rider. In this exercise, certain criteria must be meet before the intensity/complexity of the exercise is increased.

JMO but I believe horses become confused more easily then we think. While we are gripping about our stubborn horse, did we really give that horse enough time to process and know what we were asking? Generally, not.

Wait for it: the videotaping has really helped me in understanding that I need to wait for my horse to give me what I want. I remember thinking “boy, this horse is taking forever to do this!” and then when I watched the video, real time was only 3 minutes! It was a huge wake up call!

Let the Horse Buy-in: Whenever you can, provide opportunities for your horse to buy into what you want him to do. Buy-in means the horse makes a choice to participate. Here are some examples:

* instead of walking out to get my horse, I wait for the horse to approach and walk to me.

* instead of touching the horse with the clippers, I put the clippers in front of the nose and let the horse decide when he is going to touch them.

While it takes longer in the beginning (see “wait for it”) for the horse to buy-in, the learning curve dramatically increases over the long run. They are even more eager the next time to participate.

For the horse with abuse issues, this builds trust; for the horse like ZZ who is willful and hardheaded you may need to limit what you are willing to wait for

Resistance has a root: If a horse is not doing what you ask a.) does he know what you want? and b.) physically is he capable of doing what you want? I have found horses, as a whole, a pretty willing and a “let’s get along” kinda animal.

I have found pain to be a bigger reason then stubborness: bits put in wrong, saddles that didn’t fit, hoof abcessing, twisted bridle leather, and even a mild colic that had gone unrecognized by her rider. Always check for pain before jumping to conclusions.

It always amazes me when people brush me off and say “oh Bucky doesn’t have a back issue” and then months later I hear that when the vet finally did come out, that Bucky had such a sore back that a light stroke down it, caused him to drop three inches on his topline.

I Don’t Wanna: Yes, it does get to a point that the horse may simply refuse to do what you want. If there is no pain preventing the horse - and the horse knows what you want – you have two choices: 1.) Carrot (what can I give the horse to convince him?) and 2.) Stick (how will I punish the horse because he hasn’t done what I wanted?).

Use the Carrot 95 percent of the time. Studies have shown that positive reinforcement gets much better results then negative ones. If my horse refuses to follow me, I hold a carrot until he comes forward, and while walking beside me I let him have a bite of the carrot.

This may be a literal interpretation of using a positive reward but others are available (i.e. verbal praise, release from work, scratching a favorite place etc…).

For the horse to link behavior to reward, the reward must swiftly follow the desired behavior. For example, if you have been working on canter departs all month and he finally takes one smoothly, get off, untack and let your horse go back to his buddies.

The Stick: I do use negative reinforcement which may make me a boogie man in the eyes of my fellow positive reinforcement trainers. However, a horse is a large animal with the ability to kill me in a heartbeat (though hopefully not the desire). I will enforce my safety with whatever means is at hand whether that be a rope or a whip.

The older, more well-trained horse, or the horses’ temperment, are also factors in using a whip. For example, a whip has been helpful in re-training the horse who is reluctant to move out - in his former life as a schoolhorse he was expected to be quiet and slow; now he is expected to pick it up a bit more. Here one or two taps of a whip, and your problem will quickly be solved (as long as the horse does not return to schoolhorse work).

OTOH, a rescue or abused horse would find a whip too much mental pressure and may react negatively. You would actually go backwards in your training using a whip with such a horse as it would reinforce the lack of trust in humans the horse already possesses due to it’s history. 

Just like the carrot, punishment must follow swiftly after the behavior. In addition, the person must not be in a state of frustration, upset, or anger when it is given as the fairness of it used (in application or duration) would be questionable.

I have also found that punishment should be BRIEF… take whatever you think is appropriate and half it. Next time, half it again, etc… Horses are sensitive and they don’t need as much as we think they do to get the point across.

PS before using a whip, please see this post…

This blog post is just a loose collection of thoughts of how I personally train. Hopefully, it gives you ideas on how to work with your own horse.