Empowered Horses HORSES For LIFE Magazine On the Art of Moving in a Circle The Horse A Creature of Movement Movement is the horse s element. Barely born, he is already on his legs practicing the primary art of horses moving. His four feet are his priceless treasure. If he knows how to use them cleverly and safely he can, light-footedly, escape all dangers. Developing security in movement is his life s mission. Learn to place your legs correctly whispers his inner voice. You can see your two forelegs, but you must learn to feel your hind feet. The inner voice is ever more urgent: Learn to walk! Learn to run! Learn to feel! The little horse grows, becomes bigger, heavier He must always learn anew to adapt his movement to his changing body if he does not want to become clumsy and awkward. Movement is the element of horses. Horses dance, mate, rejoice, and mourn with their bodies.
Their spirit finds expression in movement. Movement is the culture, the music, the language, the life of horses. How a horse feels is how he moves, and how he moves is how he feels. What Interests a Horse? If we invite a horse to do something with us, he will soon pose the question, Why, for what purpose, am I doing this? Certainly we can give treats or praise or put some kind of reward in view., a horse is not like a dog who becomes wildly enthusiastic when he can satisfy his master. The horse will ask himself why we want this particular thing from him, and we should have an answer. Horses are different--and what makes a horse happy is also different.... What interests a horse? What can I do that creates an advantage, a benefit for my horse--a benefit he would not have if he was alone and master of himself? Of course, I can lock my horse up for hours, days, or years so that he is overjoyed when he is actually allowed to move around a little bit. Movement is a basic need of horses, and if it is withheld, an emergency situation is created, similar to what would happen if we withheld food or water. The horse s urge to move builds up, he becomes explosive and is no longer careful of himself. The oppressive desolation of being confined is, in the long run, worse than the stress of riding. That is why horses kept in boxes or even tied in straight stalls are more grateful to be worked than horses living in a herd on pasture. The more the everyday life circumstances of a horse are improved, the less likely he is to unconditionally go along with whatever we have in mind. So, if a horse has sufficient opportunity to move, if he can run and play at will then what?
This was once Max, going around a turn like a freighter overloaded in front. Such uneven loading during turns is very hard on the forelegs because of the sideways torque.. Movement is so important to horses, such a central focus of living, that they interest themselves in it all their lives. More precisely, the quality of movement interests them. They are always ready to find new ways to improve it.
This was once Passaro, the way he moved when we had been working together for several months. He is no longer fighting everything, nor is he tearing down the arena fencing anymore. Accordingly, the tension in his body has decreased. When it increases, he still explodes, and he really does not want to do that anymore. For a long time Passaro just let himself fall on the forehand, lengthening and stretching the muscles that had hardened through tight muscles over the years. His weight is on his shoulders. This photo shows Passaro three years before the picture-perfect, deeply sitting piaffe in the photo on page 114 [AL].
The Transformation of Horses When the relationship with human beings becomes helpful to horses, they can completely transform themselves during the course of work.... It is in a horse s nature to concern himself with the quality of his movement and to try to perfect it throughout his life. Kim, the Haflinger whose muscles were so tight he could barely move from the spot even when he wanted to was offered a wide selection of exercises to choose from. The ones he preferred were endless voltes and a lot of shoulder-in. Through these exercises he alternately stretched both sides of his body so that he could then bring his hind legs further underneath himself. For the first time he got a sense of the power dormant within him. With Passaro, on the other hand, a more therapeutic intervention was required. He needed a framework in which his aggressive outbursts were not blocked or further inflamed, and which gave him such a sense of security that he simply did not need the outbursts anymore. Because everything was allowed, he did not need to fight against anything. Then he worked for a long time with a very slack body tone, letting himself fall on the forehand as he dissolved tensions he had held for years. Often he slouched occasionally also with a hanging lower lip round and round the arena, looking outwardly very lazy, but inwardly in deep concentration and always ready to instantly attack if anything crossed him (for example, if he felt disturbed by a dopey expression on an onlooker s face)..... Horses are highly specialized creatures of movement. But it is precisely because they were created for movement that horses are susceptible to strains and injuries, and very disturbed by restriction of movement. A horse that moves badly or with difficulty is not comfortable in his own skin. Quotation Classical horsemanship flourishes only where the human being sees in the horse an equal. G. E. Löhneysen 1609 The Problem with Training
Having newly entered this world, a horse must maintain his balance and learn to walk, or he will not be able to take one sip of his mother s milk, and he will not survive for even one day. He does nothing in his early time as a foal but practice moving, again and again, at all speeds, under all circumstances. He lets no opportunity to develop his feel for movement, in every conceivable aspect, go by unused. This is necessary because he has an ever heavier body to balance high up off the ground on comparatively thin limbs, and as he grows, his balance changes constantly. His body weight increases nearly tenfold, his proportions shift continually. Sometimes the forelegs grow more rapidly, sometimes the hind legs. It is devastating when young horses are kept in stalls before they are fully grown. No wonder that, confined in such a small space, they cannot develop their feel for movement. Even if they were permitted to run and play as youngsters, their grown-up bodies are heavy and plump compared to then. Early riding work will drive whatever feel they developed as foals right out of them. No more carefree play, no experimenting with movement and experiences. Instead, there is external control and pressure to perform, and a person on his back who does not ask and does not care about the horse s feel for his body, but rather demands obedience. The person who studies the horse and his movement will be confronted with highly complex interconnections of which we, as human beings, have barely any knowledge. A horse moves more beautifully without a human on his back. The demands are high on a trainer who seeks to change a horse s movement for the better. On the other hand, disrupting a horse s movement is easy. The mechanical improvement of a horse s movement is a hopeless undertaking, a task I can never fulfill. I need constant advice, corrections, directions, and confirmation that I am still on the right path. But, I am not alone in this undertaking. My horse is with me. And I am overjoyed that I can ask him, What can I do, that will do you good? Which movement is better for you? How does that feel? An independent horse sets a high standard for his human working partner because all the work will be measured by how helpful and useful its day-to-day effects are to the horse. Our horse expresses himself openly. He can say, No, not like that! He shows us clearly where we stand we can no longer fool ourselves. But, that helps us too. It is precisely this clarity that brings us onto the right path. A communicative horse like this is an irreplaceable and incorruptible teacher... How Do I Actually Move?... He who finds the right spot can lift the world off its axis. It is not just a matter of deploying strength but how I lift or carry something, where I lever and push that determines the amplitude of its movement. It is not enough simply to exert oneself--moving something large and heavy requires finding the right spot. Otherwise I just squander my energy, twist and strain my body,
and perhaps even injure myself. To cause something heavy to become light and mobile we must go with the centers of gravity our own and that of the other and connect them both in the flow of directed energy. On the Balance of the Body Someone who wants to keep his spine healthy lifts and carries from a point as close as possible to his body s center of gravity. Someone who has had problems with his knees will be careful not to place his legs at too much of an angle or too far from his center of gravity. He senses immediately how dangerous it can be when the joints are overburdened by muscle leverage placed at the wrong spot. Ouch! Maybe you too have had to struggle with such problems. That can now help you to understand the particularities of horses, because all these problems of center of gravity and balance, direction of movement and pushing power, are even greater for a horse. His body s center of gravity is much higher, his belly is significantly heavier, and the supports, his legs, which must carry everything, consist almost solely of thin bones, tendons, and ligaments, which means they are not very flexible. And finally, a horse often moves very fast. How he places his legs is significant for a horse, too. The quality and economy of his movement, the health of his body versus its premature wearing out, depend upon him placing his hooves on exactly the right spot. If the horse always finds this spot, his movement will be light and effortless. He will have more energy because his strength is not being squandered in a struggle with his own body weight. He can play with gravity springing, leaping, and floating on air. If a horse does not know this spot perhaps because he was never able to experience it or because his feel for his body was damaged his movement will be rough, inefficient, clumsy, and result in a great deal of wear and tear. No wonder that at some point moving will no longer be a pleasure. Moving like that is just a burden. Together with our horses we work to find this magic spot, the point of power the right point relative to the body for precisely this movement, for precisely this body in this particular position. If we are successful and we find this spot, we can, together, lift the world off its axis. The horse s enormous weight hardly matters anymore, nor does the added weight of a rider. Finding the magic spot--that is the secret of horsemanship; that is the secret of dancing horses.
How do you deal with the bend? This seemingly harmless question separates the wheat from the chaff in the world of horsemanship. The young Connemara mare, Hazel, is shown here at the beginning of her training. Although she, too, is turning on her inside foreleg as Max was on page 116 [AL], Hazel is also trying to bring her hindquarters along. To do that, she stretches her inner hind leg far underneath her body. Although this makes the turn somewhat easier, her body as a whole is leaning at an angle, like a motorcycle does when its rider leans in around a curve. In this position, a horse could easily fall and his legs are put under great stress.
In this photo, Hazel is no longer making the turn like a motorcycle, but rather, more like an articulated truck: she is turning by bending the middle of her body to a greater degree. In both these ways of dealing with the bend, the axis of Hazel s turn is just behind her left shoulder, the place where her natural center of gravity is. Behind us, Joy is waiting her turn. She will soon show us how she deals with the bend. The Leaping-Off Point What horseman does not want to give his horse wings so that his movement is light and flowing? But today, the place where many riders are seeking the point of lightness in the horse s mouth
is surely where it is not! The mouth is never the point of lightness! To have it so, the horse would need to do a headstand.. The Horse in the Turn Every day countless horses go round and round in circles: in riding arenas, round pens, longeing circles, making large circles, voltes, and always the corners. What actually takes place when a horse turns, changes direction? How does he feel as he does it? How does it feel to move with four legs on a curved line? It seems so matter of fact because in our restricted world a horse must constantly go around a bend. But it is not so! Let us make a few rounds with the horses so that we can better understand it. Today, in the custody of human beings, the horse moves only from corner to corner, but he is an animal made to move on long, straight, level stretches. Is every turn, therefore, potentially dangerous to a moving horse? Fundamentally, yes but there are exceptions:.
Joy s Path to the Bend Part 1 Joy is more of a stretched horse with the long lines desirable in a broodmare. On her own, she moves through a turn like a ship, and on her forehand. Here we are trying to shift the turning point of the movement somewhat further back, to where the rider s leg is. Even if a horse is still moving like a wheelbarrow, the reins should not turn him.
The turn should happen from behind! Here, the inside rein is hanging slack while the outside one is serving to create a boundary to help her bring that outside shoulder along in the turn, rather than getting it stuck in place. On Bending and Breaking A horse that takes more weight onto his hindquarters becomes much more mobile and can easily change direction. This shift of balance, however, requires great effort, just as if a person were to move with deeply bent knees. Such an expenditure of energy would, of course, be the last thing on a horse s mind when he is stressed and insecure during work. But, as long as he supports the
majority of his weight on his forehand and occasionally pushes from behind, circles and turns are a danger to his legs. If you love your young horse, therefore, you should avoid longeing him at the beginning of training to protect him from injury. Most young horses, because of their balance, are not able to turn safely with a rider on their back. Nevertheless, turning is what is practiced over and over again in order to bend the horse. But a horse does not become more supple through forced bending or by turns executed when he is stiff. On the contrary! In fact, when moving through turns in this manner becomes habitual, the horse will become increasingly stiffer and heavier, and his movement progressively deteriorates as he compensates and tries to protect himself from injury. The wheelbarrow swings around the turn with the weight in front, the hindquarters drift to the outside and the very clever rider presses his horse into the corner --- into bending and breaking! The more on his forehand a horse is when the rider does this the greater the likelihood of him being damaged by these forceful methods.... The horse s body cannot be forcefully bent by human hands: broken, yes; bent, no. A horse must learn for himself how to arrange his body in this position. Whoever seeks to produce bend by mechanical means will never know the real thing. It is shocking that today we hardly ever see a horse that can move correctly through the curve... When pressure comes from the outside, the most unstable areas will yield to it. These areas will break or kink, so to speak. As with humans, the horse s most susceptible areas of the spine are in the neck and the lumbar region. The area around the ribs, on the other hand, is stiffer and is therefore more resistant to external pressure....
Kim on the Subject of Bending Three Positions In the first photo, Kim is turning to the right in his customary manner. He turns his head and neck in the desired direction, but the rest of his body does not come along. To stabilize the weight that has been shifted as a result of breaking his neck in that one spot, Kim displaces his left foreleg to the outside.
At the time these photos were taken, Kim had been working on himself for nearly a year and he knew quite a bit about bending at least when he was reminded. My whip in the second and third photos serves that purpose, just as the rider s leg would under saddle. In the second photo Kim s body is no longer broken but rather, bent. But there is still too much bend in front; it is not evenly distributed along his whole body. Kim s attention at that moment is directed primarily to the side and less toward his hindquarters, a situation that changes when Passaro comes to assist. Now Kim is harmoniously, evenly bent along the whole length of his spine. He no longer needs an outlying foot behind to balance himself. His legs are now together and under his body. Notice that as he is more correctly bent behind, his head and neck straighten out a bit and become more stable. In other words, the more the horse bends throughout his body, the less he needs to break his neck.
Most horses are steered into a turn with reins. Why do horses never learn the desired bend this way? available at www.horseandriderbooks.com. VOLUME 46 HORSES For LIFE Magazine VOLUME 46 HORSES For LIFE Magazine [ Back ]
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