Good communication isn’t just what is said, more importantly it is what the other party hears, comprehends and feels.
One of the best ways to create a base of communication as to where the horse’s feet are, is to pay attention to how the saddle is moving on the horse’s body. Recognizing these saddle movements lends to learning how to influence the horse’s body. . . . and how to influence the horse’s mind and his feet.
Whether you are riding bareback or in a saddle, these gyrations of the saddle received by the rider are from the horse’s locomotion and the swinging of his ribcage.
Linking leg aids with these movements becomes a language. Order of focus on these timings creates patterns the horses recognizes as well.
I remember one of my first dressage lessons with an instructor from the Spanish Riding School. He told me that shoulder-in was ridden when the inner knee dropped down and that haunches -in was asked for when the outer knee dropped down. This was simple for me to feel due to having ridden a lot of years bareback. Often times when in a saddle, riders block their joints from being a part of the ribcage movements, and thus need some lunge work to learn how to find their balance, while at the same time, keep their stirrups while the ankles remain soft. It is necessary to go with the movement with our joints below the waist, while at the same time maintain the control of the stirrups. Besides the saddle movement there are rein and torso strategies that influence and lead the horse to mirror you.
Having a system based on the movement received from the horse’s locomotion helps us not interfere with the life of the horse’s feet. Life is allowing. And then next we can rebalance that life, a way to modify the life, without risk of squelching it.
I like the softness of the Swift method for it starts with allowing our own energy and that of the horse’s to meld. Getting out of the trap of “trying too hard” allows the horse to want to swing the hind legs further under us. Allowing a horse to work under us and free up “like parts” should all be a part of warmup and then through the engineering of our equitation we can ask the horse to rebalance.
I remember Klimke directing his FEI students to allow the horses to move naturally in the first part of warmup. And I remember how he liked Sally Swift. I also remember people wanting to know what kind of saddle I was using when I rode for Sally. . .Several weeks later I rode with Sandy Phillips Pfleuger and both she and her husband rode my TB-Hanoverian cross Anser. They liked what they felt. I got invited to England to come ride Marco Polo, Sandy’s 84 Olympic horse. And of course I felt I was too poor to swing it.. …….
It is through the compliments of trainers that have ridden my horses that I feel compelled to share some of my experience and what I was doing at the time.
Til later, CeeCee
