Question:

“On the stop does the original feel come from breathing or your core? ~ via message Curtis

Answer from Martin:

Curtis,

First of all, we may need to think more about our breathing, our core, where our eyes are looking, and such before we can realize what I’m talking about when I say how much the horse feels from us. All of those things radiate through our body and I believe thats what the horse feels and responds to.

If you ride your horse to the jump and you look down at the jump, your horse stops, because your thoughts did not go beyond the jump. If you are riding your horse in a reining pattern and you make your run down and anticipate the stop, so will your horse and you won’t get a nice sliding stop. If you’re riding a bucking horse and you look down at the ground, that’s why you’re going to land.

So in these examples what is it that the horse is feeling? I don’t know that I can say for sure, but whatever it is is what separates the top riders from the amateurs.

For the horses, it’s what happened before what happened happens. The examples I talk about with the pictures in the clinic last night were illustrations of what can come from the horse. We don’t need to sensitize the horse they come to us with this. What we need to be careful of is not to desensitize them by riding like a sack of potatoes, or mauling away their awareness as foals. They are a prey animal they see us as a predator, be careful convincing them otherwise.

They can be trained to have the sensitive of your couch, and they may be safer for the amateur equestrian, until the horse panics and freight trains them. Good luck trying to operate off of feel after you get that developed.

Again my mission is to help the person rise to the horses awareness, instead of bringing the horse down to the persons awareness. They are much easier to share new ideas with when we understand how they can operate.

Thank you for your question.
Martin Black

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