Newsletter: January 2006
Copyright Alexandra Kurland
These posts were originally posted to "the_click_that_teaches" list, an on-line study group for the riding book.
This section includes the following posts:
"The Click That Teaches: Riding Book Study Group:
Welcome Everyone!"
"Let's get Started: Training Journals"
"Journal Experiment"
"Single-Rein Riding" by Katie Bartlett
"Single-Rein Riding" by Alexandra Kurland
Jan. 2006
I just started an on-line study group for the new book: "The Click That Teaches: Riding with the Clicker". I set it up as a yahoo email discussion list. If you order the book through my web site, you'll receive an invitation to join. I realize that not everyone has time to keep up with yet another email group, so I'll be posting interesting discussions both here, and in the frequently asked questions section.
For starters, let me share with you the first couple of posts I sent to the list.
The Click That Teaches: Riding Book Study Group:
Welcome Everyone!
Date: January 15, 2006
I was just reading through the first batch of email introductions people have sent in. Wow! We have quite a group! When I published my first book, "Clicker Training for your Horse" I thought of it as a "space beacon". It was like the messages NASA sends out into space. "We're here. Is anyone else out there?" The book was my way of saying: "I'm here. Is anyone else out there?" It turns out there are quite a number of clicker trainers out there, and now we're here, on this list where we can talk with one another. What fun!
Most of you are also on the Clickryder list. That list has served well as a meeting place for clicker trainers, and I still view it as the primary list for clicker training. It plays such an important role, especially in the support it gives to new clicker trainers. So why another list? Well, to be blunt I want to be able to talk about three-flip-three, hip-shoulder-shoulder and all the other exercises in the book without first having to explain what they are. Having written the book once, I don't want to have to write it again.
I think we will all find that this is a very liberating list. We can assume that people have a basic understanding of clicker training and are actively using it. This is not a list for beginners. Clickryder is the starting point for that. If you're still just working through the foundation lessons, I would direct you to that list. it is the resource for that is best set-up to help you through the initial stages of clicker training. Clickryder has been in operation for years, and the people who post regularly know how to be effective on-
line coaches.
That's not to scare anyone away, or make you feel unwelcome. If you are new, by all means hang around. You'll catch up fast. But for the most part, it is safe to say that if you've made it to this list, you're a committed clicker trainer. None of us will need to be justifying our use of treats, or explaining our passion for clicker training. We can take that as a given.
You can also assume that people have a basic understanding of the lessons being discussed. You can refer to "The Why would you leave me game?" without first having to define it. I think that is going to free up the conversation considerably. We have people on this list who are brand new to the exercises in the book, and people who have used them for years. That creates a very stimulating mix. The books gives us a structure for the conversation. Who knows, we may be creating a work book for beginners out of the conversations we have here.
Primarily we're going to be looking the three phases of riding. Phase one is making sure that the horse you are sitting on is safe. Phase two is developing your horse's balance. That's the core of the riding book. Good balance gives you a horse that looks beautiful, feels great, and stays sound. Phase three involves incorporating that beautiful balance into the performance sports each of us is interested in. And under performance sport, I would include recreational trail riding, as well as all the competitive sports most of us would normally associate with that term.
All of you know me pretty well. You've read the books and through them you've met my horses. Some of you here on the list are old friends. And for those of you who I haven't yet met at clinics, thank you for sending in your introductions. It's a treat for me to learn a little about the people who are using the books.
Enough for now, except to say once again, welcome everyone.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
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From: Alexandra Kurland
Date: Tue Jan 17, 2006
Subject: Let's Get Started!
Another Welcome to everybody joining the list over the weekend. What a great group!!!!
Okay. Let's get started. I was thinking about this first post all day yesterday, scripting out what I was going to say, beginning with: where do we begin? I have no idea where everyone is with their riding, and in a group of this size, I imagine we're all over the map. So we could begin at the beginning of the riding book and work systematically through it. I thought about starting there. But then I was thinking about the lesson day I had Saturday with five members of our local clicker contingent. Julie Varley brought Jessica, her father's horse. This was my first training session with Jessica. She's a sixteen year old driving horse who belonged to a mutual friend of ours. Jessica is teaching Julie about driving, and Julie is teaching Jessica about riding. We started the day off with her in the "why would you leave me?" game, and turned up a couple of important details that were worth addressing.
It was one of those lessons where an outsider, someone who knows nothing about clicker training, might be thinking: "Is that all? Is that all you're going to do with that horse?"
One of the things we focused on was Jessica's expression. She was doing a lovely job. She was beautifully positioned, correctly bent, but she had such a grumpy look on her face. What was that about? So we shifted the emphasis of the lesson to "happy faces". Were the ears an artifact? Jessica is a good-natured horse. Julie isn't afraid of her, so the ears wouldn't have been instant red-flags saying "I'm about to bite! Watch out!" And horses often concentrate in these lessons, so the ears end up directed back. They're being clicked and reinforced for other criteria, and the ears back gets reinforced along with everything else, and the next thing you know you have a horse that looks like it's going to eat you!
That's one scenario. Another is Jessica hasn't fully sorted out the dance steps of lateral flexions and she feels crowded. Lateral work is by definition invasive of the horse's space. That's one of the reasons it is such a powerful training tool. We are stepping into the horse, asking the horse to stay attached to us, but to yield out of our path. Jessica came with some body issues. Julie has been teaching her how to soften and bend. It may be that her general stiffness makes it harder for her to find the flow of the exercise so she feels crowded. The pinned ears are her way of saying she needs space. That's important information. If that's the case, that's something that needs to be listened to and addressed. Here we would be looking not just at the horse, but at the mechanical skills of the handler. Lots of questions to look at there, and lots of places where the lesson can be chunked down.
So that's another scenario. A third might be that there is a physical problem that makes this lesson hard and uncomfortable for Jessica. The grumpy face is her way of saying she's in trouble, something is hurting. If that's the case, we definitely need to look at what is going on. That doesn't mean we back away from the exercise. It may be the perfect lesson to help release the tightness in her body. But it does mean we insert a great many more steps into the process. We back way up to find the place where she can work in comfort, and we pull out our "Sherlock Holmes hat" to track down the root cause of the discomfort. But first we need to find out if the ears are just an artifact that got shaped in by accident. And the "why would you leave me?" game is a great place to explore that question.
So we worked on "happy ears" and began to attach it to "why would you leave me?": a little detail, but oh, such an important a question.
After Jessica we worked three more horses in the "Why would you leave me?" exercise. These horses were all at different places in their training. Dolores and Cadberry used the lesson and made some interesting discoveries. Becky Jarvis and Mac used it. That was most interesting. Mac trailered in for the day. He's generally a very laid back, easy going horse, but he started the lesson clearly agitated, trumpeting to the resident horses, who were trumpeting back. Becky took him right to the circle of cones we had set out and started in on the exercise. And Mac settled. I just love the power of these tools.
It was only after the lesson that we realized why Mac had been so upset. The arena we were working in was set up with stalls down either side of it. Mac had been in a stall on the side with the general boarders. The resident clicker-trained horses belonging to Sandy who now manages the facility (yes, there is a boarding barn managed by a clicker trainer!!! Shall we all move!!) were on the opposite side. These horses had, until a couple of months ago, lived at the same barn Mac. They were turned out in adjoining paddocks. So of course he was excited. He knew his friends were somewhere close! It took the humans a while to figure this out and remember that this was even more of a reunion for Mac than it was for us. It certainly explained his very uncharacteristic agitation.
Becky isn't used to having to deal with an upset horse, so for a moment she felt quite rattled. When you just have one or two horses that you work with regularly, it's easy to forget the formation of your training. I remember working with a client who had reached a stage with his horse where everything was uniformly wonderful, that is until he took his horse to a show. He was nervous which made his horse nervous, and things started to fall apart. He needed head lowering and he needed it fast. I teach head lowering on a regular basis. The details of the lesson remain fresh for me, but it had probably been a couple of years since my client had had to use the "demand cue" aspect of head lowering. If he wanted his horse's head down, he raised his hand, and like magic, his horse's head was down. Except now the magic wasn't working, and he had forgotten not only how he had shaped the behavior, but even that he had shaped it. There were no steps to go back to.
These key lessons are so important. And they are important to keep fresh because like Becky, you never know when you are going to need them. That is why it is so useful to go to clinics and watch "stair steps" of horses. The horses who are just starting out in a lesson remind you of where you have been. And the horses who are further along tell you where you are going. And it is also why it is so important to keep training journals, which is what I really wanted to write about in this first post.
Training Journals
Training journals are so important. Another member of our group, Sandy showed off what she's been teaching her mare, Nikita. You know Nikita both from the videos and the riding book. She and Sandy are featured in the fourth video in their very first clicker training under saddle/single-rein riding lesson. What I don't tell you in the video is anything about Nikita's background. On the tape she looks like a pleasant, perfectly reasonable horse, but that's only because Sandy had already done a ton of work with her. Nikita is a big, blocky, powerful mare. Sandy got here from a local dealer who had given up trying to ride her. Nikita did it all: rearing, spinning, bucking, bolting. And with her power, once she exploded, there was no stopping her. So Sandy has done an extraordinary job with her. Nikita is a joy to be around now, and so gorgeous. When you turn all that power into partnership, you have a truly magnificent picture. And speaking of pictures, hers is one of my favorites in the riding book. She's the mare on page 41, standing so politely on grass, with Sandy about a horse's length away. And not only is she not eating the grass, she's posing beautifully.
So that's Nikita. Saturday Sandy was showing us her latest project, Spanish walk. She's been working on it all fall and Nikita now has a very impressive Spanish walk. On Saturday she was eager to show it off. Now I never know what to expect when someone says they've been working on Spanish walk. Sometimes you get "Spanish gesture". That's a good beginning. The horse knows how to lift one leg, or perhaps even has started to alternate legs, but hasn't yet figured out the walking part. Sometimes you get "Spanish trick". That's how I refer to it when the horse has been made to lift its front legs without any regard to balance.
I get asked a lot how you teach Spanish walk, and my answer is always the same, teach your horse the underlying balance which is the core of all the books and videos, and Spanish walk will be available to you. Nikita proved that point. She had a great Spanish walk. The gesture of her front legs will get higher over time, but all the important elements were there. It was a true walk, with the roundness of the topline preserved - so very difficult.
So, of course, the questions poured out of us - how did you teach that? It looked like pure magic. Where did it come from? Sandy had to think for a moment. How had she taught it?
It began in part with a lesson we did together last summer where we were capturing a slight hover of her front foot when Nikita walked. It was just a slight extra lift of her foot that popped out occasionally when Nikita was very engaged. As Sandy rode her, I clicked that momentary hover of her foot. That was the lesson.
Again it was one of those instances where someone who wasn't familiar with clicker training would be saying: "Is that it? Was that your lesson? You didn't even canter!" Well, yes that was the lesson. When you understand shaping, you know the powerful changes those little things can create. You can take that fleeting, barely noticeable extra lift of a front foot, and turn it into something truly wonderful, like Spanish walk. It doesn't happen overnight; It may takes months for the more polished behavior to emerge, but emerge it will, and, when it does, it truly does look like magic.
Sandy took that simple gesture and turned it into something quite beautiful. As I said to her, I've seen lots of Spanish walk. Some can only be described as "Spanish trick", and some I've seen has been truly beautiful. With one very notable exception, the very best Spanish walk I have seen, and the very best Spanish trot, have all come from clicker-trained horses. The shaping process creates the purest form of what, done well, is a very beautiful movement.
So how did she shape it. If she had kept a journal, she could have gone back and pulled out the critical steps: what worked the best?; what were the breakthroughs for Nikita?; when did she connect the dots and begin to produce a behavior that was recognizable to us as Spanish walk?
I have stacks of training journals. When I was writing the books, I fell out of the habit of keeping track of my training sessions. It was one of the many things that had to give way to get the books done, but I have recently picked up the habit again. And I am very glad I did. I've been doing some really fun liberty work with Robin. (Ilse, I saw on clickryder that you are interested in equine freesytle. I had to smile at that, because that's what I've been working on with Robin, and I am loving what we're doing together. It is so different from traditional liberty work, and so much prettier. We'll have some fun things to share at the Calgary clinic.)
I started with this current project with Robin just after Thanksgiving. Like Nikita's Spanish walk, it started out as a simple behavior, follow my target hand, and has now grown into an elaborate dance. I am so glad I kept notes because I didn't have a set course I was heading out on. Robin was leading this dance, and, as always, he has shown me another huge layer of training that is new territory for me. Without the journal I would not be as aware as I am of the key steps in the process. That's important for a lot of reasons. It's not just that it makes it easier to answer the question: how did you shape that? I need to remember those details for Robin - What was I thinking when I got this piece? How did I shape it? Robin remembers, and it matters to him that I do as well so I can be consistent.
Journals help us remember where we have been. They let us see progress in training. They help us unravel the puzzles our horses present. When Becky brings Mac back to the lesson day arena it will matter to him that she remembers that his friends live there. She'll be better prepared next time with a plan so Mac can visit with his friends in a way that satisfies his emotional needs without triggering any training problems.
And it will be important to Julie to keep track of Jessica's progress as they focus on "happy faces". A journal will help her answer the questions raised during Saturday's lesson. Are the pinned ears a training artifact or the sign of a physical problem? And down the road when Jessica is doing something that looks like pure magic and someone asks Julie "how did you train that?", she'll be able to look back in her journal and say: "oh, I just taught her to put her ears forward!"
"Homework"
So what does all this mean? As we head out together on this list, I would like everyone to keep a training journal. Now what do I mean by a training journal? The style is your choice. If you want to keep records of scientific data: number of trials, etc., that's fine. That's not what I do. I keep more of a diary style journal. My journals are not great reading. There's lots of gushing over how wonderful the horses are, lots of shorthand references that serve as personal memory joggers. These journals are not intended for other people to read. In fact they aren't really even intended for me to read again. It is the process of recording the sessions that is important. They are there to refer back to as needed. They certainly give me a sense of the time frames involved in various training projects. I know if I had not had the habit of keeping training records, I would never have been able to write the books.
The journaling process has also influenced the way I teach. I know that you can focus on a very small behavior, something that can seem trivial, such as a horse putting its ears forward. If you understand the process and follow through with it, you can turn that tiny behavior into the "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow". Always, each time. Trust the process, it works. That's what the horses teach us, and it is what the journals help to confirm.
So I'd like us all to keep a journal of some sort. Now this does not mean we are going to be sharing them here on this list. You can all breathe a great sigh of relief about that! For one thing, if we all shared our daily journal entries, this list would collapse under its own weight. We'd all be so busy reading each others notes, no one would have any time to train!
Journals usually aren't great literature. They aren't meant for reading. They are notes, memory joggers. But they do follow some rules. My rule way back at the beginning when I first started keeping track of training - and this was ages before I knew anything about clicker training - was that I couldn't do anything with my horses that I couldn't explain that night in the journal. I had to have a training reason for every action I took. That may not sound that significant, but it really is. It means that the entire time I was with my horses, there was the "journalist" sitting on my shoulder, watching and experiencing everything I did. I knew I couldn't just get frustrated and whack my horse for no reason, because that night I would have to explain the training logic behind that action. It's a great discipline, especially when you work by yourself.
I do all of my formal writing on a computer, but the training journal is still hand written. It is sitting to the right of my work space. Before I turn on the computer in the morning, I record the training sessions of the previous night. Some of you may prefer to keep your training logs on your computer. And the really computer savvy amongst us, may even want to set up training blogs, I will leave that up to each of you, but I would very much encourage everyone to keep a journal of some sort.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
Subject: [the_click_that_teaches] Re: Journal Experiment
Alexandra Kurland
Date: January 19,
Sarah Benelli raised some interesting points about the value of journals. Her post is worth repeating here. I was going to trim it down to a tidy length for inclusion in a post, but found I really wanted to emphasize all of her points, so I've included most of it here. Not a good precedent to set for the list, but it is a post that is worth repeating
I have found this to be a useful tool, if only because
the act of writing about it makes you think about what
happened in a training session and what needs to come
next. The health notes are also important. My horse
Palio had mysterious lameness/soreness in his hind end
for most of the fall. I had no cause to point to, but
when glancing back through the journal I saw an entry
from months before where I had noted that his movement
behind seemed strange. It didn't tell me why he was
lame, but it did tell me that the problem had been
brewing for longer than I thought.
The hind-end lameness episode got me thinking:
wouldn't it be revealing to pull out all the entries
where I describe problems with movement? See them all
lined up next to each other? See what kind of pattern
they revealed? If problems in training would reveal
their roots in a physical ailment?
I also have to admit that, as a child of the computer
generation, I am incredibly lazy about writing by
hand. I tend to put it off and then write incomplete
entries. And, even though the journals are more about
writing than reading, it's hard to do a "find and
search" to come up with entries about lameness, or
targeting, or anything, in a handwritten notebook.
I use the database program Filemaker at work all the
time. So I'm going to experiment with a 21st-century
training journal set up in Filemaker. I see a lot of
potential for tracking training progress (ever wonder
when exactly was the first time you started teaching
head lowering? Or how many training hours you have put
in over the last six months?) and, I think, even more
for tracking health, particularly as it relates to
training.
So Sarah's post definitely confirms the value of keeping a journal. And it also raised the question of what makes a good journal. Several people asked questions about that. Barb voiced her frustration over her stacks of journals. She has lots of words on the page, but she wasn't sure she had captured the most important elements of Brittany's training. If people would like to post their journals in the files section, that would be a great idea, especially if you have a particularly interesting horse you are tracking.
Sarah, I think you are right, a computer journal, one with a search and find feature would be an wonderful asset. I know there are software programmers on this list. If a good journal program doesn't exist, it should. As we talk about this process, perhaps we will identify those things that a good journal program should include. That would be a great tool not just for clicker trainers, but for all horse owners
In the meantime here's a perfect example of the value of journals. Last Saturday Robin was not his usual self. He was grumpy, grabby, not at all the enthusiastic horse I'm accustomed to. But I'd been teaching all day. I was tired. He could have been reacting to my mood. That's what I attributed his grumpiness to. Sunday he was dead lame. Now because I keep a journal, I know I found a stone wedged in his foot the week before, so it's not a big surprise that he's brewed an abscess. And the lameness also explains his grumpy mood the night before. That's important information. I need to remember that and perhaps look a little deeper the next time he's out of sorts.
Now because I keep a journal, I'm also having great fun with this interruption in his normal work. While I am soaking his foot, I am teaching him color discrimination. Such fun. And the journal is tracking his progress. Without the journal the color discrimination would not be nearly as interesting. And yes, I did miss some really interesting pieces of data, because when I originally dabbled in this, it wasn't of primary interest. But that's okay. For my purposes, what I have recorded is enough. Down the road, if I want to do a formal study of color discrimination, I'll know better how to set up my data collection.
So a couple of general comments about journals. I'm not sure that it matters initially what form they take. The important thing is that you get in the habit of keeping a journal. Over time you will see what information you missed that you wish you had included. The journals will give you clues to your training. They may even tell you in a quite surprising way why you encounter certain recurring issues with your horse.
For example, do you write in one long paragraph, or do you divide your writing up into smaller segments. In other words are you a lumper or a splitter? If you write in one long, never-ending, never-pause-for-breath style, perhaps that is also how you train, and just perhaps your horse finds it a bit overwhelming. If you find your thoughts scattered all over the place, if you jump from one comment to another without ever really finishing a sentence, perhaps that is also how you organize a training session. Something to think about.
Years ago I taught a science lab. I found that the students who could write up a lab description had no problem with the work itself. The students who lacked writing skills, also struggled with lab work. They couldn't work their way progressively through a series of steps. I saw a very strong correlation between their ability to sort out a process and work systematically, and their writing skills. I was not a popular instructor because I insisted on complete sentences in their lab reports! No easy grades from me! (I'm not sure I should include that in this post. I don't want people to become self-conscious about their writing! But I do want people to give some thought to how they go about their horse time. Is it scattered and unfocused? Are you a reactive trainer? Or are you at the other extreme, so detailed oriented that you never see the forest for the trees? Your journal amy tell you all that and more.)
So journals are important. The writing process reveals more than just what went on in a training session. It may also reveal why we run into certain patterns of difficulties. And the journals also reveal our patterns of thought. What are we focusing on? As you thumb through your journal what does the first line tend to be?
"I had a super session." "Another great night." "Another great night." "Another GREAT night. I detect a trend."
That's what I found when I opened my journal at random. This is a place where you get to practice clicker training. That means that this is a place where you get to see what you focus on. Are you using your journal to grump about the boarder who left her stuff out all over the place? Are you spending your time describing all the things your horse did wrong? Or are you focusing on your training successes? Those training successes may be how you responded to your horse. Maybe he was grabbing at the lead rope. In the past you might have smacked him for that, but now you view it as communication, information. You used your training session to figure out why he felt the need to grab at the lead rope. Your journal is helping you come up with a plan for dealing with the situation. That's thinking like a clicker trainer. And that's what the journal allows you to practice.
There is much more to be said about this, but I will save it for another day.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
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Single-rein Riding
Katie Bartlett got this discussion off to a great start with her post reprinted here with permission. To read more of Katie's great posts, go to the Frequently Asked Questions section of this web site. And be certain to visit KAtie's own web site: equineclickertraining.com.
Subject: RE: [the_click_that_teaches] Single rein riding
Date: January 18, 2006
By Katie Bartlett reprinted with permission
Hi Linda,
I am a dressage rider too and it has taken me a while to figure out how to integrate Alex’s work into my own understanding of dressage, but here is my take on it.
First, Yes, you do have to do these exercises on a single rein. But that doesn’t mean you can only ride on a single rein. When you first try them, I would suggest that you be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on them as there are lots of details and layers and you won’t get that if you just get the basic compliance that the exercises are supposed to teach. But that could mean you play with them for 10 minutes and then do your regular two rein riding. You don’t have to abandon everything else you are doing.
Once you and your horse understand them, then I think you will find that you integrate them into your regular riding. Alex talks about how single rein riding is the step that riders and horses should learn before being ridden on two reins. It is not a replacement for riding on two reins, it is just an intermediate step that most people skip. If you already ride on two reins, then you just need to go back and see what single rein riding can give you that you might be missing.
I think that what it will give you is greater access to your horse’s body parts. You will learn how to connect the rein (and your body) to your horse’s feet, shoulders, hips, poll etc…You will develop a better feel for where your horse is out of alignment and how to correct it. And you will learn what it feels like to ride on a release and to ride a horse that is relaxed and soft and working in self carriage.
Once you have a good feel for the exercises, then you will find that you can access them even when you are on two reins, and if not, you will know how to go back to the single rein work, make some adjustments, pick up the second rein and ride off again. Once I was pretty good at the single rein work, I started using it as my warmup. So I would start out on a single rein and do a little check of my horse’s response to requests for body parts. If the right hip was a bit sticky, then I might work on that for a bit. Once my horse felt soft and connected, I would go to two reins and do something else. If at some point, I felt like I lost the right hip, I might go back to one rein and reconnect and then back to two. Once you become confident in the single rein work, you will find that you go back and forth from one rein to two as needed.
I should add that I think that once you have ridden on a single rein, you will never ride on two reins quite the same way again. And this is a good thing. There is a difference in how you connect to your horse that you can’t get if you never take that step of going to one rein for a while.
I’m not sure what to tell you about the idea of the soft, elastic connection. I think if you look at good upper level riders, the horses are working on a very light contact or release and that the riders have their hands pretty still. The idea of a soft elastic connection is more relevant for jumpers or green horses where the horses are still finding their balance or need to adjust their balance a lot to do their jobs.
I think you are just going to have to try it and see what you discover <grin>.
Katie Bartlett
www.equineclickertraining.com
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Alexandra Kurland
Subject: [the_click_that_teaches] re: Single-rein riding
Date: January 19, 2006
This is great!! This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping we would have on this list. Katie you are a gem! Two great posts - one on the "Why would you leave me?" game (wwylm), and the other on single-rein riding. That one in particular is such an important post. It is so helpful for people who are new to this concept to hear not just from me, but from others about their experiences with this type of training.
You summed up single-rein riding so well:
I think that what it will give you is greater access to your horse’s body parts. You will learn how to connect the rein (and your body) to your horse’s feet, shoulders, hips, poll etc…You will develop a better feel for where your horse is out of alignment and how to correct it. And you will learn what it feels like to ride on a release and to ride a horse that is relaxed and soft and working in self carriage.
Once you have a good feel for the exercises, then you will find that you can access them even when you are on two reins, and if not, you will know how to go back to the single rein work, make some adjustments, pick up the second rein and ride off again.
Exactly right.
I would add only that I view single-rein riding, not as a separate technique, but as part of a continuum. Unfortunately, it's a part most of us not only were never taught, but were never even told existed.
The continuum begins with just a halter and a lead rope. A lot of us when we were kids rode our horses around in just a halter and a lead rope. You may do it when you bring your horses in from their pasture. Who wants to walk back to the barn, when you can hop on and ride? So some of us learned early on that we could control our horses with a minimum of equipment. We could steer, and we could bend them to a stop. That's the key there. We could bend them to a stop. When all you have is one lead attached to your horse's head, your "steering wheel" and "brakes" don't work quite the same way they do when you have two reins. When all you have is one lead, you get a lot more bending, but it's the bending that connects you to your horse's feet and keeps you safe.
Riding in just a halter and a lead rope is a great confidence builder. It strips away all the things you think are keeping you in control, and it shows you what really matters. It is also tremendous for building an independent seat. Just remember that safety always comes first, so if you are going to try riding in a halter and a lead, set up the situation so it is a confidence-building experience, not a nightmare. (Confidence building: on a horse you are comfortable riding, in a ring he feels secure in. Nightmare: riding bareback in a herd that takes off suddenly for the barn before you have figured out how to ride with just a single rein. Oh, and make sure your horse is okay with a lead swinging over his head. You'll need that skill for steering left and right.)
The next step on the continuum is adding in a set of reins. These can still be attached to a halter, or your horse may be in a bridle with a snaffle bit. It doesn't make that much difference. You will still be using just one rein at a time. You'll use the inside rein pretty much the same way you did the single lead. The outside rein will be dangling. The difference is you won't have to swing the lead over your horse's head when you want to change sides.
The next step is riding on the triangle of the reins. That's the technique I use the most and that's in the book. That's where you lift the buckle up and slide down the inside rein. You end up on a triangle. The horse's mouth is the apex of the triangle. Your buckle hand is at one corner, and your inside hand is at the other. You'll see the triangle in action throughout the book. I want my horse to come alive with energy when I activate my buckle hand. As I lift the reins off my horse's neck with my buckle hand, I want to feel a response. I want to feel him adjust his head position to follow my hand, and I want to feel the change ripple back through his entire body, not just get stuck somewhere in front of his shoulders. I want to feel him bring his hips up underneath him so they feel as though they are under my buckle hand, connected to that hand. That's a process that happens over time.
A novice single-rein rider picks up the buckle, slides down the inside rein, and then becomes so focused on what is happening in that hand that all awareness evaporates out of her buckle hand. So it isn't just the horse who is learning to become more body aware and connected. This process also makes the rider much more body aware.
As that process evolves, and the aliveness in the buckle hand is there all the time, the rider then activates the outside rein. This isn't something new that is added. By the time you are ready to add the outside rein, your horse is already connected, energized, alive in that rein and you are simply receiving a connection which is already there. And that's when your horse truly feels like heaven to ride.
If all you have done is ride on two reins, you may be thinking, well why do I have to go through all those preliminary steps? If I'm going to end up on two reins, why can't I just stay on two reins? Well, you can. And certainly there are many superb riders who have never explored single-rein riding, but for me single-rein riding gave me a way to chunk down the complexities of their work. It made it understandable, and accessible. That's the key. That's the part that gives you goose bumps. You don't have to think: "well I could never get my horse to look that pretty. I can't afford expensive lessons, and my horse is just a backyard pony. We can't do that. We're just trail riders." Well, you can be "just" a trail rider and still have the pleasure of sitting on a horse that feels like heaven. And your horse may come in from pasture covered in mud with his mane plaited in burdocks, a far cry from the show ring, but scrap off the mud, put a saddle on him, and watch people's jaws drop. That's the fun of this work, seeing horses of all types looking so beautiful.
Katie described beautifully how the continuum works:
Once I was pretty good at the single rein work, I started using it as my warmup. So I would start out on a single rein and do a little check of my horse’s response to requests for body parts. If the right hip was a bit sticky, then I might work on that for a bit. Once my horse felt soft and connected, I would go to two reins and do something else. If at some point, I felt like I lost the right hip, I might go back to one rein and reconnect and then back to two. Once you become confident in the single rein work, you will find that you go back and forth from one rein to two as needed.
That's a great description of how I use it. You learn to slide back and forth along the continuum of a pure single rein effect, riding on the triangle, and riding on two reins. They are all part of a a larger picture. Which rein effect we are using at any given time will depend upon what is going on with your horse. If your horse is spooking at the snow sliding off the arena roof, you want to be on a pure inside rein. That's the safest reaction you can have. If you are working on connecting body parts and bringing him into "drill team balance", you'll be on the triangle. And when everything is connected, and he's balanced and engaged, you'll be on two reins working on performance-oriented exercises.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com