(country western guitar music)
- Gidday, I'm Warwick Schiller
and welcome back to another installment of
"Only Asking 'Yes' Questions From Your Horse."
If you've watched "The Principles of Training,"
my TV show "The Principles of Training,"
one of the principles is the need to know the answer
before you ask the question and so,
this thing's exactly the same thing
and the question I've been asked is,
"How do you get a horse to stop
from a canter off both reins?",
you know like, horses don't just know that.
So I'm going through the process of showing you
how to do this, so the last video I had
was about the bend to a stop and the lateral flexion.
And what those two turn into, if you have
good lateral flexion, when you pick up here
your horse reaches around here for you.
It's not like argh, I drag his head around,
but I pick up here and he reaches for me.
Basically the answer is soften and give, give to me.
It's not like take it, I just set it up to where he gives.
And so the next thing we're gonna do,
the lateral flexion and then I talked about
the bend to a stop and when they bend to a stop
I wanna talk my hand to the side, his nose comes around,
he bends his ribcage and steps his inside hind foot up
underneath there, so I'm getting
a rein to ribcage to hind foot connection.
And what we do with that connection is then I start
to teach them to back up and when they're standing
and I teach 'em to back up when they're standing still
and they're relaxed, okay, there's no use trying
to teach it when they're uptight or anything.
When I do that I just basically close my fingers
about that much, and that's how I teach them to back up.
Now Bundy's just gonna back up quite nicely,
just off me closing my fingers.
Now that doesn't happen the first time,
but for the most part it's usually pretty good,
but the thing is, is if I pick up here,
let's say I pick up here and he doesn't soften and give,
'cause that's what he did right then, didn't he?
When I did that, he softened and he gave.
But if I pick up there and he doesn't soften and give,
let's say he does that, I would just change the question,
I'd go back to, instead of having pressure on both reins,
I drop one of the reins and I just go back to
the lateral flexion, which he knows how to soften and give.
So that's the back up part of the whole thing.
You gotta be able to just close your fingers
and I don't pull anymore to teach a horse to back up,
for me, if I've gotta pull any harder than that,
he doesn't wanna back up and so I'm not trying
to make him back up,
I'm just basically teaching him to back up.
And when you do it that way, there's no bracing there,
there's no pushing against you and for the most part,
people have trouble with their horses backing up,
is because when they pick up here,
the horse braces against them.
Well, all that bending to a stop taking your hand
out to the side and having them bending their body
takes all that brace out of there and like I said,
I like to be able to get to where I just
close my fingers like that and they should back up.
Now, initially I don't back up ten steps.
Initially I'm gonna close my fingers and if they soften
the slightest bit, I'll let go.
If they shift their weight back the slightest bit,
I'll let go and if they take a step back I'll let go
and eventually you get to where when you close your fingers,
if you watch Bundy's hind legs right here,
three things will happen, I'm gonna close my fingers
and Bundy should soften, he should rock his weight back
and then start backing his feet up
and it should happen one after another.
So, I close my fingers, he softens, rocks back
and then his feet start to move, one after another.
So this is basically a stop off two reins from a standstill.
I'm going from zero miles an hour
to minus one mile an hour, to slowing down from a standstill
and so what that does is it takes away
all the problems of trying to counteract forward motion,
I'm teaching him how to stop when he's already stopped,
which kind of helps explain
the whole only asking 'yes' questions.
And like I said, if I picked up and there was no response,
it's not like I'm stuck with a 'no' answer,
I will just go back to my previous foundation
to get a 'yes' answer.
So in our net video, I'll show you how I start
to transfer that, that back up right there,
into a stop from a walk, then a trot, then a canter.
(country western guitar music)