your horses warm up and how to do a warm up, where you can
evaluate flowing movement, you can evaluate stuck movement. And
do this with purpose, a strategy, power and ease. And so
wouldn't it be amazing to create like a horse and rider team,
where both of you are giving back and forth willingly to each
other and consistently, which would cause a never ending
cascade of exciting progress and results? Wouldn't that be
amazing? Well, we can do that with this warm up that I'm going
to describe to you the strategic warm up. It's a simple three
step process. And the purpose of it is to connect our spines to
our horses spines, to facilitate self carriage, and balance. If
you have those things with your horse, then you are much more
likely to get amazing results. And you're much more likely not
to have injuries, both for yourself as a rider and for your
horse. Have you ever been taught a lesson like this, this was
many years ago, and I had my Morgan mare she's actually 31
Right now, out there in the pasture with no teeth eating
grass. She was a very anxious and nervous horse. And this was
my concern. I didn't know why she was so anxious and so
nervous whenever I tried to take up contact, to warm up, and then
to proceed to my ride, a lesson that I could have. And it was a
pair of coaches who work together. So I hauled my horse
to their outdoor. And we went into the lesson. And first I had
one of the coaches and she said, Okay, we're going to warm up our
horse, I was mounted on my horse, and we proceeded to do
the things that she told us to do, right. And she was looking
and she was seeing what we were doing. And my horse was chomping
on the bit constantly. And she was rushing constantly and she
was falling around. And she was nervous and she was anxious. And
I get kept getting worse and worse. We went through this part
of the lesson, which was half of the lesson with this coach. And
then we went to the next coach. And she said, Okay, now you can
go over to my partner, and she's going to sculpt you in the
saddle, as she placed my legs, how they had to be how they had
to be placed on the saddle and how they had to look and how I
had to hold them. And then she put me back in place. And then
she put my arms in place. And she said, This is how you get
contact, we did that for about half. And my horse, again was
was not any less anxious, she was not any more feeling
comfortable with herself or what we were doing. We left the
lesson and we hauled our horse out. And I just That experience
changed the way I looked at horses for the rest of my life.
Oh, here were my conclusions that I got from that lesson.
Number one was that no one likes to have an obedience lesson
right, including horses, pushy and aggressive, or, or awkward
even techniques that are given to you in a lesson. And maybe
you can resonate with this. It just basically turns riders and
horses off. Well, that's one of the big don'ts with the warm up
is that you can't have a hidden agenda, which leads me to my
next point. There's no cookie cutter rider position. There's
no cookie cutter horse position that is effective. Sure you can
do that. But it's not going to be effective for you. Our actual
needs in that lesson were not addressed. They were never
addressed. And they were never even inquired about my horse
wasn't looked at as to what was going on. And neither was I and
we were not treated like an individual pair. It was just
this is the way the lesson this is the way we sculpt you. This
is the way we sculpt every rider in the saddle. And so this is
what we're going to do. And the third thing is is that those
coats didn't create any curiosity or desire in me as a
rider or in my horse. So there was nothing about that warm up
that made me or my horse want to ask for more information, more
questions, what was next, what should happen next?
And we both had no desire to take it further. This type of
warm up when these things are not considered in the warm up
will not lead to In a better partnership, for better results,
if you would like the PDF of my strategic warmup, I'm going to
go into it briefly here. And this is the document that is in
our program only, this is the only place you can get it. But
if you'd like it, then put warm up in the notes for me below,
and I'll make sure that it gets sent to you. So this is how we
do it in our strategic warm up, this is what we do. Instead, we
have a process that gets you as a rider in contact with your
spine. And then your spine you become in contact with your
horses spine, a we show you how to actually move together with
your horse, starting on the ground, and then in the saddle,
how to move together, how to sort out the stuck places and
the flowing places in both your body and your horse's body. And
from there, you can start to problem solve. So in in the in
the lesson that I described earlier, I had no capability to
problem solve on my own was my horse warmed up. I don't know,
we went through our paces. And I was sculpted in the saddle. But
I was just put into a position I wasn't warmed up, I did not have
the capability to solve problems as they arose after the warm up,
which is the key point of the warm up. And the process also
helps you to get in tune with your body, your horse's body
because when you're happy physically in your body, then
you're more than likely happy in your mind and your emotions,
right. There's lots lots of things going on. And we address
these all in my program. But the body is so important to be
warmed up in an effective way there is the right way to do
this. And the not so right way to do this, but your horses
happy in their mind and their emotions more than likely when
they're happy in their body. Of course, there can be things that
happen like a major spook or, or something that distracts your
horse. But generally speaking, that's the case. And also, when
you have this type of strategic warm up, that you making sure
that your horse does have the SINOVEL fluid moving within the
joints, and the whole, their body is starting to really warm
up and move in an effective, functional way, then you're much
more able to prevent cold injuries as a rider and for your
horse. I want to outline for you what is in my strategic warmup
number one is we walk with our horses, and we feel into the
feeling that we have in our hands in our bodies through our
spine. Okay, so what is the feeling that we are receiving?
Then we're able to evaluate that, and we're able to know how
to respond. The second part is that we get very specific on
areas of the spine of your horse's body, what parts are
moving effectively, which parts are moving dysfunctionally?
Which parts do we need to put attention to? And in what way
and the third part is that we assist and we guide the horse to
find new and favorable movement patterns? So yes, we're going to
find dysfunctional movement patterns within our horses and
within ourselves. But what do we do about it? That's what we do
we that's how we warm up our heart horse because you never
know what happened out in the pasture with their herd mate. So
this is a way of warming up of evaluating of problem solving of
knowing what to do next. And working always towards effective
functional movement patterns for both the rider and horse and
this is how you create a rider and horse team that can go to
any limit that you would like to go any goal, any desire that you
have. If you would like this PDF of my warmup just put warm up as
a note for me below and I'll make sure you get it. And thanks
so much for being here.