(mood music)
- So this is how I introduce my horse
to the spin.
So now, I'm going to ask my horse to spin
and if you notice,
I sort of ask her to her the same way
as if I was wanting to go over other there.
The only difference is I look down
where I wanted her to foot to land.
And so, when I ask my horse to spin,
I'm going to look more down here
because I'm not going over there.
I'm going right here
and I want to keep pivoting on the same area
so I don't need to be looking out.
I want to be looking on the ground.
And you know the typical rule,
if you drop your phone on the ground
and you look at it,
the changes are that your horse will step right on it
because the horse's feet tend to go
where your eyes look.
So, when you're working the direction
and working for your horse to follow its nose
left and right,
you've got to look far
and look where you want to go.
That makes your body do the right movement
and it makes your body do the right thing
and you don't get in the way.
A lot of times I see people trying
to teach their horse to steer,
but they're looking down
and leaning into that turn,
or whatever,
and they forget where they're going.
They don't have a destination in mind,
so it's important that when you guide your horses around
you look where you're going far.
And that's going to just make your body do the right thing.
See, I'm out of her way.
This opens up my thigh.
This opens up my leg.
This opens up my shoulder,
because I'm like,
"Yes, I'm going that way."
This is my natural movement,
the natural movement of my body
to go that direction.
This is what I do.
So this is what is going to cue my horse
that I want to go in that direction.
And after that I can use my tools
which are my hands and my legs
to make her,
to make her do it
or show her how to do it properly
so that she learns to do that move
and react to that body cue
which is my shoulder opening up.
And she feels this right here.
So if I ask
there's a cue here.
Okay?
There's a cue here.
So if I keep that cue here long enough
for her to react,
or if not,
show her how to react
and repeat this enough
until I don't have to make her do it,
she just follows my body in that direction.
This is where you're really teaching them
to respond to the very, very slightest cues
coming from your body.
Okay?
Perfect.
This is what I like to do.
So now that I can do that
I'm going to go back and ask her to spin again.
Very nice.
This time I'm only asking for two steps.
Okay?
One,
and then I ask for a follow up.
And it was perfect.
So she followed by body signals.
She followed my hands.
She responded to my leg cues.
Everything was
worked how it should have
in the,
in the last thing
I just asked her here.
And I'm very satisfied with that.
When I feel that I can steer my horse left and right
and they follow their nose the way that she's doing,
and that I can change direction that way that she is doing,
and then I can ask her to step into that turn
like these two steps
in the round pen
quietly like this,
then I know that I'm almost ready to go
in the main arena.
The next step is going to be the whoa.
I found that when I relax my body
for the whoa,
for the trot,
or the lope,
I want to relax my body
and I say whoa,
I want my horse to stop
and use its hind end to stop
not the front end.
Before that,
it's going to be very similar to
as asking your horse to change direction,
so this is the next thing that we're going to look at
and work on before we're ready to go
in the main arena.