hi it's josie and today i'd like to explain to you some exercises that i found really helped me with
my timing and feel so then the exercises for the horses obviously but i found that they were yep
very valuable for me to work out my own timing and feel the first thing i want to talk to you about
is the way you hold the rein you can do these with a halter and a rope but i'm choosing to do
it in a bridle with a bit or you can do bitless as well if that's what you like
no problem there if you are on the left hand side of your horse you hold your rein with
your left hand as you would if you were sitting on his back if you're on the right hand side of
your horse you hold your rein with your right hand now even if i'm holding a lead rope spider
i hold it as if i was actually sitting on my horse riding him so if you have to in the beginning to
get this right this is what i honestly used to do i would turn around and hold the rein so you know
the rein goes between your little finger and your ring finger so i would sit here and hold
and put it through there that way and then i would come back around but now i can just actually pick
it up and it feels natural like any habit you have to practice it to do i don't know if you
were the best model for this spider because he's likes to fiddle with his mouth so your
hold if you have to just come this way think about sitting on your horse and hold your rein
so i do this exercise with my reins over my horse's neck
because i'm actually holding on quite close to the bit so remember what i said if you're on the left
hand side of your horse you use your left hand on the rein your horse needs to understand to give
to pressure to do these exercises correctly so to give to pressure like that to back up
and to come forward off the rein if not if yours doesn't understand that just look up here and i'll
link a video go and look at that one first and then get your horse doing that well and then come
back to this one otherwise you might end up in a pickle you may not you can go ahead and try it's
all learning anyway isn't it so the aim of this particular exercise is to work on your accuracy
with your horse so i want you to draw a half circle around yourself about i don't know
50 centimeters 80 centimeters two foot out now your horse is not allowed to step within that
circle don't miss drawing this circle please this is part of the exercise to help you with your acc
accuracy so he has to go around from one side to the other not stepping within that circle
you are not allowed to step out of it so in the beginning i used to allow myself when i got stuck
to have one foot out but one foot was always in now because he's going this way straight off of
the bat i will be using my right hand on the right rein and then it's just a um an exercise
of tapping him with the whip until he moves in the beginning if you haven't done any of this
with your horse don't care if he moves backwards sideways remember we want him to go around us
so we want the sideways movement first so if he goes back and sideways just reward the horse you
have to do little steps nobody's perfect in the beginning and neither is your horse my horses have
done this exercise before but i will be honest and say it's been some time since they've done it
the other thing i would like to point out there is because i teach these exercises to my horses
and then i use them in every day handling of them i don't keep drilling them i think
that's why horses get very cranky with groundwork because people just drill them
in the same pattern over and over and if i was to say to you one plus one is
you go two one plus one one plus one and that's all we ever do and we never build on that
then you would get frustrated too so right rein moving to the right right hand on the
on the rein up near the bit remember that the horse learns from the release of the pressure
so i am going to take my hand out and sideways so his nose is a bit that way now i'm going to tap
him with my whip and i'll go tap tap tap and i'll stop when i stop so hopefully you can see so tap
tap stop i don't care so he did one step one steps good enough now i'll try another one you ready
um and the front end here i do absolutely nothing with the rein if he moves around i'm not leaning
on it you have to try and be like that fence post if this fence post here was holding his rein it
wouldn't be leaning there'd be no pressure unless he put the pressure on it so it's just sitting
here a bit like this in in the mid air what it's there for is if he comes to come forward i will
actually use a bit of backwards pressure but keep him moving i hope that makes sense so we're
going to go that way again so right hand on the right rein and i'm not allowed to come out of my
circle his feet aren't allowed to come in push him that way with his nose and go tap tap stop
now i'm going to make him take a couple of steps tap tap tap tap stop i've slowed him down with the
inside rein then my right rein because i want his haunches to go out tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap
stop sorry i wasn't quick enough till you stop i'm concentrating now so i just want the haunches to
move so i'm keeping him here with his um with the rein i'm not holding it but as he goes to
move that way i just do a little correction tap tap tap so we've set him up with the fence
behind us because we're just doing half circle much easier for him so now we'll go back the
other way so left hand on the left rein because i'm working on the left hand side of my horse
nose will go that way a little bit and i'll go tap tap tap stop and i've just held on to the
um rein a little bit there to slow the front feet down but allowed the back feet to keep
moving tap tap tap good voice so see if i can show you that here tap tap tap so slow the
front but the back can keep moving if he was to come in and crowd me i would push him back
but keep him moving that way i'll just try this way and see if you can see what my hand's doing it
might make a little bit more sense so i'm going to move him that way i'm going to put my little half
circle in the sand and pretend that that fence is behind me so i'm moving him i'm playing with
the right um the left hand side so left hand on the left rein and if you can watch this hand here
i will just say tap tap with my uh when i'm tapping with the whip but i want you to watch
what i do with my left hand to control the front feet so the whip controls the back feet tap tap
tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap hold it yep good boy so you might go back and watch that bit i just
almost said woah with the front tap tap tap woah with the front tap tap tap woah with the front
this moves on to another exercise where you need to actually get this down so i'm turning him
around right hand right rein nose that way tap tap not slowing the front down and he stepped
in i don't know if you saw that but he stepped towards me so i actually asked him to go backwards
and if you've got some momentum going that way you let go of the back like the whip the momentum will
keep going and you'll keep swinging so let's see if you'll go again tap tap tap good boy tap tap
tap tap good boy slow the front there see i've got the front and he's leaning but i'm just being the
fence post good boy i want him to go a bit more around good stop there
so that's a very good exercise just to help you and your horse get some timing and feel
it probably um the clock face one which i'll do next
is probably the exercise that taught me the most about timing and feel