(strong electric guitar music)
- G'day, I'm Warwick Schiller back with another video
about only asking your horse yes questions,
ones they can give you a "yes" answer to.
And I've heard, and other people ask me about it,
like they're a little bit baffled about
how you would train a horse to do things
if you only ask yes questions.
And one of the questions asked the other day was
"Well how do you get a horse to stop off two reigns
"at a canter if you only ask him yes questions?
"I mean no horse knows how to do that."
And so I'm gonna film a few videos here
and show you the process I would do to teach that.
But the most important part of it, the very beginning of it,
is that your horse can laterally flex at a standstill
like this, and when I flex him laterally,
they shouldn't turn their head crooked,
so his ears should remain level,
and what I'm waiting for here is for him to think,
right now Bundy's thinking over that way,
I want him to think towards me.
Okay I'm not gonna do anything to make him think towards me,
I'm just gonna wait here, (laughs) at some point in time,
Bundy's going to sleep right now,
at some point in time here,
Bundy's gonna think over this way towards me.
That's not it, so I'm watching his eye right now,
and right there he just looked over towards me,
he was half asleep right there.
But it's so important that you get them mentally
and physically in the same place,
so when I do this lateral flexion
I want him to be thinking like that over here, okay?
I don't want him just to put his head around here,
be thinking over there, because that will not be able
to build into the things I wanna build it into.
And you're probably asking well,
how do you get a yes answer there?
And for me it's all the groundwork,
when I'm doing anything on the ground,
when I pick up on this lead rope on the ground
I'd like him to bend his body, and if you notice it,
Bundy's inside hind foot stepping across
in front of his outside hind foot right there,
I want that to happen off of this rein on the ground.
So that's how it transfers to the saddle.
'Cause a good lateral flexion is not just bending
the head and neck, they almost gotta do a little
side sit up right here, so it's a rein to body connection,
and I wanna be able to pick up here
and have his mind come with it too,
so right there Bundy's looking at me right there,
and where this starts to come into play
that eventually builds to stopping from a canter,
is if I was trotting around here,
(saddle creaking)
you know, any time I'm riding a young horse or whatever,
when I wanna stop I'm gonna bend him to a stop,
so a bend to a stop is not a one-rein stop,
I don't like the term one-rein stop
because it makes you assume that
it's about using one rein to stop,
but for me it's all about the bend,
so when I bend to a stop I'm gonna take my hand
out to the side 'til he starts to bend,
you see I'm gonna keep him going for a second,
see he starts to bend, and his inside hind foot
starts crossing over in front of his outside hind foot?
Once I get the bend, then I'm gonna slowly bring
my hand in here towards me and he comes to a stop,
and most importantly he thinks over here, right there.
So at the end of that, his mind and his body
are in exactly the same place at exactly the same time,
which means he's relaxed.
The reason I don't like the term one-rein stop
is because what a lot of people do
is they just take one rein across their neck here
to get their horse stopped,
but there's not a good downward transitioning,
you notice right then Bundy went trot, trot,
I'll do it again, let's head around this way Bundy.
I'll do him the other side.
So if you watch Bundy, when he comes to a stop
he's trotting, and then it's a good downward transition,
so we take my hand to the side, de de de de de de de de,
de de de de de de de,
I'll wait until he stops and 'til he thinks
over here like that, and I'll let go.
So right now his mind and his body are in the same place
at the same time.
So it's not about coming to a stop,
it's about coming to a relaxed place,
and that relaxed place happens to be stopped.
But if he stopped, but his mind's still over there,
like he just bends his head like this
and does a little trick,
that's not gonna help us, you know,
if I'm cantering along and I wanna pick up both reins
and come to a stop, he's gotta mentally come back here
and come back to a relaxed place.
So that's the beginning of the whole thing
and for me it's the bend to a stop.
I'm really getting a lot of connection
between this rein, this ribcage and this hind foot,
and for me it all goes from there
and in the next video I'll show you how
we start to turn that into the beginning of the stop.
(electric guitar music)