hi it's josie and today i'd like to talk to you about transitioning from a long rein walk to a
medium walk there's three things that your horse will probably do when you ask for that transition
the first and the one we actually want is for him to do the transition the second one is he will
stop or slighty change the tempo and the third one is he will jig jog so today i'd like to talk to
you about how to do the transition correctly and how to deal with the other options that we don't
want the horse to do if you're looking for a quick fix you probably don't want to watch my videos
because i'm telling you there is no quick fix in horse training there's only foundations that you
need to understand and that he needs to understand so what is the foundation the foundation of doing
any good transition and this is a transition is for the horse to understand to listen to your seat
and follow your seat how do you know if your horse is following your seat well if you stop your seat
your horse should stop and spider is literally just warming up so that to me is acceptable that
he can be a little bit daydreamy in it that was a little better i don't mind showing you
the work i do behind the scenes though because this is actually what can happen your horse
can decide today he's not going to actually listen if stopped my seat
he's still dawdled into it i want him to be a little bit more crisp he's warming up i i honestly
have just gotten on him so i don't expect him to be perfect but i would like him to start to listen
it's a little better
so the horse needs to listen to your seat
and i'll explain why that's important in the walk this is what my seat bones are doing you're
looking directly down on me having a helicopter view down and i can feel my seat bones going like
this that is what my seat is doing on the saddle i feel it as a bit of a U some people feel it as
a V you need to work out how you feel it so for the horse to be able to do the transition from
the long rein walk to the medium walk he needs to listen to my seat my seat needs to be soft
and draped around him not grabbing or pinching anywhere and following the walk and my it goes
right left right left right left right left right so it swings and i'm allowing it to swing
i'm not stopping it and i'm not exaggerating it i'm just allowing it to swing with the horse if he
went to slow down i would exaggerate that part of the swing just a little more if he went to jig jog
i would i'm not going to say exaggerate but accentuate the fact that my pelvis is doing
a walk swing not a little eeeeee a jig jog is it's a not it's a one two three four one
two three four one two three four whereas a jig jog becomes one two one two one two because a jig
jog is really a little trot on the spot so you don't have to be able to get your horse on the
bit to start to work on this if you do that's good you can come up to a proper medium walk on the bit
but if not you just go from a long rein walk not a loose rein walk okay go from a long rein
walk and the difference between those two is you have a little contact on his mouth so to go from
a longer rein to a medium walk my pelvis follows the rhythm of the walk and i will almost if i've
got a horse that i'm working on who does tend to jig jog or stop i will be really definite in that
walk rhythm i will have probably a little bit more tone in my body and asking him to go one two three
four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four
whilst i actually shorten my reins without changing the contact on the horse's mouth
the feeling is exactly the same then i sit up and when i say sit up i grow a smidge taller
if you're that's because we're warning the horses something's coming he doesn't know what it is i
just want him to be aware that i'm doing something then i will put my legs gently on his side
and if i need to give him a little hug if i don't they're just probably a little smidge more
and i will make my seat stay in that rhythm and my horse will come up to a medium walk if your
horse does a little jig jog when you go to pick the reins up you need to think about what you did
did you go in your head oh my god i'm going to pick the reins up i hope he doesn't jig jog as
soon as you've done that you have put some tension in your body and horses are very sensitive to our
energy and our tension and they will feel that and they will immediately think oh oh and start
to get their own tension and when they have tension and it can't go anywhere and you've
got it contained it will jig jog if that happens try to make sure that you are relaxed i have when
i do these transitions i have no tension in my thighs it doesn't mean i'm sitting here like this
i am sitting up and i am holding myself without being stiff so when i say tension i mean stiff
you can squeeze your butt cheeks together you can actually tense your inner thighs up
when you think about this the horses feel all of that so i'm sitting very relaxed around my horse
and i'm following the walk rhythm one two three four one two three four picking my reins up
with a little bit of leg on here because i can feel spiders starting to back off and i don't
want spider to back off so the legs tell him to go keep going forward the rhythm of the walk will
stay the same but the walk stride length will get a little smaller so the swinging of my hips
becomes a little smaller it's not such a big swing so when we're going from a long rein
walk to a medium walk i pick up my reins without changing the feel on the rein the amount of weight
i have is the same and you'd be surprised how little i have trust me i can feel his mouth he
can feel my hands my legs go on a little bit if i need to and my seat instead of doing big swinging
left right left right does a little smaller one because the stride of the walk in a medium walk
is a little shorter or should be a little shorter than a walk on a long rein so if the horse goes to
stop in the transition you just haven't told him to keep going or you use too much pressure in the
hand when you pick the rein up if you think about how the walk works and if you don't know you will
when this hind leg is coming underneath here the belly needs to belly and rib cage need to get out
of the way so it can step forward so the barrel swings out when the outside leg is coming under
it needs room to stick step under pardon me so the barrel of the horse swings in if you're sitting
nice and relaxed around your horse you will actually feel that in the calf in your calves
so i can feel right left right left inside outside inside outside inside outside so i can feel that
coming and swinging against my legs when i go to pick the rein up and if i feel he's backing off
what i will do and it's done gently because if you use too much you're going to send him off in
trot or jig jog is as the barrel hits my leg be at the inside or the outside i'll give a little
pulse with my calf pulse pulse pulse pulse i was doing that with my inside then to ask him
to take a little bit longer stride as he steps off and push off that leg a little bit more so
i'll see if i can do it without and tell you what i'm doing but sometimes i can't keep up with it
it happens too fast for me to even say it so we're just get him down into a nice long rein walk good
boy spider out you go that's the way so i'm going to shorten the reins without shortening my feel
i've already just gently shortened my seat swing i'm shortening it a bit more i've got
a little bit of leg on here because i can feel a heaviness in my hand and i don't want him to
fall on his face i want him to do a medium walk and my legs are just gently hugging him
i'd like to tell you that if you're having trouble
with your horses jig jogging you just need it's just repetition you need to let the horse walk
out pick him up let him long pick him up it's repetition to do it and if the horse is actually
um you're having a bad day and he's jig jogging a lot the minute you get one where he does not
jig jog stop doing it and get off your horse and put him away i work on this in my warm up and
my cool down on all of my horses probably i'm not going to say every day because that would be a lie
but three days a week this forms part of my warm-up and cool down it's nearly always in
my cool down because i like my horses to stretch out and stride out at the end you