hi it's josie and today i want to talk to you
about how to get some better up and down transitions with your horse
and it's all about controlling you really not much to do with controlling him until you can
control you on horses it's always our job to control ourselves before we control them
let's get into it very quick two minutes worth of video when you're going to go from a halt
to a walk how many of you notice that you do this send your horse forward and you go whoops then you
get left behind okay i over exaggerated it there but you only need to get left behind a tiny bit
to actually jab there to jab your horse in the mouth especially if you have a contact on him
so if i've got a little contact on rebel's mouth and i ask him to walk off and i don't go with him
i can bang him in the mouth and how does that look sorry rebel there i banged him in the mouth
he threw his head up he wasn't very happy about it so how do you go with the horse from sta from
a halt to a walk you should always pick yourself up first so what i mean by that is you literally
you pick your inners up you grow a tiny bit taller this is all very subtle you
might grow a little bit longer in the legs and then as the horse goes forward you
can practice this actually with no contact sorry mate then you ask the horse to go you
pick yourself up and you think about going with him so i thought about going with him
and uh i feel almost like you get a little bit of a wind in the back of your back to
send you off with him so let's go rebel so there's no left behind there's none of this
feeling when you teach a beginner on a pony i had a kid here the other day having a ride on
um aussie and she'd never sat on a horse before and of course as soon as i i warned her but still
when i we walked off she got left behind and it frightened the living daylights out of her so you
sit you think about what you're going to do you say to the horse by growing taller a little bit
you're actually already explaining to your horse we're about to do something so can you listen to
me so i have a contact and then as he goes forward i go with him i pick myself up and i think about
moving forward the same thing happens in the up to trot transition so what i do though is i sit
in the saddle and wait for my horse to push me up out of the saddle and if you're sitting there and
you're not stiff but you're not floppy you will feel the horse the saddle come up underneath you
and start to pick your bottom up and that's when you can rise out of the saddle so it's the same
deal i grow a little bit taller and i give him the trot aid and then i wait for him and i go with him
and it's the thing in reverse when you're doing down transitions
so if i'm going to go from walk to halt i grow a little bit taller
and then i steady my body and i stop with him not before him and not after him so what can happen
is if you stop you can go like that and tip forward if you weren't ready to come into halt
with him so you pick yourself up and you have your core engaged and that's all i actually need to do
to stop my horses is grow a little bit taller and then stop my pelvis following and my horses stop
from my seat they've been taught that from the day dot so my seat follows i grow a little bit
taller but my seat's still following and now i just stop with my core there and i don't get
thrown in front or thrown behind same thing when you're coming down from the trot
so obviously you'd need to sit to do this but you can actually pause pause in rise
and i got left behind i fell forward then can you see that go back and watch that because i
didn't actually want rebel to stop i wanted him to go into walk and i was still traveling forward
because i wanted him to walk and he stopped so i went in front of him go back and have a watch
we'll do that again and i'll try and talk less and concentrate on what i'm doing with my poor horse
so i'm going to grow taller taller taller and walking
good and i'm going to sit up and the wind in my back to send him forward
and then grow taller that was a better transition good boy
anyway that was just some quick tips on how you can go with your horse test it out if you've got
somebody to lead you close your eyes and feel what your body does when you're not aware of what's
going on make sure you've got someone to lead you and you stay safe anyway thanks for watching guys