The Think System

[laura jeanne]

I was just thinking about when I first started lessons and our instructor used to try to get us to do things by just "thinking" it. Like halt to trot, stopping perfectly square at an exact spot, etc. I know there is some merit to this but you have to know some basic cues don't you? We could never do the exercise until the horses kind of figured out what they were supposed to be doing on their own! Our current RI at least gives us a clue about how to go about doing these things.

[Skyhuntress]

I don't understand. Did your RI expect you to telepathically tell the horse what to do? Or was it more like "think the steps through so that you know exactly what to do"

[laura jeanne]

More like "if you think it, your body will probably tell the horse what you are thinking"

[Skyhuntress]

I don't see how that would work at all. If I'm merely thinking about stopping, chances are, I won't get the horse to stop. But if I ask through my seat, entirely different thing.

If you think 'trot' the horse won't be like "gee, she's thinking about trotting, better get going."

Maybe I don't understand-I just can't see how it would ever work.,

[Laura+Phantom]

Trust me - it does work. I ride a horse at the yard where I work and she is so switched on and sensitive to what you are doing, you can go from walk to trot just by thinking about it, and trot to walk, just by relaxing, sitting still, and breathing out. I did it on her on the lunge with no reins on monday.

Also, as the instructor was talking to me about getting ready to gently ask her to canter (you literally just drop your inside hip!) she knew that I was mentally preparing for the upwards transition and sped up her trot with no indication from me!

Obviously this doesn't work with every horse, but it can happen! My pony is the same, I think trot and he trots. Or I say 'go on then' and off he goes!

It's all about your breathing, posture and how relaxed or tense you are. Horses are incredibly sensitive animals, we forget that sometimes!

[intouch]

It'a amazing how little in the way of aids we really need, I suppose there has to be some physical means of teaching them, but using breathing and thought can transmit most of our wishes to a reasonably sensitive horse.
I was lucky enough to see the great Alois Podhajsky ride in the 60's, he never moved a muscle, but you could almost see his thoughts transmit into the horse's brain. He turned around all my BHS thinking about horseriding and teaching! :eek:

[Skyhuntress]

It's all about your breathing, posture and how relaxed or tense you are. Horses are incredibly sensitive animals, we forget that sometimes!

That's not thinking. That's actual physical aids that are transmitted to the horse

[ajhainey]

I think the point is you don't have to think conciously 'move x, do y' to do them. Just a general relax for slower and an assertive sit up, look where you want to go for faster? Your body automatically does a lot of the stuff (hips, shoulders, tenseness, seat, reins etc) It does seem to work, at least if the horse is feeling cooperative...We have one or two at my school that work fairly reliably off this kind of 'telepathy'

aj xx

[Styric]

Your subconcious automatically adjusts your weight, balance and tension depending on what you're thinking (proven, I have a link somewhere). Everybody does it and the horse can pick this up and translate it.

For example, when thinking stop, your body relaxes slightly, sits deeper and angles back.

When thinking canter, your body angles forward, lifts out of the seat slightly and the legs tense.

It's in micromovements, but a reasonably sensitive horse can pick up on it if they're not 'deaf sided' from the kicking/pulling method of riding, or if they're not just plain ignoring it.

[sweuzo]

it works easier on some horses than other paticularly i've found that most of our school horses are too ploddy to respond well, but after a proper good warm up we can even get them doing it. :D

[Perfect Pony]

hee hee hee this made me laugh as it reminds me of my lessons on shadow!!!
I swear this horse is a genius!!!
I could sit there and not do anything and instructor sat trot at c and he would automatically do it!!! we did so many tests to see if it was me or whether he understood but we never could tell!!!
even on the lunge it worked!!! pick a letter and ask for a gait and he will do it!!! magic!!! also works if i just 'think' it to!!!
If horses can feel nerves they can sure as hell feel everything else, very sensitive animals!!! :D
hee hee hee im gunna have a play with this theory 2night

[Peace]

I was just thinking about when I first started lessons and our instructor used to try to get us to do things by just "thinking" it. Like halt to trot, stopping perfectly square at an exact spot, etc. I know there is some merit to this but you have to know some basic cues don't you?

Yes. If you don't know the basic cues, then there's not much way your body can communicate your thoughts to the horse.

But as a beginner, I know I had no idea how slight a cue a horse could pick up. :o I still remember during one of my very early lessons, thinking that my teacher at the time would want me to halt before I went much further. I was sort of put out that my schoolmare halted just as I had this thought - I had planned to go a little futher before halting.

My instructor happened to be standing behind me, and I was startled to hear her say, "What a wonderful halt you just did!" I explained to her that I hadn't cued it yet, I was only thinking it about it. She told me I'd just figured out the correct way to halt that mare. :) And she was right, too - when I'd been painstakingly executing all the mechanics, we'd traipse over half the ring before the mare would halt. :rolleyes:

[laura jeanne]

Peace
I wish! Were you able to keep it up? I'm sure if I ever do anything right, it's just by accident.

[Pink's lady]

I think it's helpful as your learning to ride. Often you're body is doing things you didn't realise (i.e legs swinging, hands bobbing up and down) and 'thinking' about it helps you control all the different parts as well as sort ou in your head what your trying to acheive. BUT you have to use cues as well. But not as strong

Basically, it's the way for an instructor to try and get you to become more subtle with your aids. I used to say it to Ali. When she was first leaning to asked for halt, she'd haul on the reins to stop - totally unnessasary on Pink. I used to have her practising halting by sitting still and just 'thinking' halt. Of course, it was the sitting still part that Pink felt, but it meant Ali no longer yanked on the reins :rolleyes:

I now however find it very annoying when an instructor says it too me. They're not telapaths for god sakes!

I recently had a temporary instructor at the school I occasioanly get lessons. She is used to teaching 'riding school' lessons and hadn't been told that we (a group from uni) were all riding at a higher level - we'd be practising parts of an upcoming Elementry test the week before ;) When she put the jumps up she set up a double and raised it to............................2ft :eek: :rolleyes: because she's been told to 'challange us'. She was a bit put-out when her helper whispered in her ear that last time we'd be doing a technical course at 3ft6 :rolleyes:

Anyways, she kept say to us - just 'think halt' or just 'think trot' and had us practising. Of course, the horses weren't responding (she was annoying us by that time and we were literally 'thinking' and no more ;) ) Then she got miffed that is wasn't happenening. What did she want us to do - think harder?:rolleyes:

I do find it useful when practising slightly harder stuff though. Thinking about what I want to achieve in, for example, half-pass, means I get the right aids and know when it's wrong, as well as the horse picking up on any sub-consious movements. But for the simple stuff (i,e halting) I'm well aware for what my body is doing or needs to be doing and 'thinking' it doesn't help anymore ;)

[CityGirl]

agreed with the posters above - your riding instructor is probably asking you to tone down the physical aids. I have really been focusing on making things less obvious, asking for the canter for example without shifting my legs. Just by "thinking" my seat/weight aids should cue the horse that I want to transition.

[Peace]

Peace
I wish! Were you able to keep it up? I'm sure if I ever do anything right, it's just by accident.

I know that feeling. :D Actually, I was able to halt that particular mare in that particular school on a dime after that. However, it took me a long while to find Bram's brakes. :rolleyes: :o

But for me the "aha" moment was learning what almost imperceptible aids horses are capable of receiving. :) Even "real" schoolhorses, who seem dead to the leg or iron-mouthed can do this. (I don't think Cathy's horses really qualify as schoolhorses because they're not worked several times a day, each day, the way the mare in my previous example was.) I think sometimes "real" schoolies listen more closely to very light aids, cause they've learned to tune out the heavy aids we students are accustomed to giving them.

It makes sense to me by thinking about how horses' survival depended for eons on their ability to observe and react to the tiniest cues of their herdmates.

[laura jeanne]

It makes sense to me by thinking about how horses' survival depended for eons on their ability to observe and react to the tiniest cues of their herdmates.

That does make sense!

[LindaAd]

I've just posted a message on the canter thread, saying how my instructor described the aids to canter: "Shorten your reins, sit down and think canter".

I think yes, when you think canter - or trot or halt or whatever - your body automatically gets itself into the right position and that's what the horse feels. If you think "Outside leg behind the girth, inside leg on the girth, shoulders lined up with the horses shoulders, shorten reins ..." you go all stiff and the horse feels blocked.

I met a riding-school horse once who took shortening the reins as the canter aid .. He had learned to ignore riders' legs and sticks, but he recognised that if you shortened the reins you wanted canter.

Linda

[intouch]

I read this on another board and hope the author will forgive me for forgetting her name.
"The power of intent, where you need to go, what you need to do and the energy level needed to perform the tasks are key factors a rider needs to know about. Clarity, calmness and direction are key." I like that.

[herbyhorse]

Yes intent!

How many riders bimble around "schooling" their horses with the intention of keeping them fit etc (winter months groan!), but without intention!

I teach kids and adults, beginners to advanced and there's not a great deal different between the them... no really, they all want to be doing something which they are at present struggling with... be it rising to the trot of increasing cadance with their extended.

But something which is ipmortant is teaching them to think, to be aware that they are riders not passengers. Indeed subtley of the aids comes from programming the pathways from mind and body so that when we think canter, automatically we change, but with beginners they need that focus which is indeed the programming " I think trot, I practice trot, trot becomes natural, and then to think trot the body can immediatly organise itself and let the conscious mind worry about something else (carrier bags etc).

Try an excircise ... think about your lower leg, think about it's prescence, it's function during rising trot? does it hug the horse constantly throughout the up or down or is there a definant nudge to it or swing. To the more "honed" you don't have to think about it, you've dealt with wandering lower leg, to the less "honed" perhaps you've never noticed the peculiar way your calf acts as a pendulum, think harder make it still, explore the ways you can change the angle of your knees, the rotation of your hips, to reorganise your body, learn how to make this constant "hug", thats thinking... isn't it?.

I don't know, I'd like the connection between me a my horse to be so good that the meer thought should be enough... be it telepathy or the complex combination of subtle changes of weight.

HH

[laura jeanne]

I think it must take a long time for those things to be natural. My current instructor says it takes about 1000 hours of riding. Even if I manage 2 hours a week (average per year), that would take 10 years. So 7 1/2 to go!