 And I wanted to make myself a little more interesting, so I grabbed the flag, because what I want, when I get up active and I expand my bubble, I want him to understand liven up, even if your horse is really nervous. Wouldn't it be nice to know you could stop? A dog sits and stays, right? Don't we teach our dogs sit, stay? And when they sit, what? No. When they sit and stay, their attention's more on you, right? If their head's going and going pretty soon, their mind goes, their feet go, their body's gone. So we've got to teach our horse's halt. Have to. You can never have a pushy horse if they know how to halt. Yeah, so that's where this starts. Looking pretty good. That makes me happy. If you've got to where you can back up pretty well, then I want you to approach your horse. And I like to think of it like, when I approach a horse, I reach out with my hand. Sometimes they're not interested in smelling, but I still put my hand out there, because that reminds me to give them one shoulder. So when I walk up to a horse, it's less intimidating if I turn and give them a shoulder. Thank you, my shoulder. When you walk up to a horse, kind of square like this, fronting up, it can be a little intimidating. So what we do is we practice backing away, and we practice re-approaching our horses. Now I pretend like I'm going to drop my stirrup or something. In reality, you might just rub on them, and then I want you to walk away. And I want you to keep your horse, help your horse understand, stay in place. Some people are like, this is easy, and other people be like, my horse doesn't sit. So we all have to start here, looking good. If you had a really long rope, think about how good this exercise could be. You could walk back 50 feet and come back. And then I could get to where maybe my horse is clear on what I'm doing, so maybe I can kind of walk up a little faster. Absolutely, absolutely it is, yep, you got it. Ground tying is, if you can do this, you can ground tie, right? Super simple, looking good. Is everybody getting their horses standing a little better? Debbie, you want a little help? Here, you take killer over here, and I'll, okay. Firmness, where there's a place for firmness would be to clarify an idea. So I would use firmness for clarity, and firmness should have a lasting effect. That's a couple of rules that we have with firmness. Yeah, that was a good one for sure, Galen, because yeah, like I'm not really like staring them down. Now what, yeah, yeah, now his neck cracked right there. He gave himself a chiropractic, you see him licking his shoe. He went from extreme discomfort to icy back up, but it's not done yet. It's going to get there, but I can tell there's going to be a fun group because you're all watching his, looking better over there, everybody, looking way better. I can tell you're all watching his expression. See his ears come forward on me? So you know what I do then? I'm just going to mosey on over here. So if you look at me with your ears forward, that's awesome. Oh, that's better. It's a little better. At first you might think I'm trying to back him up. That's just what happens. What I'm doing is I'm making it hard for him to bear in on me. So I'm just sort of like a Mr. Annoying guy putting up some pressure, and pretty soon he goes, I don't like this. I've got to get, you know, he lifts his head up, and what I do is I keep that pressure going, so it's hard for him to stay right here. And it's not, I know it's not pretty. I know it'll get there. But what I'm doing is I'm saying, well, just put your head up higher. And he goes, I can't, my head can't go up higher. So what if you're got down to your feet? Now that took a lot of work, but it's going to get there. Good. He licked and chewed. I'm going to walk away again. Don't worry. You can stay where you're at, Galen. Don't worry. Yeah. Because I don't want him to hate me because I am bumping on him. It's not pretty. It's not pretty. But you know what? Better he learns this lesson now than with a bit in his mouth and somebody on his back, right? But the other thing you have to realize is I have to be, when he's too close, I'm a little bit, I want to make, be a little bit prickly to him. Like I want to be a little bit like when my life comes up, I don't want him to stay right on top of me. I want him to say, I'm going to back it up a little bit. I'm going to get over here. Now this was nice. I was able to walk from a distance. Good. That was nice. So now I'm kind of going back to just being easy and how little can I do. It's, it's a lot, but I'm going to see how little I can do. That's looking better. So now I'm going to get in there a little bit. It wasn't an ambush. Like he, he saw it coming. He saw it coming. Little more. He could try a little harder, a little harder. Okay. That's, I'm going to take that one. I dropped the belly. I back away to give my shoulder. It's not just mindless bumping, making them back. I mean, I'm getting them to think that's looking good. Notice his neck is rounder. Is that, is that a word rounder? Yeah. More rounded. Is that a word? I don't know. He's more rounded. Why? Yeah. Yep. Oh, that was pretty nice. Now I know I'm not in the clear yet. I know I'm not in the clear, but he's trying pretty hard here. I'm going to go to direct pressure. I'll give you a technique you can all do. Direct pressure, and this carries over really nice to the reins when you ride. I first reach out for the halter. I squeeze the rain like water out of a sponge. Then I might roll from left to right. And it's not comfortable. But if he'd go off the squeeze, like there he was trying, then I won't roll that halter. And I don't roll it hard. What I do is I squeeze and I just do like a little left to right, but I do get firmer until I feel him actually really give me a effort, put a try in there. Let's all do that with our horses. I'll work on this with him. Work on this with your horse. You're squeezing like water out of a sponge, and then rolling it left to right. That's looking good, Debbie. And I mean he can get heavy too. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make it hard for him to push on me like right here. And then I'll explain something too. And don't get mad, I always say don't get mad at me. Don't take it the wrong way. Don't get mad at me. We just have to rearrange our thinking a little bit. You always ask yourselves, what's in it for my horse? Whatever they're doing, what's in it for them? So if we ask him to back up and he stays put, he doesn't back up like right now. He's stuck, right? Well, why does he do that? What's in it for him? What do you think? He knows, he says, eventually you're going to stop. He goes, eventually I'm going to get to stand. Now that time he thought about it. So he's thinking if he waits there long enough, we'll get confused. And a lot of times, like, and you're a nice person, so you're thinking, there, good one. What's happening is you think to yourself, well I'm doing it wrong. And so people always kind of blame themselves and we're doing it wrong. And then we quit. And then he, first of all, didn't, not only did he not back up, but he thought, oh, all she wanted me to do is stand there. Maybe. So you hang in there, and so you get a little more, there's a change. That was a good one. Let me do another method here real quick. I hope this is making sense. And then for the rest of you as you go, I want you to work on leading where you turn, stay tall, walk away, keep your horse in your field of view, turn towards a halt. So I want you to play with that with your horses as you go. I'm going to work on this horse with something. I'm going to make myself more interesting. I hope Debbie's okay with me taking her horse. So notice how my, my, say that again. Horses, there's always a reason they do what they do. And it might seem like, well, why does he do that? You know, it's like, isn't that uncomfortable? Well, the thing is he doesn't have to work real hard. See? Now the, yep, yep, you got it. The main thing is you keep him in your field of view. That, that there's never a time that you're with your horse and you're not checking in ever. Unless, well, no, I can't think of a time. The other thing, when we use the flag, and you could do this with your lead rope. What I'll do is I'll walk around. I'll arc around the horse and he just makes a very subtle hind quarter offset. He very subtle crosses that left hind leg. But see, I'm not going right at him. I'm kind of arcing around him. And you could do it with a flag or without the flag. But then notice in the end, he faces me. He chases the danger, the flag and the weird guy. You know? So I'm walking around. But in the end, he lines out to me. Yep. And this is cool because we're sort of multitasking here. We're working on presenting the flag and becoming more interesting. So then what I do, the way I work the flag, is I keep arcing, but now I might run it past their rear, but then guess what they still have to do? Cross the, well, cross the hind leg and come to us. So go past the hind, cross the hind legs. He's working on this. He doesn't quite get the hind yet. There it is. And come to me. So that's pretty nice. And I wanted to make myself a little more interesting. So I grabbed the flag. Because what I want, when I get up active and I expand my bubble, I want him to understand liven up. Chances are the feet need to do something. If you're riding, I might be stopped or at a halt. I want to walk. I sit up. I use what's called a driving seat, but I sit tall and then drive with my seat. Right? Always thinking active or inactive. Well, when I want a back, that's active. Active aiding. So I'm up. A little more. Come on, buddy. You're making it hard. Making it hard on me. And then inactive aiding, bringing your life down, settling when you want their life to come down. All right? And I can flag as we go. I'll do a little with Debbie's horse. And then maybe we can switch. And if anybody else would want their horse flagged, you don't have to. But what I'm going to do is just work him on the ground a little bit here. And maybe get that back up a little better. I'm trying to break it up, though. I don't want to just only back him up, because that's a lot for him. And I don't want to be Mr. Bumpin' Thumpin'. Okay. You got it. Sure. Yeah. You got it. So that's a good one. And again, you know, here's the thing. If you can get your horse to halt anytime, they could never be pushy. They could never get in front of you. Now, there's more to it than that. But that sort of part of it is could you step him up? Now, my horse will do this really good now. But I could come up a couple steps, turn, halt. So I just turn, walk away, get tall. I'm leading, moving my feet. I'm active, walk away, and then turn back and halt. Now, if you need to, maybe I need to get in there a little and back him and get a little firmer. But the idea is establish a good halt. Base everything off the halt. So, you also would have halt. And another task we can do, tip their attention. So with their feet standing still, I'm going to do more. See if you can get him to look left. He's a good boy. Now, his ear, there, wait for the ear. He's looking at me because, well, I'm the crazy guy with a flag. So he's got to look at me. But what I want to do is wait here until his ears go forward. And we do this with his feet standing still. And you have to sort of be patient sometimes with your horse. But all of a sudden they'll get interested in something and you'll see those ears sort of go. And you can do that from a halt. But everything we're doing, we're basing it from a halt. We're going from a halt and then we're either walking him forward. Maybe I'm tipping his attention. That side's easier for me to get. So practice that. Yeah. And then backing every once in a while, go in there. I'm getting tall. I'm sitting up and we back. So put that in there. All right. Give it a go. Looking good, Galen. So you've got walk forward, halt. You've got back. You've got tip them left, tip their attention right. You could call that bending if you wanted to call it bending. But yeah, if the horse gets too much weight on the forehand, well, that's going to bite you in other areas. That can get you. Because they're just not weighted for anything then if they're heavy on the forehand. It's looking good. And then if you can get your horses to halt, can you give them lots of room? Now I've got a long, this rope's going to be a 20-some foot, 22-foot rope here. His nose has passed his shoulder, so I'm losing his mind. See? So I'm going to say get that nose between the shoulder, buddy. Now if I can keep him in place, and notice how I'm watching him, keeping his weight balance to stand right here. I've got to be careful. He's about to walk forward. Here we go. Ready? So now, teach your horses. This is a long rope. It might be 25 feet or 30 feet. Ready? Now I turn and walk away. You should all be able to lead your horses from that distance. And when you teach them turning and moving your frontal plane away to walk off and then facing them, turning your frontal plane to them to halt, you can do it at any distance. And if you feel like you need to pick up sooner, pick up sooner. So yep, support your idea. I'll show you what it might look like if I had to get firmer. So if I were to turn and halt, maybe right away I might send a wave at them. I didn't get that firm, but you get what I mean. So right away halt and get tall. Yeah, and it's so cool that if you can get them to stand, it's not always about pushing the horse out of our space. A lot of people learn that. They're like, well, you got to get a horse to yield. That's true. But sometimes it's a question of they just don't know how to stand and go slow and let their life down. If they settle and they can stand, they can never creep. Yep. Now here, nice Debbie. That a way. All right. So here, that's better. So everybody walk your horses and walk at whatever distance go forward at whatever distance you feel you're comfortable with. Whatever distance you're effective. Yep. And if you're giving them a release, take that. No, we can be every which way. Now some of you are out in front really far, but who could get way out in front of their horses? Now the trick, the trick to that, remember walk and talk and chew gum and rub your stomach at the same time or however that goes. Well, that's kind of what you have to do for this. What you do, if I walk forward, I can still get tall and see I can get to his feet. See how I can lift up, get to his feet, but I could then keep walking. I'll do it again. It's like you're walking ahead. I'm pushing a little life to him. I'm slowing his feet down, but see how I just gained? See? That's how you want to try that. Try to see if you can do that. And if they get stuck, step to the side a little bit and bring them forward. But if I could get you all leading at a distance, that would be so cool. And then on a trail ride, if you had to go down a slippery mountain hill, you could do it.