 Hi everybody. You can see we're out in our natural environment here on the farm, out on the trails. This is one of my fun zones that I like to play around in and have my students come out to. And the concept today is going over, through, and under. So let's talk about what that means. So coming out here, there's all kinds of natural obstacles that I can use to help aid my horse in doing movements that I would like him to do. So for example, I could pick a tree and find my circle, use the tree as my center point. I'm coming under this branch. You can't see, but you'll see other branches. But I'm going around the tree making a circle. And I could very easily move his hind quarters, change direction, circle the tree the other way. Now this is pretty basic. And I can move in tight to the tree. I can move in further away from the tree. And it might make sense because he doesn't want to run into a tree either. So here we have a log. I let him have his head over the log. So that's over. We'll find another through. Here's a narrow passageway under a branch over a little stick. And so what we're doing is we're exposing him to what he'll see outside on trails, but trying to use that to help shape movements or desired responses, behaviors. It's pretty nice. So if I'm in this area, it's pretty tight. Horses are naturally claustrophobic. We need to work on this. If he can go through here and have the brush run up against his side, he's going to be able to handle my leg aids better if I accidentally reach back and touch him. So here we have another tree. It might make a lot of sense. Sorry if you can't see me. It might make a lot of sense to move him over and sort of leg yield off of the aids come around that tree. So here we have sort of a brushy area. Forward and straight, keep the rhythm of the walk. Here we go through around the tree. Maybe I can swing his hind quarters out a little bit. Configure eight, leg yield over to my right, step around the tree. The idea here is more to get you thinking and to get you creative and to use your natural environment that we have under a branch. I wish you could see this, but I got really duck under that branch to get under there. So we're using these natural sort of obstacles here in a way that causes my horse to think and look. And it's interesting. It's not the arena. Using hills to help naturally and spontaneously create a horse that gathers and even collects. Let's talk about that. When I go up a hill, obviously my horse needs to gather and engage and use his muscles to go up. It's natural. It makes sense to the horse. Coming down a hill, he sits back over his hind legs. He articulates the hind legs. So when I go up and down hills, there are moments of collection. Now the rest of the time, when they're not really collected, but they are using themselves, think of that as gathering up. They're using their bodies. They're gathering a little bit. And they're using themselves. Now, it isn't collection until they sit back. Now if I let it happen, pretty soon, there's moments where he's using his back. And that's awesome. And he's got to collect to do it. Coming down a hill, he collects to do this. Here we go, coming up. Just think of the amount of muscles used to do this. Imagine how many circles it would take in your dressage ring to work the muscles like we are right now. So that's a nice little introduction to using your natural environment to help train your horse or to help guide your horse and give them some more experiences. So take this, go home with it. Think about what you have. You might just have a pasture, and you might have to set some cones up. But either way, get out of that ring and try to find little play zones that you can go to and work with your horse. Go give that a shot, and I hope you enjoy that.