 So the lead changes so what I would say the majority of it would be my think of your headlight on your sternum So now when I work my sternum in my focus, I want you to think about your focus So if I start to look to the left, I'm gonna I can get him to bring his left ear back If I start to think about the right, I'll get that right ear back because he's what he's doing is he's using his right eye So what I start to do is I start to ride I ride the mind of the horse too So but I think when you think of riding the mind think of riding their eyes and their ears If I go forward and I look straight on his ears go forward. It's not a fluke. You're causing that So I could ride his ears back if I'm backing up. I Could ride his ears backwards If I'm going forward I Could ride those ears up There that's not a fluke That's not a fluke. So I'll ride those ears up now. I'll get those ears to come back on me before I bring them down in his gate So ready, I'll squeeze and release my reins. There's those ears So a lead change well What I would do first is get really clear on Direction and him following my focus. So if I look to the right lift my sternum shine my head light He starts to follow that and then I might bring him back And then I might look to the left and can I get him to look to the left? Or maybe I start and I could do turns on hindquarters you name it But the idea is I get him to follow that headlight on my chest so at some point What I do is I start to show him where yeah, we're changing direction Get ready is so I turn that headlight and I might even set it up Or I sort of squeeze release those reins there we go and So most of that is coming from my headlight, but yes my outside leg might come back my inside leg might come forward But most of it is coming from my eyes my focus my chest in German There's a the Germans have the greatest words sometimes because one German word can be like are in English like sentence And so one of the words in German they have is called Creutz aides and the Creutz aides Means lower back the riders lower back seat and weight so The Creutz aides. They also are known as the invisible aides, which is interesting, right? So if you think about this if I use my hands, do you see me use my hand? Yes, if I use my leg You're gonna see me use my leg But if it's coming from my center from my Creutz aides, you're not gonna see me as much I mean you might but if I halt I'm doing it here if I walk it's here. I'm using my leg a little But the idea there is if I get a horse really tuned into my Creutz aides my seat. Where do I put my weight? Where do I put my seat and? I get them tuned into my focus Pretty soon. He gets clear and lead changes get much much easier So I'm kind of giving you my version of what I stress and a lead change There's a little more to it. You might be thinking about simple changes now for something like that For a simple change you might just think of this Following my focus I'm riding his ears getting his ears up If I turn right, I'm gonna get a right ear back see That right ear back left ear forward So then what I might do is I might think of sitting up I squeeze my in my seat believe it or not squeeze release my seat my abdomen Pretend like you're gonna have a soccer ball hit you in the stomach It's gonna knock the wind right out of you and it's too late to move So what we do is we squeeze the rain we tighten our abdomen and our upper thigh, but I don't hold it It's something like this Whoops Guess we're gonna be moving here at the canner. Good boy. We'll just trot though So I think of this I squeeze release my reins. I set my elbows My abdomen and my seat I squeeze release squeeze release. I didn't hold it Very important if you hold you're gonna you're gonna facilitate resistance He has to push back against you, but what I'll do is I'll squeeze give squeeze give This becomes a Precursor to what we call half halt How many of you have heard of a half halt? Yeah, cool a half halt gets a horse ready to make a change It's a mental and physical checkback. So physically they sit back mentally Physically they sit back mentally they check back. So before I make a change in gait I might just slightly squeeze those body parts squeeze release Get some ready and so pretty soon he goes. Oh, I know a halt's coming now before I walk I might squeeze release, but I lift my body this time and I say get ready. We're about to trot Get ready. We're about to walk Get ready. I'm gonna squeeze the right rain and time with this right front leg coming back. Get ready. We're about to canner and walk and Left front leg. I'm gonna as his left four leg comes back. I can canner depart And then before I bring them down in transition I think of that half halt motion and I bring them right back So the one of the reasons that it looks easy is because I'm getting them ready So the half halt I've heard it described as like bookends that hold up a stack of books on a bookshelf And the the half halt is like the bookends Another way to say it is this when you were a kid and you ran foot races Remember how they would say ready set go. All right Imagine if you were running a race and it was just go And that's what we do to our horses so much of the time. So when we're making a transition. I want to say ready Get set Go right So a half halt is so cool because it's not just this thing that gets a horse to rebalance and sit back It gets a mentally ready So I hope I hope that kind of made sense. Thanks for the question and I do I do sometimes a Little too long of an answer, but anyway any any other questions that are observations. Yeah moving on to flying change There's so much there that's there's so much to that but knowing when your horse is really on the aids and soft Knowing that a horse is is really willingly forward off your seat that they'll go forward being able to stop a horse Without a lot of rain or without the rains Another thing to think about in classical dressage. This is a really good Sort of thing to think about Can you go from any one gate to any other gates immediately? Now? I don't mean scared horse I don't mean force, but I mean could we smoothly go from canner to halt canner to walk walked You name it, but can we go from any one gate to any other gate smoothly? If we have simple changes and we have halts in place, then it makes sense to start implementing like cavilletti little jumps Natural terrain so at our farm we have some land sometimes I could go down or up a hill and Now that horse is naturally using himself to get up the hill So it would be possible to ask in those places But something about a lead change to think about is there is a timing to it and It's important that we don't Throw our horses off balance Because what will happen is you're going to end up getting a front and not the rear The trick to a flying change is they're upright their balance They're between the reins and legs and you've got good hind quarter I'm going to say control, but to be able to direct that hind end. It's very important and How are we doing on time? So something to think about is the hind quarters and Think about the left hind leg here So his left hind leg is driving the majority of this turn on forehand That left hind leg is the power leg. All right. I'm gonna work the right hind leg here I'll show you a really I feel it to be a really good exercise here. So I'm gonna work the right hind leg But he's he's driving more with that right hind leg. Well in the canter The can't we know that the canter is initiated with the outside hind leg So if I can get him to be clear on what leg to power up with I could use a turn on the forehand To power him up to set him up to set me up for my departure Now if I use the right hind leg and I say drive with the right hind leg That is the initiating leg for a left lead This is probably one of the best exercises I could tell you To do with a horse to get a nice canter transition So I'm actually using I'm actually using a turn on the forehand to power up a Hind leg which in this case is the right hind leg to set this stage for a left lead And what you're gonna find is it naturally causes your horse to coil Getting your horse to coil up is is really the trick another thing to think about is we've talked about leg yielding But if I take it a little bit further I start to work like haunches in And we would call that like Rainvair Traveller. So I start to get good at working the haunches Now you might be working more of a leg yield, but I'm gonna be working more where he's bending right moving right bending left moving left he wants to canter see because what I'm doing is I'm getting them to coil So I work on hind quarters to the inside which also engages that right hind leg So I've got his rump to the left, which means he's powering with his right hind Well, if I can get his hind quarters into the right and power with his right hind leg It'd be easy to canter a left lead So in the lead change, I'm slightly moving that hind quarters in the direction of the new lead but that's would really help to To take people a little further along with like walk to canter and even flying changes But it's all about talking to that hind end and remember the outside hind is what initiates the inside lead One last thing on that Here's the confusing part to that exercise because I teach this to a lot of people. Here's the confusing part to that exercise When I take his hind quarters to the right his left hind is his power leg We depart on a right lead So it is a Little confusing in the sense that people are used to like moving the hind quarters This way and then they might take a left lead, but it's the other way around We're really getting him think about which leg is powering up So if I can take his right hind under well now it's underneath to go depart see So hopefully that makes that makes sense any other questions Or any other observations did you did you all get something out of it today? Yeah, cool Appreciate it. Do you all have something you can go home and and use and do yeah Good very good. Well, what I want y'all to think about is as Trail riders we need to be more tuned than those arena riders are right and We're only as good as we are as a team with our horse when we're under pressure So to some extent we do need to work with our horses life