 Something that I'll think about doing a lot is transitions and I will ride forward into a trot and get his energy level up a little bit and maybe even using the trail obstacles here to help him get lively but I'll work on that life coming up and now that life coming down and slow movement. I'll sit relaxed whenever there's an obstacle that my horse might question I won't look down at my horse I won't look down at the obstacle I'm looking through the ears and up so I want to know I'm going forward my horse needs to know we're going forward so by looking up you're keeping that focus going you're keeping your seat active so I'll tell my horse keep on moving keep on moving forward you can do this if you find you're using your leg a lot when you ride like if you're squeezing all the time I want you to think about what that does to your position so if you're squeezing chances are your leg is back here so now if he stops or slows down you're probably gonna fall forward the other thing is if I'm using tense muscle if I'm squeezing my horse has to match me so whatever we're doing with our muscle tone with our back they do if we're squeezing perpetually squeezing not only are we nagging and dulling them and losing forward but we're causing them to tighten up their muscles we don't want them to tighten up these muscles so what I would encourage you to think about is this if your horse isn't very forward you might work on something like backing up sit up tuck your seat under like you're tucking your tail under and we call that a driving seat and open the leg so all together it's at the same time all three of these aids are together what I do is I sit up I tuck my seat I open my leg at first people think open the leg that's weird I was taught to squeeze my horse how many of you were taught squeeze your leg to go squeezing your leg is really good at getting horses to go up think about a young horse you've never ridden before get out like those those horses out there imagine they get on those horses first thing they do is they squeeze their legs what are those horses gonna do they're gonna go up save squeezing your leg for when you advance save squeezing for elevation they're herd animals when the herd moves they move so if I think of doing something like this sit up tuck seat open leg if he doesn't go maybe I wiggle my leg and I'll show you that little motion it's a swing that comes from my hip and my knee so see I just swing my leg a little just swing it and by doing that I don't have to stiffen up my muscles in my leg whereas squeezing work stiff so work on sitting up tuck the seat open leg now if he doesn't go I wiggle and might even kick them and I always say you can wiggle you can bump you can kick with your leg but don't squeeze your leg save squeezing for later and I might do this a few times if he's sluggish I'll see how soon can we trot so I'm a little firmer a little sooner I might say how soon could we canner and bring them back now if I work on how soon too much we're gonna make our horses nervous so this is something when we talk about balance with horses this is a little exercise that can give you balance and that is once they start responding now I ask the question how little does it take to walk so how little we prepare things longer we give the horse a little more time if he's thinking if he's trying we let him think we don't rush that he's responsive so now I just think of sitting up this is all it should take to walk your horses off that much if they're sluggish how soon so now I say how soon can we trot how soon can we halt right I might need more life so how soon can we canner and even bringing him back to walk I'm gonna see how little it takes so I think of sitting up bringing my seat as I sit up I'm not rocking forward I'm not pumping forward you see people go like this rocking forward that's just gonna wait the forehand down what I want to do is think about my hips going forward and up so I think about sitting back and as I walk I'm gonna think of riding a wave like I'm scooping with my seat three two one halt so I'm establishing forward we're establishing halt we want our horse between our legs between our reins if they're not responsive I want you to work on getting them responsive so we work on how soon but once they start responding back off see how little it takes to get it done and that gives you a balance so oftentimes you wonder should I get firm and I'll I'll say as your horse thinking and people say yeah he's you know he's thinking so I say okay let's sharpen that response when you hear the respect word you know a horse should respect you right we hear that all the time well what is respect it's appropriate response so I used to hear clinicians tell me respond to respect or response gives you respect so that's what I start thinking about is how responsive is my horse all right hind quarter we need to know that we can move his hind quarters now when we first introduce this we might use what we call lateral aid and that would be like left-rein left leg and you'll see people take their horses head to the side and step their hind quarters over right and that would be something you would do if a horse we're gonna rear if a horse were really green it's easy for them to understand one side of their body so as we introduce this you might see right-rein right leg maybe I bring my right shoulder back and I'm asking that hind quarters to step under it's simple for the horse to understand one side the right side it's simple for us to work one side of our body the problem with this is if we work only left side so left-rein left leg what happens is horses tend to over bend and they fall out through the shoulder and I know we've all you've experienced this where people go okay I want to move the hind and you'll see people get kind of crazy and contorted and they'll go like this I move in the hind and they look at the hind have you seen this and their horse falls out well their heads heavy and you're bending them so far if his head's going way over here to my left he has to counterbalance so he takes his mass to the right so what happens is people get the sideways effect so they pull more and they get more of that so let me show you what we call diagonal aiding and this is something you want to introduce as you go this is more advanced but it will balance your horse out a lot more diagonal aiding means you're using both sides of your body at the same time how many of you have heard dressage instructors teach inside leg to outside rain you hear that a lot right inside leg to outside rain okay what is that well that's using both sides of my body so as we work on turns on the forehand I might initiate it with a little bit of a left-rein left leg but more than left-rein I squeeze and release my outside rain and what I'm actually doing is I'm half halting his right front foot we'll get into that a little bit more but what I'm doing is I'm telling him keep that right front foot on the ground longer so as that foot lands I squeeze right rain right right now I'm using my left leg at the same time I'm squeezing that right rain I'm using both sides of my body and that's called diagonal aiding now that is a little harder at first and it's something we have to work on but I'll have people take their hands and just very slowly go up and down with their front legs and so I'll just and not pull back but just have people place their hands up and down so they get in time with that outside foreleg and pretty soon they can half halt squeeze and release as that foreleg hits the ground you're starting to keep your horse straighter so we go forward I feel the rib cage swinging as we walk and the ribs swing left to right if I take the swing of that rib cage and my legs are relaxed I can feel that rib cage swing so I know the timing of when to ask my horse to move his rear all I do is I expand increase the swing of his rib cage so when I'm walking along if his rib cage swings to the left all I have to do if I want to step him over take my legs like swing that rib cage over a little more if I want to do a turn on the forehand I feel the rib cage swing so I just use my seat and my leg to take that hind quarters over if you're having to use a lot of leg if you have to ride your horse off of a lot of leg it won't work that well to ride with your seat so the first thing you have to do is get that horse responding and respectful to your forward aids with your seat and your body that active position