 A lot of folks are really good at all the horses laying the horses sound the horses crooked the horses forward the horses Body and body is important But the life of the horse we have to address that we have to work on it And the place that I like to do that first is on the ground. So when I do climb up on the mounting block He settles with me here, and he goes I can stay here. It's a good. It's a good place to be He can practice some things that we need to do riding before I'm on them and another interesting feature of groundwork I Can think about myself my spatial awareness my body and my positioning So I teach centered riding and center riding is really simple to understand the the basic premise of center riding is It's like you're standing up straight and tall With a slight bend in your knee And it's kind of it's kind of nice to practice that before I get on well we know that We want to be able to have our eyes up open and what we call soft Well, I can practice that on the ground and so as I'm walking I think about my eyes being soft, and I'm always tuning in with my horse I'm always seeing my horse even if he's just in my periphery. I'm never blindly leading along Because if I'm not looking at my horse, I'm not reading his expressions and I'm not reading his thoughts So if you're not Looking at your horse And he's on the you're on the ground with your horse If you're just doing like this, I miss what's taking place. He looks to the side his attention meanders His feet his feet go and then a lot of people pull on their horse and say where are you going? But see they missed what happened before what happened happened So I'm always aware of my horse now. I think about walking like I would want to ride So I think about standing up straight Opening my shoulders I'm not leading like this and I always watch people With their horse before they ride. I'll watch them. They'll come to my place They'll unload their horse and I notice when people lead their horse like this You know how they ride same So as I work with my horses I can work on myself Lifting and I can work on my horse lifting Which is something we need to do when we ride So I might work on the life coming up and the life coming down and my horse has got a lot of life, which is good But before I get on him I Can get him keyed in Mentally on where to go where to look so if I go here, maybe his ears come forward If I go over here both sides, maybe his ears come up. We'll see So I'm kind of looking up here He's looking up here And now if I were to arc around and step to the side I would draw his attention in and to me and maybe I'll redirect and Send them the other way and use the life that he has And move him a little bit If I get tall he gets tall if I Sort of relax and go slow We want him to mesh so up and down My other demonstrations I talked about a headlight on your chest and shining it to where you want to go Well think about that on the ground. It's the same There's a headlight on my chest and I want to shine it to where I want to go So I practice that and slowing Moving Can you all see When his energy level is you I call it the emotional thermometer. Can you see when it comes down? Can you see when they start to settle down? Versus when we bring it up more Let's bring it up a lot more and down and up and down. I Started with the mind and directing his attention his eyes watch his eyes and his ears. I Then started getting to the feet more with the life the emotions I Give that a scale zero To 100 and a zero would be like a horse that is a sleep That's the calmest That your horse will be is when when they're asleep A hundred is What I call a blind panic. It's an adrenaline state. It's awful You never want a horse at a hundred But what this is is this is the spectrum the thermometer of their emotions I Want everything to be something that we could read it we can put a gauge on it So I could say is what what level what what temperature is your are your horse's emotions at and So pretty soon people get better at seeing when their horse is lively when their horse is settling down We have to work that system of the horse so if The most excited the most lively that our horse gets is When we're on their back That's a problem. So the most excited the most Elevated that his emotional thermometer should be I Would prefer it to be before I get on Now I don't mean to about scaring a horse. That's different like I wouldn't want to scare a horse He knows how to bring me a saddle, but I want him to come around this way first so What I do is I start to blend with the horse I start to mesh and I say if you bring me the saddle I'll let you cool down. I'll let your temperature come down And you can watch as you work with your horses And you can even like if you live with your horses you can watch them and you can see when they're really mellow when they're really relaxed But that system That energy system of the horse Has to be worked with you could say trained But it needs to be trained or a worked with and what I want is good modulation and adjustability In my horse's emotions. I Won't will bring his life up here. So you'll know when I get tall. I'm taller if He hadn't gone off of my body lifting and off of my leading and my movements I could have lifted the flag and that's getting tall. So life up even more. There we go life up and then what I'll do is I'll come to the mounting block and See if he'd wait for me at the mounting block and I think about how soon Can he bring his life down and I used to say it's like a light switch I should be able to turn it on and the lights come on and I should be able to shut it off the energy the life I should be able to shut it off and I had a student the other day. They said well It's more like a dimmer switch. I'm like that's really a good point. I should be able to adjust it So I want that so the life system of the horse It's the most forgotten part of the horse So a lot of folks they're good with the mind and They're good with the body a lot of folks are really good at all the horses lame the horses sound the horses crooked the horses forward the horses body and bodies important But the life of the horse we have to address that we have to work on it And the place that I like to do that first is on the ground. So when I do climb up on the mounting block He settles with me here, and he goes I can stay here. It's a good. It's a good place to be