 We live in that state of firmness. You're not firm anymore. You're just nagging. I Don't want you to fall into that trap We all hear about feel we hear about timing Feel timing give you balance, but what the heck is balance? Let's talk about that We have physical balance the horse Being on the forehand or the horse leaning back or the horse being balanced from left to right So we have physical balance. I have physical balance. He has physical balance But then we also have The horse's emotional state So can I ride my horse down and truly relax And can I do that on demand? Like a light switch poof you relax By contrast Could I get his life up if I want movement and energy? Can we get that life up? Could I bring that life down now? You've heard wall matches go right wall matches go and that's fine That's kind of an oversimplification of what you're doing there But it's important that I can get his life to come down Just as much as we can bring the life up. So sometimes We'll work on slow I'll work on slow and low long and low Nice and easy Just we might settle in there. I Might work on left leg back right leg at the girth We'll see if we can affect that hind quarters a little bit good And I'll play with that and I'll get my horse feeling for me a little bit He's kind of looking at what's ahead of them. So I'll just kind of work with that hind quarters a little bit But nice and slow nice and easy and then I need to know that if I sit up we're going So the life has to have a balance The horse's response needs to be balanced So here's a little guideline or a little exercise or a little indicator that I like to teach you now I've learned this from from a few really amazing horsemen And they would ask me a question. They would say this they would say And they would phrase this two ways They might ask me Jack. How soon Could you halt? Or they might say Jack. How little does it take to halt now? Do you see the difference in the question? So if I were to say how soon could I halt I might get firmer sooner To get a horse to feel for what I'm asking If I were working on cantering I Might get a little firmer sooner now. That's not refined It's to sharpen our horse's response Using how soon will sharpen your horse But that's different than if we were to say how little Does it take to canner? So once I do a time or two of how soon? That was pretty soon Then I start getting into How little ah and that gives you balance that gives you equilibrium So when you hear about feel and timing People don't always explain the balance part so much do they and there's a physical balance There's a mental balance But that how little and how soon is a great way for you to kind of judge your horse and Some people live in the how littles if you're always trying to do it with very little Eventually your horse will stop being responsive Have you ever heard the phrase respond to respect or response gives you respect now? You all hear a horse has to respect you right? You hear that a lot, but what does that mean? The appropriate response that tells me does my dog respect me does my horse respect me It's how they respond. That's all it is respect is in the response of the horse So if you live in the how littles Eventually your horse goes well, what if I don't and we might sit there and go Oh, well, I'll just give you some more time and pretty soon your horses get sluggish and dull Then there's those of us Who live in the how soon? Moment have you ever seen a rider that everything is fast they snatch snatch snatch everything's fast How fast can they go how fast can they stop can they bend their horse? So some folks Really work on the speed, but what happens when you're always working on speed? What is what happens to their brain? Yeah They they get it they get scared you you go out to catch them one day they look at you and they go you're too much like work right So we have this as a balance. So I hope that makes sense that how little in how soon All right now All of this talk of aiding with your seats in your core and your croates aides and using your abdomen and all this stuff It doesn't mean anything to your horse if your horse isn't responsive and willingly forward We want a horse to be calm forward straight But I do need forward So if my horse is waiting until he has to do something So I say walk and he waits until we squeeze and I squeeze and my leg comes up and I tip forward And I cramp up his sides because I'm driving my leg into him and he he walks and he goes and he walks boy The seat won't matter What we have to do is get our horses responsive to our center to our seat and to our upper body position I'll give you an exercise that we can all do with our horses at home And here it is we're gonna start with the first one and that would be I'm gonna squeeze and release my Reigns my abdomen my upper thigh to halt and then I might back up a step or two I'm gonna sit tall tuck my seat open the leg and if he doesn't go I bump But notice I'm coiling on back. I'm sitting back Before I sit up and tuck my seat now tucking the seat. What does that mean? Well? It's almost like in dressage We say a driving seat and a driving seat would be like this if I were going to push up The saddle a little closer to his ears if I were gonna take my seat and Slide the saddle up nudge the saddle up a little closer to his ears That would be a driving seat and I would tuck my tailbone under Now the sitting up part Well, they're herd animals So when their herd mates come up in the air They all come up in the air they when their head is down They're grazing and they're relaxed Their energy and their life is off and then all of a sudden all of a sudden something scares the horse and One horse lifts their head and they lift their tail up, right? And then what do all the other horses do they all lift? Yeah, they all flag and they lift their tail up So our upper body sitting up is so important because if I sit up, I'm conveying to my horse life If I sit here, I'm conveying Slow So if I combine sitting up Tucking the seat and opening the leg I open up a door and my horse can go through that door How many have you learned to squeeze your horse to go? Come on. Don't don't lie. All right Squeezing your leg is a great way to get lift suspension elevation And if you don't believe me just get on a young colt and squeeze both of your legs first thing Where are they gonna go? They're not gonna go forward. They're gonna go up. They're gonna go You want my backup? Whoop. There it is Save squeezing for lift suspension elevation save it for later save it for later This the squeezing of the leg is not important. Anyway, it's what you do with your seat and your croit seeds So I open my leg So what I do From that open leg It's possible That if I had to I could bump them Because my legs already off of them so I sit up I tuck my seat I open leg and if I had to I could bump or I could kick if I needed to I don't want to bump on my horse, but you get the idea now when I use my leg and I Would bump with my leg. I want you to think of this keep your leg very relaxed Don't tighten up your muscles and your thigh or in your calves. Don't do that What I want you to do is this think about from the hip and the knee down Loose leg. So this is how I get firm with my leg ready. I Keep my leg loose. I keep my leg loose now a Person could get pretty firm See a person could get pretty firm with that But I'm not gonna kick and hold I'm not gonna squeeze because we're just gonna tighten up their muscles. So I sit up I tuck my seat I could open the leg and pretty soon my horse goes. I'm going Jack. I'm going I'm going You don't need you don't need to do that bumping that bumping thing