 to work pretty hard, so I'm going to drive him. I'm going to drive him a little bit. Okay, now we'll back off. Come to, we'll come down to Trot. More reach. There, there, I'll take that and then I'll bring him to me. So, when he gets the correct answer, which is reaching forward with a faster temple, then come to me. Now on this horse to get him forward, it's, it's, it's, it's not a challenge but it's, because he's just giving or yielding, I have to work pretty hard and then sometimes you end up click, clucking or you end up moving your feet a lot and we obviously want to get past that point so that I don't have to work this hard though it is an improvement over where he was. Let's try moving, directing your attention again. Don't push on me. So, you almost pushed on me. Did you see that little twitch and then he said, you know, on second thought maybe I'll just look. If I bring my hand over to the other side, I'll think about directing his attention towards you a little further. Don't push on me. All right, that, that took almost, I'm almost there. See he's pushing back. Don't push on me. So, take your feet then, since you're pushing on me. Let's try that again. Can you look to the side? That's a little there. That's a little freer. It's not weightless but it's a little bit more free. Take him back, right front back, left front, over step in. See, so it's hard to get movement. Now his life needs to come up more. His life isn't up that much. He'd be content standing. So, if I can get him a little bit more energetic, a little more energetic, sometimes you clock like I did. I'm working pretty hard to get him to go. That was a little bit better and then we'll halt and then we'll back. Let him settle a bit. So, that time I sent him off with his left front foot across. First, it worked fine. I'm not working quite as hard at the trot here. Little more life. So, he got the canter but let's get lively. Look at the road. There, he lengthened the canter a bit. Trying to give him plenty of room. I'll take that. We'll come down to the trot so I'll relax my posture. Think trot. Let's lengthen the trot a little bit more, a little more. He cantered. That's okay because we want to work on the canter but I want long trot. Let's get out there with your feet a little bit. I will take that. Something that I notice a lot of people have trouble with is getting their horse forward or what I consider actual forward. And there's a saying calm forward straight and apparently on the gates of the Spanish Riding School you see this at the entrance. I've never been there but I've just heard this and I like to think about calm forward straight. Another thing I like to think about is the idea of a horse turning loose and I know that sounds a little western to some of you but it's pretty important to understand what turning loose is. And turning loose would be the ultimate. That would be when the horse's idea and your idea mesh together and it's true unity and movement. Now we can divide up levels of movement in these categories here. We could say a horse can give. Giving the feet would be they come along maybe they're a little sluggish and they're a little bit delayed and so their feet sort of give and we talk about getting horses to give and getting horses to yield and that's one level and that might be a start. Yielding would be just getting to the point where the horse is starting to follow a feel. They're doing pretty well. They're coming forward when you ask but it isn't turning loose. Turning loose would be total freedom of movement to where your idea and their idea are the same and some of you have experienced this trail riding. Some of you have maybe experienced this in the arena. I don't know that a horse is going to turn loose for you the whole ride but I think you're going to get moments of it and that's the goal with this horse that's in training with me. So here we have Figuri's a four-year-old Moresian that I have and I would like him to be more responsive more forward and willing to come with me when I want to go. An aspect of forward that I like to think about and I don't hear people talk about it that much is the horse's life. How much life, how much energy does the horse have? When we want to go forward if we want to gallop how much life would your horse have? Quite a bit. So the ability for me to bring my posture up which is universal horse language for getting tall and getting lively so when horses get lively they lift their head they flag their tail comes up and the horse gets tall if I settle and relax my posture down low we'd like the horse or down you know sort of lower to the ground we'd like the horse to come lower and relax get slower the same thing could happen in asking a horse to back up could I get tall he'd lift his head maybe shift his weight and take those feet. You can see him looking true I'd like to keep my feet in one place have the horse back up and maybe he realizes he just gained distance he just gained space when they realize that they're going to back up much freer for you a lot of horses back up when the human starts to walk in and we go like this and we back up and all your horses really learning there is that you're going to push them backwards and they're going to yield back to you so I would rather get to where I could keep my feet in place lift back up bring my life up get their feet back not move my feet too much and get that back up when he takes his nose beyond the point of shoulder and we'll give him another job to do I'll redirect that attention so if that nose goes beyond the point of shoulder he's distracted something's grabbing his attention so I will help to support my idea of having him stay nose between the shoulder because I'm in the front all right so now we'll work more on forward again so when I bring my life up or my posture up movements in my feet of course movements in my feet would be universal horse language as well so horses get tall and they move and they might get a little lively so I don't have a disunited canter here but at least he came up with me so now we'll get a little movement there we have a united canter he has a united diagonal pair I will bring my life down come out of the center bring him to me turn keep my life up carry it to the back up settle in nose between the shoulder my rope will be set at such a length to where I could support my idea if his nose goes beyond the point of shoulder he might think he ran into the rope himself in fact if I can always set things up to where my horse thinks that he ran into his own pressure that would be the idea that would work quite well all right we'll take him back I bring my posture up I'm stepping into the direction I'd like to go mounting block more life when I lift the flag up that can convey more life I have my irons down and drop so that he can just feel that sensation of the irons touching him so we have a united canter I will then step out of the center bring him to me if I turn and just settle in that would mean halt I'll halt get tall turn take those feet back what a nice pattern to get into especially with a stallion or a horse that's going to creep in now let's let them have a little time to just kind of think on that and just relax a bit that doesn't look very comfortable why don't you take your left for your right four foot back now let's take your left four foot back and get square that looks a little more comfortable drop that belly of the rope on the ground and see if he just settle in a little bit here right there too far he does have a tendency to scratch his head on his leg sort of phantom itches and I wonder if that's because he has such a long mane that sometimes he can't see so he's just getting the hair out of his uh his eyes and then of course this becomes a habit so every time he's bored he maybe scratches his leg just a possibility we'll get back to work with some movement here I might lift step into the direction I'd like to go my flag is up higher I'd like to convey a clear idea a clear intent to the horse and I always want to visualize what I'm doing before I do it I'm going to reach up and touch his rump I'm going to settle in and halt now that happens sort of quick so let's do that again so now I want to think about sending him off on the circle so I'll get tall up to a trot we go I'm thinking about walking bringing my life down and then I will step out of the circle move his hind quarters notice the hind legs cross bring him to me turn and then I'll back that time you could see it and I'd explained it before I before you saw it we'll step back step out under the circle I have another video explaining timing of the front feet and you can check that out an interesting thing about friezians morigians these horses are good at elevating their shoulder likes to come up they like to carry their front end up so it's funny because I'm actually thinking about these horses lengthening up and stepping forward so as he starts to lengthen up I'll back off now you notice it's hard for him to maintain his temple so I want a faster speed which is temple and then he drops off so let's see if I can get in there I might exaggerate my idea a little bit more you can see I took him up to a we'll take him up to a canter kind of getting in there now I'll drop my posture give him length let him let him make the circle bigger and then I might bring him to me because I don't want him to feel like I'm chasing him back up was pretty nice and that looked pretty good he's not turning loose yet and I might not get him turning loose the whole session it might just be moments but that's okay it's a step in the right direction we'll take him back notice my posture come up I want more reach all right so he came into the canner I'll back off if he canters at least he's trying to get forward so I don't mind that in fact I'm trying to work on his canter so if he canters that's okay maybe I wanted a long trot instead he gives me canner I'll take that if it's smooth good notice the pattern of bringing him in keeping his life up keeping my body posture tall and then backing him up