 Logs get them to pick up their feet a little pressure and not what I'm going to do is I'm going to start adding some lined limbs to buck soft eyes which means my peripheral vision is open and there's gun so today I came out hoping to do stretching exercises. It's fall right now and in fall we all like to get out and we get like to ride and and get out on the trails when there's less bugs. Now I'm watching my horse's focus and attention as I'm riding him out here so that I can be aware of the things that are in our environment that would be affecting him. Not only am I watching and being aware of where his attention's at but I'm also scanning the the surroundings with my eyes. I'm riding with soft eyes which means my peripheral vision is open and there's gunshots which it's hunting season here around the farm. So I've got these these things in the environment that I must as a rider be aware of so when our horse is excited we can have a tendency of getting tight the minute we get tight we start lifting our center gravity up and we start bringing yourself out of the saddle. What I want to do is I want to think about sinking in dropping into my horse's back and then wrapping around him so I want as many connection points as possible so I want to be riding along my inner thigh I want to be having my calf rest slightly against him because then I can feel his barrel oftentimes when a horse is excited my heels will come down a little bit more and my leg will come forward slightly and the horse gets straight and lines out in their body so when their spine is is really straight they're quite powerful. The minute we put a little bend in their body either direction we end up creating a bit more control the greater degree of bend so if I were to bend more like this that greater degree of bend is going to create more control whereas when we're stepping that inside hind leg under like I just did right there then I am also creating the control and the bend of the hind quarters and the hind legs so that he can't use his hind limbs to buck or to rear and right there it was quite helpful for me when there was a gunshot that went off it was quite helpful for me to have control of the hind end in that moment so what I'm doing is I'm just kind of using my surroundings here to direct my horse's energy direct their focus get down to the hind legs it's just like I'm swinging that hind leg under so that I can have control of the energy control of the horse in a way that's going to be manageable for me if I were again to line him out and have him straight he can be powerful he can he can rear possibly or potentially he can also buck potentially so therefore I'm trying to avoid having too much time where he remains straight I'm going from one bend stepping that hind leg under and then to the bend the other direction to step that hind leg under now I've kind of created a zone where for the most part he's comfortable and now I might even start incorporating the hills now I know when going up a hill he's going to want to move faster horses typically do so in preparation for that I get ready by shortening my reins and now I'm thinking about the rhythm one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four one two three four two three four and again I'm feeling that body feel that energy it's pretty obvious when he's about to trot there starts to become more of a up up up or a lifting in his body now it's wet out here today so I'm not going to go down the steep side we made that turn he crossed his hind legs in the turn and then again I'm thinking about the body feel and I keep the rhythm one two three four rhythm of the walk in my body if I feel him preparing to trot when I feel the body feel start to have more lift in it then I support the walk by using my reins and just softly within the movement asking him to slow down and stay in the walk so I really focus on my body feel my own body feel being that of the walk or that of the four time rhythm and then I'm coming back into that comfort zone which is in through here where he felt a little bit more relaxed a little more at ease I still have soft eyes and I'm still scanning my surroundings with my eyes I look down at my horse's head too and their ears every so often to see where their focus is at and this is starting to feel real nice so again that the reins can be slightly longer in those moments where it feels good but again I'm always ready take those reins put them in one hand slide it down and that would be how I would get short on the reins in a in a situation where let's say the gunshot went off and he got excited or nervous so the energy came back down as I meandered through the logs so then I'm going to try going up the hill here and as I come up to the hill I know he might trot so again I get ready that way I can support my idea I'm thinking about the rhythm of the walk good my upper body inclines forward slightly when I go uphill and then when I come down again thinking about the rhythm of the walk if I can be one step ahead of my horse and know when there's areas that might cause him to do something I'm not exactly looking for what I'm always looking to do myself is find a way to support my idea so supporting my idea in that instance was shortening my reins as I went up and down the hill and then being ready to keep my body feel at a walk and you can see my move seat moves forward back to help support that idea now here we're starting to get real relaxed and you can see his head he's ready to take that head down there's still some tension right so he's still a little bit nervous and if that gunshot were to go off I would be ready to shorten my reins quickly and if you were on your horse and you weren't comfortable with that that would be okay you'd maybe stay on a shorter rein no big deal for me I want to see if I can get on a longer rein my original intentions when coming out here was to do a video on stretching and instead I had to adjust to fit the situation my horse wasn't ready for that so we came out here to walk now he's blowing out through his nose and you may not have been able to hear that on the video but he's blowing out through his nose like there which is telling me again there's some relaxation coming through he's letting go of some of that tension that's actually something I work on in the stretching exercises is I work on myself breathing the tension out so it's kind of cool we can see that in our horses they breathe the tension out when they when they relax and it's important to make sure that we do that sort of thing because because quite often we hold that tension in we don't release it out blow it out and then when we're holding on to it it's just something that builds and builds and builds here as I'm riding these serpentines I'm thinking about just stepping the hind leg under under under so it's with my seatbone with my calf and I'm just causing the horse to think about crossing the hind legs a little bit giving them a job I'm creating that bend I'm creating the control so that when he does get nervous I'll be able to bring him back to me what I'm doing is just coming up with ways to get him to cross his feet and for me to direct his feet now like I was talking about a little earlier sometimes like if I had some cavilletti or logs on the ground what happens when you use those is you direct their feet over the logs and they have to think more about their foot placement than they would maybe their surroundings and I'm going to use my seatbone and I'm just it's within the rhythm so it's a ask release ask release with my throat it rains in my seatbone as I'm doing these things so if you watch I will exaggerate my leg it pushes in in in in so it's within that movement of the walk all of the aids are they're within the movement and then I'll come over here and I'm going to move him off of my left leg now harmony is letting the horse know that they're doing the correct thing by being quiet as a rider in harmony our body feel is the feel of the one we want the horse to have so right now I know I can't have a body feel of a really slow sluggish walk because it's really not going to fit so I'm going to have the body feel of like a medium pace that's the pace that he feels comfortably going at right now without feeling too trapped and too bottled up and I'm going to maintain this medium pace with my body with my body feel and then I'm always aware like what is he looking at there I'm aware of his attention and when his attention goes it can be helpful to get back to work and give him a little job so that I can bring his attention back to me so that if something were to happen at least I've got part of his brain in the game with me not just about the whatever might be scaring him so I'm reaching back rubbing him here and I've got soft eyes I'm always scanning what things are my horse noticing what did he notice over there you know what did he notice over this direction I want to be aware of these things because otherwise I'm going to be caught off guard so this is called being prepared right we want to be prepared so that we can support our idea when we're when we're in these situations where we're getting out and the horse is fresh and there's things going on where there's maybe gunshots going off off in the distance somebody's sighting in their gun so I'm aware of these things so that I can be prepared so that if my horse does get nervous I can help support what I would like him to be doing now the horse has had a neck as a good gauge of where they're at mentally so as I'm going along here his neck's getting longer and he's stretching his head and neck are lower which is a state of being more relaxed I would love to hear him blow out of his nose that would be another thing that would tell me he's more relaxed these are things now here I know his energy came up right so then I might put my hands on the reins and see if he'll drop down and he does so this is great and then we'll walk along with his head low again so these are these are things that I'm aware of I'm aware of my horse's body's energy and I'm aware of the tone they're carrying in their muscles if they're real bunched up and coiled so when we saw that earlier when he was real bunched up his neck was tight it was short he was curled and you could feel as bad or see his back was up and he was kind of under himself when they're carrying themselves like that that's a really powerful state right that's a state where they can do anything they can do airs above ground right the high-level dressage airs above ground or when you turn your horse out and you see them coil up and then release that spring and let loose so these are things that as a rider we need to be aware of and then we try to create this the long relaxed body where he is supple stretching so I hope I gave you some ideas that you could put into practice in your environment and they might be things that you use in the arena and you and you work on them before coming out and before things get exciting so that you've got something to come back to if your horse were to get excited and were to get nervous and then um I don't know play around with these things let me know how it goes I'd love to love to hear you in the comments let me know your thoughts if the things worked for you in your horse if you've done them before maybe and until next time happy riding