 A concept that I like to teach people is to go forward. Don't squeeze your legs. And it seems like we all learned, or many of us learned, when we want to go, squeeze your legs and go forward. Well, think of this. What if we save squeezing our legs for later with the horse? What if we squeeze our legs to get suspension and elevation, to get the horse soft or rounded? What if then we were able to slowly close our legs up? But to go forward, let's not necessarily squeeze our legs. Now, you've heard inside leg to drive. So what if we did this? What if I sat tall, tuck my tailbone, tuck my seat under, and wiggle my inside leg? Let's try this. So I might sit tall, tuck my seat, and I might swing my inside leg. Now, I saw him. We could feel him increase tempo. That was nice. Show you one more time. I'll sit tall, wiggle my inside leg, and see what he come forward. He does come forward. And then when he does, I settle right back down again. And I just sort of bring him back. Easy does it. I could squeeze release the reins and my abdomen. I'm exaggerating, so you can see. But I could squeeze release my abdomen, my reins, and just see if he could slowly find a halt. At the same time, he's feeling a little squeeze in the saddle, but just a little squeeze. Squeeze, release. To go forward, I'll stand tall, tuck my seat, swing the leg. My leg will open a little. Ready? Sit tall, tuck seat, open leg. Now, did you see that leg swing? So if I swing the leg, it could be the inside leg. It could be both legs on a young horse. But if I stand tall, when I go to swing the leg, he understands movement. If I look over to my right and I bring, just bring my headlight over a little bit, would he look over there? Good. Very nice. To slow down, I might squeeze, release the rain, like water out of a sponge. And my abdomen, I might set, very slightly set my elbows in to walk. I'll sit up, tuck the seat, open leg. That worked out really good. If your horses don't understand that, you might have to kick. It's easy to bump a little, because your leg is already off and swinging. So if I sit up, open leg, and swing it. If he doesn't go, I could bump him. But it makes sense to the horse, because once again, my legs are moving, so his legs are moving. Now, to walk, I might think of exhaling, breathing, and sort of melting down into the saddle. Remember, he's young and green, or green. And to halt, I'll squeeze, release the rain. Now, the mounting block, that's a handy place to have him stop every once in a while. But let's stop over here. So you can watch the aid there, the squeezing. I'm using my abdomen and my, all at the same time. Squeezing, releasing. Squeezing the rain, setting my elbow, here we go. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. And there it is. To go forward, sit up, open the leg. I could swing the leg, and the leg could bump him. Saying that I heard a lot at clinics, and that was, prepare to position for the transition, and the transition takes care of itself. What? Well, we'll explain that a little bit. While a horse is making a transition, a transition could be a change of length of stride within the gate. It could be changing temple speed within the gate. A transition could be changing gates, trot to walk, walk to trot. A transition could be changing direction. Now, preparing our horse to make the transition, that's where it's all, that's what it's about. If I walk him really fast, if I sit up, and I think about sliding my saddle up towards his ears, and you can see my seat swing, if that didn't work, I could certainly swing my leg. But if I increase that walk, and get him walking along, sort of to his edge, he comes up with the idea. In his mind, he goes, this is a lot of work. My engine is revving. I'd like to trot. And he looks at me, his ears come back, and his ears come back to me, and he looks at me, and he sort of asks the question, can I trot? So when I want to trot, I'll then just sit up and think it. But I'll get him ready for it first. I'll sit up, really engage the walk. Right here, he's getting close. He thinks trot. I sit up, and we trot. Now, we can do the same thing, bringing him back to walk. I could slow my body. I could slow his gait. It becomes a little harder for him to trot. And so then he thinks walk. And when he does, I change the position of my seat to forward swing again. Trotting is up-down. Good, very nice. Walking would be swinging back to front, back to front. You can see this. Remember, he's kind of a race horse. So he's a little, it's a little tense with the bit. Walk really slow. I'm squeezing, releasing pretty soon from here. It's really easy to just settle in and halt. Give him a second. Now, he's calm right now, or relatively calm. I mean, he's alert, but there he is. There's a little place, a little change, mental shift. To go forward, I might think about sitting up a little bit. Maybe I wiggle a leg. I bring his life up. It becomes hard for him to stay there. And he goes, can I walk? And I say, yes, walk. Fast walk would prepare a horse like this to trot. Here comes trot. So fast walk. When I want him to go, I'll just sit up, think it. When I want him to walk, I'll relax. I'll settle in, change the position of my body to swinging and following instead of up and down. So we're now walking. And then slow walk. And then he's ready and halt. So on a younger horse like this, it's really important that we prepare them for the transition. And you'll find that the horse is much more willing, the correct feel at the correct time makes the horse think it was their idea. Go ahead, try these things at home. Let us know what you think. And until next time, happy riding.