Two Great New Clinics in Washington!

I had the great pleasure of two new clinics in Washington this March. Both venues were beautiful and the people warm and open to learning a new way to connect with their body, mind and spirit AND their horses!

I'd like to offer thanks to all who attended the clinics as full participants, groundwork students or auditors. A special thanks to organizers and hosts:

At the Whidbey Equestrian Center I'd like to give special thanks Sharon and Lisa for all the arrangements they made and for making me feel comfortable and welcome!

At the Eros Bordeaux Stables Clinic I'd like to give special
thanks to Joyce and Charlene for all their hard work and for making my job a pleasure!
I look forward to returning to both of these groups to see the progress that's been made! Don't forget about my clinic on May 21-23 in Yelm, WA. I hope to see you there!
James

My New Awareness!

Hi James
I wanted to share my new awareness with you!
I was walking my dogs this morning and really felt for the feel of using my bones. It had lightly snowed the night before, so I had a fantastic view of my foot fall. I was working in the pedaling mode and feeling of my bone while I started opening my gates. By the time I got to the final gate my whole body was in flow, light and soft. I paused and looked behind and my foot fall in the snow was the best I have ever produced. Instead of doing just the movement and opening up the feel really opened the gates
I continued with this feel easily and now I am working on imagining the horse underneath. Wow, thanks for this new awareness.
Sincerely,
Dana

Want to Extend a Connected Trot?

I find it fascinating that even with the most accomplished riders that after about 15 min (sometimes much less time) of the sitting trot their body has tightened against the movement of the gait. When this happens the rider absorbs less of the power of the trot into the body. This causes more imbalances that the rider must further brace against to manage. Returning to the walk or the rising trot has little effect on relieving the body of this tension.

It seems the most effective way to release and recover from this tightened state in the seat is to get off the horse and do 2 simple stretches:

Kiss the Toes

Place Palms on Feet

You will be amazed at the results when you are back in the saddle!

Walking Backwards--What Happens in Your Brain!

Here's a response to a question about the benefits of walking backwards from Lynda.

Hi Lynda,
Walking backwards has very strong and positive effects on the brain. It expands your awareness, something I'm not sure we could measure even if we had a neuro research lab. Having said that, this is what I think, as we walk backwards we are reversing the order in which the muscles are being used and this has a powerful effect on the wiring and firing of electrical impulses in the brain via the nervous system. I also know that the neuro pathways involved in walking are some of the earliest and deeply established wiring paths. Just ask anyone over 3 years old if they have to think about walking? Nope, they just do it. Walking backwards does not use the same ingrained paths in your brain, it develops new ones. It's not that big a deal over all because it happens all the time in the brain. What is fascinating is that the new paths are created by the new movement in the body. Again no big deal except that the vision is not directly involved because we don't look back to see where we are stepping. This increases our need to use other senses. If you look at it from another angle, say the energy/chi angle, every time your foot hits the ground, toes first it opens the yuen cheun ( kidney channel) it then bares the weight of the body which in turn pushes earth chi into the meridian with every step that's cool! Because you can't or won't lean back when walking backwards your bones take on more force from gravity. This greatly increases the electrical activity in the entire bone structure, it's way better than milk for your bone health. This increased electrical activity heads straight for the brain and helps create more and new stimulation for the wiring. All of this could be easily tested if we had the equipment, and feeling better and more alive after walking backwards is all the proof I need. I hope that I have answered your question. Thanks Lynda see ya soon.
James

Sitting Trot

One of the major issues I observe in riders at the sitting trot is the ability to maintain the connection of the sit bones through the entire cycle of the gait. When we loose the rhythm of the cycle of movement the body has to tighten to hold on and in a preparatory reaction to the possibility of hitting the ground. This happens whether we are asking for it or not. The movement in the rider's body looks more like a rising or posting trot than it does the sitting trot.

The movement of the body at the sitting trot should be exactly like it is at the walk. The only difference being the power and the speed in which the body is moving with the horse. The movement of the pelvis, femur bones and lower lumbar mirror that of the rider walking effectively on the ground.

Thanks Florida - What a Great First Clinic!

I'm back home in sunny Arizona after a fantastic 4 days of clinic and lessons in Ocala Florida. The participants were great and Christine did a wonderful job of organizing and hosting the clinic. From the accommodations to the open minded enthusiasm of everyone, I felt right at home and welcome from the start.

We worked on becoming more aware of our breath and the many and various applications it has to riding. Along with the breath we began the process in which we receive and redirect the power of the horse through our bodies. These techniques result in nearly effortless connection with the horse.

Thanks also to Aimee - a gifted instructor and rider. It was her forward thinking that made the whole clinic possible.

I can't wait to work with this group again!

James

Don't Change Direction by Rosie McCall

Bustle wobbled up the straight line across the arena, trying bravely to compensate for the blobby torso sitting on her back.
‘Don’t change direction’ she mutters to herself, giving a snort of impatience and stretching her head down to relieve the tension in her back. ‘I’ll give her don’t change direction’ and does a little jinks to the right.
‘It would help if the human learnt how to stand properly before she sat on my back’, the aggrieved mare thought to herself. ‘I can walk in a straight line but I bet she can’t’, she continued to ruminate to herself.
The blobby human vainly strived to sit in the saddle using her sit bones and keeping her pesky hips in place following the detailed instructions been given from the ground. The perfectly balanced male in the middle of the arena, looking cool and relaxed, sighed to himself and decided a little more ground work might help the blobby human.
Now then, weight on the balls of your feet, hips slightly back, ankles slightly bent, and breathe letting gravity do the work and not the muscles. Sounded easy but years of misspent standing, hip shot, leaning backwards was not to be forgotten in one lesson. How can a body sit properly in the saddle if they cannot stand properly on the ground? The importance of how the human controlled its balance and weight was emphasized. Every in balance in the human is felt by the horse. Poor horse having to spend years trying to compensate for the unbalanced human on its back.
Bustle walked calmly across the arena demonstrating a perfect straight line without this wobbly, blobby person on her back. So humiliating for the human.
Dismayed, Bustle was asked to allow the human on her back for another go. Sit bones realigned, breathing deeply into the stomach – or the posh name Dian Tian, reins loose on the neck the human was asked to smile and think Bustle forward with intent and on an inhale of breathe.
‘Hey’ Bustle thought to herself ‘now that was easy, I can do that’. Off she moved in a straight line, then felt a wobble on her back so immediately tried to compensate with a back leg moving up and round under her. ‘Not my fault I am changing direction’ she muttered to herself. The Human aware on a deeper level of her weight and her sit bones, corrected herself and put a little more weight into the offending sit bone and Bustle straightened herself up.
Bustle and the human started to move in rhythm with each other, the human’s body mimicking the flow of motion from Bustle, feeling the power of the hind leg coming up under each sit bone and allowing the sit bone to move with the leg. Bustle walked a straight line up the centre of the arena.
Bustle and human moved out into the big wide world daring to aim across a wide and large stubble field. ‘Will she hold her direction’ the human thought to herself allowing Bustle the freedom to walk at a brisk pace.
‘Oh my god’ Bustle’s head shot up, ‘is that a deer I see in the hedgerow?’ ‘Better take evasive action, you never know with these deer’. Bustle started to move in a different direction, the human shifted the weight on her sit bones, turned her sternum to line back up the way they were going and Bustle settled back down to the original direction. The slow deep breathing and the following hips of the human, relaxing Bustle. They walked across the field at a steady pace, minute adjustments to direction and speed being communicated between horse and human with soft movements of bones and breath.
‘ok’ the human thought, ‘I will aim for a downward transition and a halt’. Not being able to look and think at the same time, she closed her eyes, breathed deeply let her sit bones sink into the saddle and exhaled to a halt. Bustle obligingly came to a stop, one front foot at a time, lining them up precisely. The human overjoyed at the success opened her eyes to be confronted by a large tree and some branches in her face! Oh well, she thought ‘I did not actually tell Bustle where to stop, but to stop so guess she picked the best place for her’. Bustle added a little snack to the days efforts.

……///
Riding a horse is an ongoing conversation between horse and human.
Before we are critical of a horse changing direction, we need to check that inadvertently we are not giving him indication to do so with our bodies.
Anybody who has seen a horse gallop freely across a field will know that a horse can hold a direction without any difficulty. It is when the human element is introduced that the horse struggles to understand the conflicting messages received from hand, leg and body. The right hand says go right, the left leg pushes out, the body leans back and out, now what is the horse to make of that?