Softening the Hands

"Don't pull," said my instructor for probably the 837th time.  I inwardly sighed because I wasn't pulling.  But for the 837th time, I moved my hands forward and made the reins loose so it would be clear I wasn't pulling.  Even though I knew I was supposed to maintain contact with Nimo's mouth.  "Your reins are too loose.  You need to shorten them."  I dutifully shortened my reins.  "Stop pulling..."  And the cycle continued.  For years.

I can't remember when I finally figured out what the problem was.  I changed instructors after awhile, and then again, and again as I searched for a good fit for Nimo and me.  But at some point, I learned that there is a technique called softening your hands.  It is probably intuitive for many riders and instructors, and that is why it isn't always explicitly taught.  And there are plenty of riders who never use the technique.  I see the lack of its use most often at the higher levels of dressage, which is an embarrassment.  Higher level dressage horses and riders should be a picture of harmony, but most often they are a study in tension and conflict as the rider cranks the horse's head down and the horse looks as if it will explode if the rider lets up on the reins even the slightest bit.

Looking back on those agonizing years of lessons on Nimo where my instructor was telling me not to pull, I think what was actually going on was that he was trying to convey that there needed to be a change in the way I was taking up contact with Nimo. If Nimo was moving well, I needed to soften my hands and have a different kind of contact than if he was struggling with his balance and needed my support or correction.  The length of rein would not change, but the tone of my arms and hands would change.  I'm sure at the time, I was probably riding with my arms and hands always tense because I didn't know any other way, and I was, in fact, stressed out and tense during my lessons.

I guess I can't speak for everyone, but eventually I learned that softening my hands is the way I tell my horse that he has gotten it right.  Whatever I'm asking, whether it is yielding at the poll, flexing the neck, giving through the ribcage, shoulder-in, half-pass, more engagement, less speed, or just a shift in balance, softening my hands is the quickest and easiest way for me to say, "Yes!"  I don't always get my timing right, and I admit there are times when I even forget because my brain feels so overloaded with all the things going through it.  Yet I am pretty sure that the correct use of softening hands is probably one of several things that sets amazing riders apart from the rest of us.

I have been hyper-focused on softening my hands when I ride Freya.  During the last week or so, I finally got my schedule and brain and motivation all in the same place, and I was able to get four rides on her in eight days.  And that was when I realized something pretty important that pretty much everyone knows (including me), but that I had lost sight of with all the stuff going on the past few months - Freya needs me to ride her several times a week in order for us to get better at working together. 

I know, shocker, right?  I've been riding Freya when I can, but I've probably only ridden 2-3 times a month on average.  And that wasn't enough for her.  I am almost positive that she has some anxiety when she has a new rider/handler/activity, and the best way to help her through that anxiety is to repeat the thing frequently in a quiet way, so she has a chance to understand what is happening.  

For example, I hadn't ridden her in close to a month before I did my last lesson with her.  In addition to being a little sore on her feet (she was dealing with an infection in her heels because of the poor shoeing she'd had done before we got her, and I didn't realize how significant it was and thus I didn't start the treatment she should have been getting until my instructor pointed it out), she was anxious.  I had trouble getting on at the mounting block again, which was an issue that I thought had been resolved.  I initially thought it was a problem with the mounting block, but I'm 99% sure now that it is a problem with her being anxious about being ridden by someone new (or infrequent).  She is incredibly solid for Gemma getting on, but Gemma rides her several times a week.  I assumed handling her every day would be good enough to help her be comfortable with me, but it didn't help our under saddle work.

We moved the lesson from the sandy arena which seemed to bother her feet to a grassy flat field next to the arena.  She'd been ridden there before (by Gemma) and been fine.  But when I started asking her to collect and improve her balance, she started crow-hopping.  Over and over.  I forget how many times she warned me.  And after, I don't know, maybe 12-15 crow hops, she legitimately bucked.  I knew it was coming, and I knew it was too big for me to stay on.  I put my right hand on her neck, grabbed mane, and somehow managed to rotate in the air and land on my feet.  (Yes, I am as proud of that unscheduled dismount as I am of any blue ribbon or endurance ride I ever finished.  And there were even witnesses!)  Freya stood perfectly still as soon as she felt my butt leave the saddle.  And there was zero drama getting back on.  She was just being super clear after many warnings that she was really uncomfortable changing her balance in the way I was asking.

We wrapped the lesson up with some in-hand work, which seemed to be easier for her to handle.  And I was left to figure out how I was going to work with Freya.  Because as uncomfortable as she was with what I was asking, I couldn't let her continue to move in her on-the-forehand, unbalanced way.  At some point, her compensations will create physical issues, and I don't want that life for her.

I spent the month after the lesson debating how to move forward.  The first thing I did was give her a week off so I could start treating the infection in her heels.  The second week I put Gemma back on her for walking only on grass footing.  She seemed fine.  No crow-hopping or bucking for Gemma.  But Gemma wasn't asking her to improve her balance.  The third week Gemma started doing walking and a little trotting in the arena, and Freya looked good in the sense that she didn't seem tender-footed on the sand.  And the fourth week, I got back on. 

Our first ride was a struggle.  It took me about 12 tries to get on Freya at the mounting block.  I'm sure she remembered our last ride as not that much fun for her, and it had been almost a month since I'd ridden her by then.  I managed to keep my frustration contained and eventually got on.  Then Freya did what she typically does when she is anxious - she walks with quick, short strides.  (In terms of expressing anxiety, it's a very safe thing to do, as long as her rider isn't an idiot.)

So we walked, and we walked, and we walked.  We did circles and serpentines and random patterns around the arena.  I asked for Freya to yield at least a little through her poll (and softened my hands to let her know that was what I wanted), but other than that, I wasn't fussing too much at her.  We had some good moments, but it was clear that she was worried about what I was going to ask her to do.  So we kept walking until her walk slowed and was a more tempered pace, and I felt her starting to let go of her worry.  

Then I got off.  And she fussed a lot about wanting to go to the gate.  (And by fussing, I mean she kind of tossed her head around and walked fast.)  So we hung out in the middle of the arena while other riders rode around us.  I stood in the same place and Freya tried everything her well-behaved self could think of to convince me to go to the gate.  She pushed my shoulder with her nose.  She pawed.  She stomped.  She circled around me.  She gave me "The Look."  And finally, when I didn't move, she stood still and waited.

And then we headed toward the gate.  And she fussed at me again.  The same stuff.  Pacing. Circling, Head tossing.  She even tried to bite the gate.  Each time, I would walk her away from the gate, do a circle or some backing, and then come back.  Over and over, until she was quiet at the gate.

And then we headed to the barn.  Where she fussed in the cross ties.  (Normally she is quite good and stands quietly, but she had worked herself up.)  So I waited her out there too before finally leading her back to her field.

I was curious about how she would act the next day when Gemma rode her.  But she was her normal, well-behaved self.  

So I got on again the following day.  This time, I was able to get yielding through her poll a lot faster.  Again, I focused on the walk and doing patterns.  Toward the end, I asked for trot with balance.  I could feel her back come up.  That was her first-stage warning to me.  I devoted probably about 5-7 minutes to working with her in that zone.  That zone being the place where I was starting to push her out of her comfort zone and she was telling me she wasn't comfortable.  But I tried to stay under her threshold of actually crow-hopping, which was the second-stage warning.  I was mostly successful, and I managed to get about 2 strides of balanced trot in each direction before I could tell she was going to lose it.  I walked her out and then called it a day.  We probably rode about 25 minutes total.

Then Gemma rode again.  I wasn't seeing any changes one way or the other with them, and I decided to let that go for now.

For my third ride with Freya, I basically repeated the process that I had during the second ride, but I tried to get just a little more balanced trot - maybe a half of a 20-meter circle.  Again, she was worried about it, but I was able to keep her under her crow-hopping threshold.  I thought of it like I was chipping away tiny bits of the protections she had erected to keep herself moving in an unbalanced way.  She is just too sensitive and I don't have the history with her for her to trust me when I ask for uncomfortable things for me to approach it any other way.

For the fourth ride, which was just a day after the third, I was able to easily get on at the mounting block.  She stood perfectly still.  Then we headed out to a field next to the arena that is on a gentle slope.  It's a great field for easy conditioning that I used to use with Nimo when I couldn't get out on the trails.  Freya has been ridden in it several times by Gemma and maybe once or twice by me in the past.  But I thought of it like it was our first time because I really felt like the three rides so close together had started to give us a framework of working together.

My only focus for this ride in the field was for her to walk in a medium pace with some level of yielding through her poll.  Not her fast, anxious walk, and not a slow walk where I wondered if we would ever get from point A to point B.  A walk that would be great out on the trails, in other words.  She started at the walk I wanted because she didn't have the anxiety she had had a week before.  And she maintained it for the entire 20 minutes that I rode with only two exceptions, where she started to walk a bit faster (probably hoping to head back to the barn and be done with her bizarre rider).  Both times, I simply turned her into a small circle and she immediately slowed.

It was my first ride with her where I really felt like we were starting to communicate.  She was super responsive.  Which she normally is anyway, but in a calmer way.  I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but when she is anxious, she still responds to all aids.  If you ask her to trot, she does it immediately.  Canter, the same thing.  Turns, circles, halts, everything.  But she does it with an air of trying to provide the response quickly so she doesn't get punished.  (I don't have any reason to think that anyone in her past rode her in an abusive way, but given her sensitivity, I think even a single ride with a rider who lacked finesse would be damaging, and that could have easily happened during the time she was with the horse trader before we got her at the auction.)

In addition to my goal for Freya, I had one for myself:  to immediately respond with softened hands the instant she gave me what I was looking for and to maintain that softness as long as she held her balance.  Yeah, so I need to do that every ride.  It didn't take Freya long at all to start moving the way I wanted her to for probably 75% of the ride.

So my path forward is pretty clear, I think.  Ride Freya 3-4 times a week for the next month with a focus on softening my hands in response to Freya's attempts at correct yielding and balance.  I also want to keep her working under her threshold of reactivity while still chipping away at her protections.  

But I also need a path for Gemma if the two of them are ever going to move beyond the simple work they are doing now.  Gemma has already demonstrated an ability to be a sensitive rider, but she needs guidance on how to be sensitive with Freya, particularly given that Freya will happily launch her rider into the heavens if said rider is not listening.  If nothing else, it is a safety issue.

My instructor comes out once a month to work with me and Gemma and Star and Freya.  (Gemma typically rides once a week with the instructor based at the barn, but the focus in those lessons tends to be on getting around the arena, hunter showing techniques, completing a dressage pattern, and basic position rather than the more advanced techniques that I think Gemma needs to learn to improve her horsemanship skills.)  So when she came out this past weekend, I told her that I felt like Freya and I needed another month to work on our relationship before we had another lesson.  But I thought Gemma and Freya were ready to move forward.

So my instructor first worked with Gemma and Freya on lunging.  It's clear Freya has extensive practice on lunging and she is delightful to work with.  She is a perfect fit for Gemma, who has never lunged a horse before.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly Gemma picked up on the basic techniques.  You can see a video below.  You may need to switch to desktop view if you are on your phone to see the video.

 

Then Gemma got on.  And guess what they worked on?  Softening hands when Freya gets it right.  (I hadn't said anything to my instructor regarding Gemma's hands.  It's just how she teaches.)  Much like me, Gemma didn't understand what softening her hands meant at first, and she would move her hands forward each time my instructor told her to soften her hands.  Unlike my old instructor, though, after a few iterations, my current instructor said, "You don't know what softening your hands means, do you?"  And she spent some quality time working through how to do it.  She held one end of the reins and Gemma held the other and they each pretended to be the horse or the rider while practicing different degrees of tension and softening.

Then, they went back to work.  You can see a short video of their work below:

I will note that Gemma has been taking lessons with three different instructors during the last three years.  Not a single one of them has taken the time to make sure Gemma understands this concept and practices it.  It is a travesty.  It is why I have started including Gemma in the lessons with my instructor now that she has Freya and Star to ride.  There are a mind-boggling number of things that a person needs to learn to ride well, and learning basic rein and leg aids and position are among them.  But I don't think it matters if you ride with perfect position if you can't find a way to signal your horse that she has responded correctly to your question.

We spend too much time here in the U.S. (at least in my area) working on position and drilling jumping or dressage movements and not enough time learning how to actually communicate with a horse.  If I never have to watch one more beginner lesson where the kid is told to kick harder anytime the horse won't move faster, it will be too soon.  (Especially when I know the horse is perfectly capable of trotting in response to almost a thought.)

I don't know what kind of training Freya or Star has had, in terms of how communication was approached.  I know both of them have show experience over fences, but beyond that, I can only guess.  But I can say that regardless of what it was (and it was probably quite different for each of them), neither one of them has any trouble understanding when I use my seat and legs to ask for a 10-meter circle or a shoulder-in or a half pass.  I don't need to spread my hands apart or use a leading rein or even use a whip or a spur or drill over and over or go through some complicated training process.  They can't do it perfectly in balance, but they have no trouble executing the maneuver at the level of their fitness.  I am not a particularly gifted rider nor have I been riding either of them that long, but they still understand what I'm asking because I use techniques that are likely to make sense to the majority of horses, regardless of whether they have been previously schooled on that movement.  So what that means to me is that if riders were always taught to be sensitive to the horse and aware of their movements, most horse/rider partners could probably do a whole lot more than they currently do.

I can't break this cycle for everyone, but I do hope I can break it for my daughter.  Learning to soften her hands is the first step in what I hope will be an incredible relationship with Freya.  Because Freya is quickly showing how very special she is.  And I am positive that if Gemma can learn to communicate with her in a sensitive and mindful way, there is nothing that mare won't do for her.

Have you learned a technique that you think forms part of the foundation you use to communicate with your horse?  I'd love to hear about it!