equine pemf therapy, massage & mindful horsemanship
“If your arms are tired, you’re riding wrong.” Saying or hearing that phrase can be how you make enemies at the barn, but there are better ways of controlling speed than by pulling. It may seem like the only solution at the time, but whether your horse is constantly pulling against you to drag his nose in the dirt, or you are pulling on them to slow them down, once you fall into the trap of tugging, it can be a difficult habit to break – for us. For a horse? They tend to
First let me clarify that I will be discussing over-flexion and not looking at or critiquing rollkur, the latter being something worthy of a blog post all its own, but I digress. Over-flexion is occasionally a soft-mouthed horse’s method of evading the bit, or a developed habit from a heavy-handed rider. Despite the “aesthetics” of all of those …
Dressage is a most pleasant art to watch. The horses are often well-muscled and round, their heads held proudly on arching necks. It looks like a dance where rider and horse become one; and it is. This connection between bodies and minds is a constant effort. The rider must always respect the horse’s body and …
As any serious dressage rider who’s taken a lesson or two knows, the horse should be ridden ‘back to front.’ In other words, creating energy in the hindquarters to encourage the horse to carry himself over the back, lightening the forehand and suppling into the contact of the rider’s hands. So why start with focus …