04/28/2021
The Importancy Of "GEAR WORK."
When we're riding a horse we are always telling them to "stay calm, don't get excited, don't get nervous." And what happens is that it's great UNTIL the horse does get excited or nervous. You take your horse to a new place, a show, etc. they get excited and now they don't know how to control emotion.
How we work on that is by learning emotional control. Taking up their emotions and bringing them back down, and that comes from speed.
When working on emotions you have 6 gears.. Walk, Trot, Lope, 4th gear Lope, 5th gear Lope, and the 6th gear Lope (all out run.)
When you work on gears the horse has to go up in a gear and HOLD that gear until it feels smooth, they are relaxed and their emotions are under control then let them come back down a gear. Don't rush gears, in the beginning it may take a while, stay in that gear until they relax in it. Do not let the horse speed up or slow down on their own, HOLD THE GEAR you are in.
Example: If you are in 4th gear, hold that gear until it feels like 3rd, until they are relaxed, their emotions are under control and THEN bring them back down to 3rd gear.
Anytime you work on speed above something, it affects everything below it. If you teach the trot it affects the trot and the walk. If you teach the lope, it affects the lope, trot and the walk. If you teach the run it affects the run, lope, trot, and walk.
The PRIORITY is the emotion, don't worry about the head or the nose in the beginning, but stay in a gear long enough that they start to relax and you have a controlled lope, THEN you can start to work them in that gear.
* First teach them how to control their emotion, taking them up and down, to hold relaxed, controlled gears then make it look pretty.
Where we tend to mess up in our training is we try to keep them calm and say, "Don't make a mistake, don't get excited or nervous" but then when they do, we don't have control because we never practice taking their emotions up and bringing them back down.
"A broke horse is one that is taught to control his emotions."
REMEMBER, Start in a gear you have control in and then build from that.
For more training click on the link below to our online school!
https://lyons-online.mykajabi.com/
