26/08/2024
Besides that it is just a lot of fun to do with your horse (and can be really beautiful to watch!), there are four really important reasons why you do not want to omit doing work-in-hand with your horse:
1. IMPROVES YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR HORSE
The work-in-hand creates a strong bond and relationship of trust and respect with your horse. You can use this work to connect with horses who are shut off, shut down, and tuned out. It helps you to define the "language" of the work and nature of the relationship with a new horse, or to redefine it with a horse that has trauma or bad experiences with people.
2. YOU CAN USE WORK-IN-HAND TO TEACH NEW MOVEMENTS TO YOUR HORSE
Because you don't have the weight of the rider, and you are on the ground, you can more easily guide and influence the horse slowly, it is perfect for introducing and teaching movements to the horse such as shoulder-in, haunches-in, renvers, half-pass, piaffe, and passage. You can also use it to troubleshoot problems.
This is a much kinder, simpler way to teach the horse without the additional weight of the rider or possibly confusing seat and weight aids. It helps the horse to figure out their body better without the weight or confusing aids of the rider. It helps you, too, to be able to SEE what is going on with the horse. You can SEE how they are using their legs and weight, you can SEE how they are shifting their weight to the hindquarters (or not), you can SEE how active they are with the hind legs (or not), you can SEE how well they are connecting from front to back (or not) - which enables you to fix issues in the lateral movements and half steps before they become a habit.
3. WORK-IN-HAND IMPROVES BALANCE, SUPPLENESS, COORDINATION, AND BODY AWARENESS FOR THE HORSE
Without the weight of the rider on the horse, you can guide the horse into exercises which improve the balance (so the horse learns to more easily and readily shift the weight to the hindquarters), suppleness (so the horse releases blockages and resistance throughout his body), coordination (because you can go slowly, the horse learns to coordinate his body better), and body awareness (so the horse learns he has FOUR legs and he can use all of them!).
4. WORK-IN-HAND IS A GREAT ALTERNATIVE WAY TO TRAIN YOUR HORSE
Work-in-hand is a great training alternative for times when you cannot ride, or your horse cannot be ridden. �For example, when you don’t have a saddle that fits, the training doesn’t need to be paused - you can do work-in-hand instead.
Also work-in-hand is a great supplement to other physiotherapy you may be doing with your horse when recovering from injury or working past training injuries or issues. Or, perhaps it is you that cannot ride for some reason - the work-in-hand gives you an option that perhaps you had not considered. Or perhaps you cannot ride because the footing is not safe, is too wet, or icy - work-in-hand is a great alternative because you can do the work very slowly and deliberately which is much safer in those conditions.
Additionally, horses with traumatic bad experiences often appreciate the work-in-hand if they had no previous bad experiences with it. It can be used as a bridge to help the horse overcome bad training and trauma.
I am extraordinarily pleased to announce the opening of enrollment for our long-awaited Intermediate Work-in-Hand course beginning Friday. August 23rd. This is a follow-up course to our Introduction to Work-in-Hand course.
This is a 10-week online course for riders who want to develop their work-in-hand from beyond the basics into the lateral movements and half-steps as development towards the piaffe. Perfect for riders who are passionate about exploring classical technique to train their horse yet don’t have a trainer to work with who can show them how to do this work or have tried to figure it out on their own but found it to be a mystery or encountered difficulties they didn’t know how to resolve.
This course is particularly beneficial for providing a great first experience for your horse with the lateral movements and half-steps, but it also can help to retrain a horse who is resistant or confused about the lateral movements or half-steps/piaffe. If you have had trouble introducing any of the lateral movements to your horse, this course can help with that. If you have had trouble introducing the half-steps/piaffe to your horse, this course can help with that.
The exercises in this course develop your horse’s body awareness, coordination, agility, help you to teach all the lateral movements EASIER to the horse, and develop collection and COLLECT-ABILITY.
You will learn how to use Lateral Movements in-hand to assist and progress the training of your horse. You will learn how to use them as an easier and better way to introduce these movements to your horse.
- Shoulder-in
- Renvers
- Haunches-in
- Half Pass
- Pirouette renversée
You will learn how to introduce half steps to develop your horse’s balance and collection.The pathway towards the piaffe starts with developing half-steps and there are several ways to do that. Different ways work better for different horses. We will teach you ALL of these methods.
- Half steps from the Walk
- Half steps from the Trot
- Half steps from the Halt
- Half steps from Shoulder-in on a Volte
- Half steps from the Haunches-in
You will also learn two advanced methods of work-in-hand:
- Work-in-hand with a Double Bridle
- Living Pillars (work with two handlers)
The course starts August 23, 2024, and it includes feedback and support from us each step of the way with 6 Q&A sessions and 5 Hot Seat Video Coaching Feedback sessions.
As always, this course comes with our full 30-day money back guarantee. If you’re not 100% satisfied with the program, the strategies, the exercises, or the support after 30 days, we will offer you a full refund.
Join us. We begin August 23rd. Enroll here - https://courses.artisticdressage.com/intermediate-WIH
