Training Indeed

A while back a student videoed me on her horse during a lesson…

It’s best if you see it on my other blog, the dressage process. In fact, it’s probably best if you subscribe to that blog since I’m having some difficulty with this one.

mike

http://thedressageprocess.wordpress.com/?p=373&preview=true

Oh – part of the difficulty is I can’t get this blog to accept comments – so you you would use the dressage process to leave a message, I’d like to hear from you.

It appears the reason no one was commenting is that the program isn’t allowing them….

let me think about this.

Quick note: There are over 600 subscribers to this blog, but I never hear from any of you. If any of you are actually following it, please post a comment to let me know if I should keep it going or delete it forever and ever….

With all the details and rules, arguments and schools of thought, it’s easy to forget that training your horse is supposed to be fun. I’ll go one more and say if you’re not having fun with it, neither is your horse and chances are there is no progress being made. Well, I’m having fun with my horse and with my new video camera, software, and computer upgrade. This video shows all 3 in action.

First you can see how nicely my horse is warming up in the long unedited stretch at the beginning. Putting up a “warm-up” is unusual to say the least, but the absence of good warm-up videos has resulted in an absence of good warm-up strategies. That’s really a shame as the science of the warm-up is key to being able to get on to the training. Now I understand that many people will say I warm up my horse all wrong – well that’s great! Let’s see how they go about it and everybody benefits in the end.

You also see what the camera “sees” in the first minute or so. After that, you see what I’m doing with the new software and why I needed a computer upgrade (and hi-def camera) to render the final video I put up on youtube – it’s pretty awesome since the ability to pan and zoom after the fact means I can set up the camera on a tripod on any day and time I want, ride in front of it and make it what you see later that night, at home in front of the computer. I’ve been wanting a system like this for 35 years or so – however long it’s been since I bought my first shoebox size VCR and realized that now all I needed was someone to operate it while I rode in front of it. Now the wait is over, I have the ultimate mirror and I get to set it to music of my choice – cool.

In the first section you see my horse working long and “low” in frame and energy, although it looks more energetic on the screen than it felt when riding – very useful to be able to see that. The second part is the 2nd stage of warm-up, more energy but not all the pieces are there yet. Looking at it, I sometimes see moments of an increase in tension along with the increase in energy, and I also see moments of brilliance – especially in the shoulder-in at the 4:50 mark. It’s wonderful to be able to see this, it tells me I have to continue to ask for the relaxation and the energy in ways that don’t make him lazy or tight. This is the challenge we all face all the time with all the elements of making our horses.

Enjoy,

http://youtu.be/C8MdmLcZzGg

Hi All,

I guess people are actually visiting this blog – sorry I haven’t been paying much attention. I’ve recently put up a new video of Indeed on you tube – here’s the link. If anyone gets this message, please post a comment so I know this blog is worth keeping – in that case I’ll get more active with it.

Mike

Oh, here’s the link

Just wanted to let you know that there is now a forum available to discuss ideas, questions, and successes related to posts on this blog, and the content from my books and DVD. Membership in the forum will also allow you to stay updated on the latest news and events related to clinics and get together. In fact, it’s quite possible that this blog will be moved or joined with that forum, so joining that will be the most certain way to keep up with Indeed’s progress.

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It’s been over a year since I’ve posted a tape, so it’s also been over a year since I’ve seen what Indeed looks like under saddle.  I have to say,  I’m very pleased with his progress.  He not only looks generally better, he’s a much happier camper – and a lot more fun to ride. I’m sure he’s having much more fun being ridden too.

This is not to say he’s competition ready and perfect. He is still very much a work in progress. The progress that I care about is that he is learning to move loosely and freely forward under the rider. He still has to perfect his balance moving this way – because it’s so different than when he was trying to balance by bracing against the hands. But, he’s on the learning curve.
There are many who will look at this and think it’s not “classical” because his poll isn’t at the highest point. I suggest you read LDR and Article 401 before watching this. It will greatly enhance your knowledge and reduce your blood pressure.

Please also keep in mind, that if looking at a stretching horse you fixate on the distance from his nose to his chest, most of the time you will have a false impression. Part of the reason is that you’re viewing this through a zoom lens, and it is the function of a zoom lens to compress distance which means you can only see this distance in the occasional moment the horse is exactly perpendicular to your line of sight. So, if you think you see his “nose on his chest” and then a few seconds later you see it is clearly many inches away from it, the long distance is the actual distance.

This is a very long tape – 30 minutes – so long that I’ve had to divide it into two parts “a” and “b”.   I haven’t commented any of it. You can decide what you want about it.  I will say that I’m aware the changes from left to right are not what I want them to be, but that will get sorted out in short order.

This tape is fairly complete. It starts a few minutes after I got on. I took out boring stuff, and a fair amount that got buried in the dust.  But the rest is a fair representation of a typical day of schooling.  I warm up in a rising trot and canter. I do ride without stirrups for most of the ride now.  And I do spend all that time doing walk exercises with lots of releases and allowing him to stretch.

So, sit back, get comfortable, enjoy the show.  Here are the links:

Indeed – May 2010 part “A”

Indeed – May 2010 part “B”

OK – it’s been over a year since my last video, but it’s not for lack of progress.

The really important thing is he’s on my side now.  He’s finally figured out that this rider is not his adversary.  That started happening for real late last fall and I can honestly say I haven’t had a bad day on him since!

Virtually all of the old nonsense and head tossing is gone. There are still some stopping issues at the start of the ride, but now it seems more like he’s just doing it to see if it might “work” today.

He’s working on his flying changes and I couldn’t be happier with them. No, not every one is perfect, but more and more of them are. Most important he never gets upset of tries to rush off after a change.  His rhythm is rock solid so it’s only a matter of time.  We even did a line of 4 tempis the other day.  Well, I think we did.  I came across the diagonal and did a change, then when he felt ready I changed back, and there was room for another so I did that too.  Coming around the short side of the arena it occurred to me that I had just done a line of 4’s. So, I’m pretty sure we did.

We’ve been working on some other very cool stuff too.  I promise I’ll get another video up asap – I want to show off a bit!

In the meantime, check out my new book, Riding in the Moment – The Hidden Language of Dressage.  I’m so sure you will find this book incredibly useful in your training that I’ll give you your money back if you don’t agree it’s worth a lot more than the $19.95 it cost.  There’s a picture of it just to the right of this post – click on that or here to find out more,

Mike

Hi all,

It’s been quite a while since I’ve put up an Indeed training tape.  The reason for this is I was away so much doing clinics October through November and the weather has been pretty cold since then.  However, I’ve been making good progress with Indeed lately, so it’s just a matter of getting some decent weather and a camera person on the same day.

In the meantime, check out some of the short articles I’ve been putting up on the Dressage Process blog, and keep those cards and letters coming in!

By the way, if you have sent me an email and did NOT get a response, it’s possible it was mistakenly blocked by the spam filtering system.  If you think this is possible, please send me another message at

mikeschaffer1@netscape.net

That spam filter doesn’t seem to be as aggressive.

More later.

Mike

****NOTICE*****

Snapshot.com is linking to this 2 year old video by error. To get to the latest videos and see how Indeed is doing now, please click here.

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In this video I have Indeed in a double to try to deal with him throwing his head straight up. I knew he had a history of that, in fact, that’s the only reason I ended up with him.  However, I hadn’t experienced it with him until shortly before this taping. So, in this video I tried using double bridle which did help for a while but didn’t solve the issue.  Actually, I had to try several different approaches both in tack and technique over the next year before I came to a solution that has worked for long enough that I think it’s real.

So, in this tape I’m riding him a bit tentatively, but I set out to show an honest history of my work with him and this was part of it.

Here’s the link:  Indeed, September 20, 2006&

7/29/06.

If you’ve been following our progress you’ll probably notice that this tape is
late in coming and that Indeed and I are in a different ring for this session.
We’re back in New Jersey vacationing while our search for more permanent
training facility continues.

Although late, this tape deals with several
very common training and riding problems – how to deal with a horse’s stiff and
hollow side, a horse that wants to run out the gate, and the “give and go”
exercise in some detail.

I’ve briefly dealt with the give and go in an earlier tape – but perhaps
because it was hot and buggy when we did this video, I had to spend a good bit
more time with it here.
So, you get a much better feel for how often it is used in typical training
situations. What I did show in the tape but didn’t explain is that every
time my horse does “give” to me, I give back to him – I soften the contact
slightly as I ask him to go on.

Indeed 7-29-06

Another point that I didn’t make strongly enough in the tape is that the “give and go” eventually becomes a “half-halt”. In the give and go the horse
softens to the hand and then is asked to go by the riders leg. As the horse begins to understand that he will always be asked to “go” as soon as he gives,
the two become almost simultaneous, and then, he begins to “give” to the hand in response to the riders leg asking him to go. Indeed actually does this once
in this tape. When a horse consistently “gives” to  the hand as he steps up in response to the leg, the horse has a “half-halt” and the rest of dressage
falls in to place.

Finally we end up with a little canter in each direction. Generally I’m very
pleased with his progress – especially when you consider we’re only 3 months
into ourtraining program. Here’s the link:

JULY 29, 2006 tape