The Eight Responsibilities
There are eight responsibilities in a partnership: four for the human and four for the horse.
So many people aren’t aware of these responsibilities and this is what gives rise to artificial aids such as harsher bits, martingales and tie downs, etc. because people are always having to hold horses back from going faster, or to keep them going because they always want to slow down and stop; In order to have a harmonious partnership and harmony is what Level 2(3) is all about – both horse and human have to learn and uphold their responsibilities.
The Four Responsibilities for the Human
- Don’t act like a predator, become more mentally, emotionally and physically fit.
- Have an independent seat.
- Think like a horse-man.
- Use the natural power of focus.
What do each of these really mean?
1. Don’t act like a predator.
How does a human act like a predator? Our first though is usually in terms of being aggressive toward the horse, but a scared predator is just as worrying to the horse as an aggressive one. In one sense, the horse feels threatened that you are going after him…in the other, he feels you get tight (starting with the hole under your tail), all your “claws” go in (clutching with your hands on the reins and legs clamping to his sides), and he still interprets it as threatening because that’s what a mountain lion would feel like when it jumped on his back. Your horse isn’t about to interpret whether you are scared or not, he just feels the result.
Become more mentally, emotionally and physically fit.
This prevents you from acting like a predator because you are getting in control of your thoughts, your emotions and therefore your physical reactions. You can think before you act, and your reactions are based on the instalment of good habits so you do the right thing at the right time for the right reasons, its about self control.
Mental fitness
This is developed through attitude and knowledge. if you are positive and progressive, you will keep developing your knowledge about the horse so you understand his behavioural tendencies and you understand his psychology. The more knowledgeable you are the more inclined you are to do the right thing at the right time. Where knowledge end, force begins.
Emotional fitness
This means you don’t get mean or mad, you don’t get scared, you don’t get frustrated, you can stay left brained in the situation and think before you act, and you have endless patience. Things that were scary to people before they got into the PNH Levels Program are probably not nearly as scary any more because of the mental and emotional fitness they have developed at this point. As you follow the program you can’t help but become more emotionally fit around horses (and it will probably reflect in your personal and business lives too. I remember a student who told me she doesn’t yell at her employees anymore!).
Ground skills help enormously with becoming more confident with horses, and so does riding FreeStyle without having to hang on to the reins.
Watch horses playing and sparring so you are not shocked by natural behaviour.
Physical fitness
many of us find ourselves in all different forms of physical fitness or disarray. Either its been a long winter, you’ve spent more time at your desk or computer than out being physical or playing with your horse, you’ve been ill and laid up.
What to do: all kinds of exercise programs are going to help a lot so you might want to investigate some of these at the gym. If you are the kind of person that has trouble sticking to these, try incorporating some of the ideas below into your every day life. We have found many people becoming so much more athletic to the point that they can jump up on a 16 hand horse that they could never have done before, just by becoming more physically active and pushing their boundaries.
- Never walk slow. Put energy into your step every time you move and swing your arms. You’ll find this will not only affect your physical fitness through exercising your muscles and moving your lymph but also your emotional and general attitude. if you have a tendency to feel negative or depressed, putting spark into your step will affect your emotions positively too. Sedentary behaviour will propagate negativity, depression or feelings of defeat.
- Run whenever you can…to the mail box, from the barn to the pasture, from your car to the barn, etc.etc. You’ll start to get fitter and find that it not only becomes easier but you’ll run smoother and faster.
- Climb over, under or through fences instead of using the gate.
- Run up stairs.
- Improve your diet.
- Simple stretches: See if you can improve the stretch of your inner leg muscles, the adductor that run from your groin down your inner thigh to your knees. You can do this standing, getting gradually wider and wider until your tolerance is reach and increasing this over several days and weeks; or by sitting upright on the floor with your feet against a wall and do it this way.
- Improve general posture: lift your frame for the diaphragm muscles in you stomach to improve your self carragine. Your back needs to become straighter and your shoulder more upright as a habit.
2. Have an independent Seat
What does this mean? It means you don’t hang on to the reins or grip below your knees for your balance. It also means your arms, hands and legs can operate independently of your seat and your seat can be isolated from your legs and your hands.
Until you start riding FreeStyle without rein contact, you probably didn’t realise how un-independent your seat really was.
Over the course of Level 2 and Level 3 (and 4) you will find your seat getting better and better. You’ll be able to zig when the horse zigs, zag when he zags, be in time with his forward movement and stop without getting thrown forward. Your independent seat will also improve with the more up and down hill exposure you get, starting to go over jumps, riding in round corrals without touch the reins, Carrot Stick riding and by riding bareback.
3. Think like a horse – man
This means that you consider the horse’s point of view and think like a horse in any given situation before you ever think like a human. As a responsibility you will stop blaming the horse and looking at how they perceive things and then setting it up to make it easy for the horse to do the right thing.
4. Use the natural power of focus
Focus gives you feel. Focus and feel give you timing. Focus, feel and timing give you balance. This is how important focus is! If you can learn to look where you are going you will start communicating all the right things with the rest of your body. You’ll put your hands and legs in all the right places at all the right times in order to elicit the desired responses from your horse. Your focus will tell you exactly what to do and when.
Every time you are with your horse, you should work on every one of your four responsibilities. As you keep progressing in the program these responsibility will advance to greater and greater levels.
The Four Responsibilities of the Horse
1. Don’t act like a prey animal
A prey animal gets right brained quick and escapes from pressure. As the horse gets more mentally and emotionally fit he learns how to be more left brained more of the time. “Don’t just do something, stand there” becomes the modus operandi for the horse.
Mentally fit
By being exposed to more and more tasks, the horse learns how to handle himself in all kinds of situations. By learning to think his way through imaginative tasks, his mental capacity for dealing with all kinds of things increases significantly. The horse starts to operate more from his left brain than his right (reactive) brain.
Emotionally fit
Horses become emotionally unglued very easily because they make a living being scared! Their ability to perceive danger early and flee from it is what survival is all about therefore adrenaline is a fact of life. When a horse gets on adrenaline it can take him a while to come off it.
Right brain is when horse are reacting out of instinct and self preservation and left brain is when they are calm and thinking. The sight of a horse becoming more emotionally fit is one that does not get right brained easily anymore under all kinds of circumstance, and if he does get on adrenaline can come off it pretty quickly and become left brain again.
A horse that is not stressed will have more flexible muscles. Tension gives way to muscle injuries and an emotionally distraught horse is more susceptible to colic upsets. In addition, right brain behaviour carries down to the feet and you’ll have a horse that’s more inclined to trip and fumble and slip.
It’s important to keep challenging your horse and giving him more and more to deal with both on the ground and while riding to continually build emotional fitness. The more reliable your horse becomes the more you’ll be able to do with him and the safer you both will be.
Physically fit
Horses that are underweight, overweight or unfit will end up giving you problems. They will not have the health and endurance necessary to go to Level 3(4). By working on the 7 Games, challenging your horse over, under, through things and at all gaits builds strong and flexible muscles and a strong top line for self carriage. The problem with lunging and many athletic endeavours with horse is that they emphasize forward motion more than anything else. Through the 7 Games you develop a horse by getting forwards, backwards, right, left, up and down equal.
Athletic development goes hand in hand with mental and emotional fitness as well as a comprehensive program of advancement.
Feeding and digestion
Pay attention to a balance diet that’s as natural as possible, good hydration and frequent exercise to allow a horse to move himself, activate his respiratory and circulatory systems. Parasites are testament to an inefficient digestive system. WE promote an extraordinary equine formula that upgrades the digestive system and impacts overall health by improving nutritional uptake. Symptoms such as mange, parasite infestation, arthritis, finicky eating, inability to gain and maintain weight, etc. have all shown incredible improvement. Other factors to consider Hoof care & Structural considerations.
2. Don’t change gaits
Disrespectful horses that have not been taught to uphold their responsibilities are always changing gaits on you . Either you have to always hold them back from going faster or you have to keep them going forward. Don’t fall into the trap of being your horse’s gait babysitter!
Teach a horse to maintain his gait by leaving him alone whey he’s doing what you want, and coming up your phases when he quits doing it. Horses learn by making mistakes so don’t you make the mistake of trying to prevent your horse from faltering. If he realises consequence for his actions he will learn what he did to cause it and change his behaviour. By preventing the horse from breaking gait he will never learn the responsibility to maintain it and you’ll find your self working harder and harder while you horse does less or takes advantage, take over, takes off.
A horse that really learns this responsibility finds purity of gait”. His gaits actually improve because he is mentally and emotionally in that gait and his weight is in the right place (on the front end at a walk, even at the trot, on the hindquarter at the canter and on the front end again for the gallop) so he becomes more athletic and graceful. Once you have purity of gait you can start to vary the speeds thin that gait – slow, medium and fast, or in dressage terms: collected, working, medium and extended.
Teach your horse through positive and negative reinforcement to maintain the gait you ask for no matter what: up and down hills, around corners, over jumps, etc. and only to change it when you ask.
3. Don’t change directions
If you dropped the reins but kept your focus, would your horse stay on track or would he veer off course? Most would veer off without constant direction from the reins. Once again we have been babysitting the horse and doing his responsibility for him. A horse that know this responsibility of not changing directions is a dream to ride. You can drop the reins, maintain your focus and he will not veer off your focus. You could do long straight lines with a most solid and trusted feeling beneath you.
In Level 2/3, Games such as the Corners Game, Point to Point, the Clover Leaf, Carrot Stick Riding, Focus Games and Follow the Rail teach your horse to maintain direction and follow your focus. Getting this responsibility right produces a horse that is truly straight and from there opens the door to more balanced circles and corners (no dropped shoulder), straight stops and slides, and flying lead changes.
4. Look where you are going
Have you ever seen someone pull on the reins and tell a horse to “watch out!” for a hole in the ground? Do this often enough and not only will your horse stop looking out for himself, he’ll actually get clumsy footed.
Your job as the leader is to look where you are heading to. Your horse’s responsibility is to look out for what’s in front of or underneath him, don’t stop him or get in his way just when he’s about to negotiate something awkward. If you think of it like a car, watch the road and not the wheel. If you look at the horse and watch out for him, he’ll stop doing it for himself. And if your horse fumbles when you are riding, don’t grab the reins. Stay balanced and out of the horse’s way and allow him the freedom to do whatever he needs to regain his balance.
Through this program you will challenge this responsibility constantly On Line by sending your horse over uneven terrain, over, under and between things. The horse quickly learns to become more sure footed and athletic.
Summary
In a partnership, both partners have mutual responsiblities
When horses aren’t taught to uphold their responsibilities people turn to artificial aids of leverage.
There are four for the human: Don’t act like a predator; Have and independent seat; Think like a horse-man; Use the natural power of focus.
Horses are equally disturbed by aggressive or scared predators.
Become more mentally, emotionally and physically fit. Learn to think before you react, develop more self control.
Where knowledge ends force begins.
Become as knowledgeable as you can get.
Being in control of your emotions is the most testing thing about Level 2(3).
Bravery improves through the Levels Program.
Ground Skills build overall confidence.
Physical fitness is important for safety and athletic ability.
Being out of shape especially affects your independent seat.
Put energy into your step.
Run whenever you can, even from your door to the mail box.
Try not to use the gate, go over, under, through if you can.
Do some stretches to help flex you inner thigh muscles.
Be more conscious of good posture and self carriage.
An independent seat means you don’t use your reins or grip below the knee for your balance.
Keys: Uneven ground, riding at all gaits, going over jumps, riding bareback, Carrot Stick riding.
Always consider the horse’s point of view in any situation. Think like a horse.
Focus gives you feel. Focus and feel give you timing. Focus, feel and timing give you balance.
Keep improving on all your responsibilities.
For the horse…
Don’t act like a prey animal.
Mental fitness involves the horse learning to operate from his left brain more than the right brain.
Flight from fear is natural to horses. An emotional horse gets on adrenaline quickly.
A more emotionally fit horse operates from his left brain and has learned to stay calm.
Emotionally unfit horses are more prone to muscle injuries and colic upsets and are more likely to stumble and trip.
An unfit horse will not have the health and endurance necessary to go to Level 3.
If you do more forward than anything else your horse’s muscles will be unbalanced.
Athletic development goes hand in hand with mental and emotional fitness.
Keep a horse’s diet as simple and natural as possible.
Parasites are testament to an inefficient digestive system.
No hoof, no horse.
Don’t change gaits… unless asked.
A horse that you constantly have to hold back or nag to keep going is not upholding his responsibility.
Allow mistakes and then correct them the horse will not learn from prevention.
Purity of gait leads to correct weight distribution and variation within the gaits.
Teach maintenance of gait over all terrain.
Don’t change directions: If you drop the reins, your horse should not wavier. If you focus into the corner, your horse should not turn.
There are many Games to teach this.
They responsibility gets horses truly straight.
Look where you are going: Its your job to look where you are heading to and your horse’s job to negotiate whatever is in his path.
This program will challenge this responsibility constantly.
