Biomechanics, Naturally: Part III

With a side of mouth injury.

I didn't have a lot of time to play with Royal on Monday, but couldn't resist this cute face waiting for me at the gate.

D'aaaaaawwwwwwwwwww, how sweet. And look how far away the other horses are. So I had to play with Happy Face for a little bit, doing more Basic Alignment Exercise and helping him stretch out. It only took a few minutes for him to relax and let loose.

So the next day I tried to see if I could do the same thing under saddle. I (luckily) knew to make sure that Royal was 100% with me on the ground, and that ended up not being the case. At all. I don't know if it was the cows or the weather or what, but he was distracted and would not relax. Every time I sent him out on the 22-foot line, he would take off like a wild horse and leave me hanging on to the rope, desperately trying to stay in the same place. I tried doing the "you'd better run," sideways without a fence, moving massage, everything I could think off. And Royal was still head-in-the-clouds ignoring me. So I sent him out again, he started zipping around, and then he tripped. He popped right back up and kept going, but a few strides later, I saw blood dripping from his mouth.

I was even more panicked when I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. There was so much blood that I was honestly worried that he'd bitten off a part of his tongue. So we scurried back to tget a towel so I could at least mop up some of the blood and figure out what was going on. Luckily his tongue was intact and he'd taken a bit out of his upper lip. It looked fairly superficial, and he didn't seem too bother, judging by his appetite. So, not wanting to end on a bad note, we went back out to the pasture to finish our session on a calm and sane note. I managed to set up my phone to video it:

All in all, I was pleased with how it turned out, considering. I gave him a bit of bute, just to be safe and let him back out with his buddies.

Today I decided to try BAE riding, again. The wound had scabbed over (although it still looks kinda gnarly), and when we started our ground warm-up, I was extremely vigilant in not letting his attention get away from me. The moment I saw an eye or ear wander, I asked for something: sideways, back-up, change of gait or direction, anything to keep his focus on me. And it worked. Even though the cows were right at the fenceline and staring at us, he kept his cool and didn't start freaking out. The BAE on the ground went well, and I hopped on.

We started with just letting him wander where he felt like it. He wanted to trot and canter, but it was pretty warm, so he settled down quickly. I began playing with basic energy levels at the trot; trying to get him to go from just-above-walk to regular trot to just-shy-of-canter. He was a bit confused and broke gait a lot at first, but soon got the hang of it. Then we started walking on a 20-ish meter circle and doing some BAE. I've noticed that Royal frequently doesn't bend his body on the circle; he just makes a series of turns with his nose pointing out. So I started gently tapping his inside hindquarter until I could feel his hind legs cross over a little bit. He started stretching, but as first it was the "I know I'm supposed to stretch, so I'll just do it" but gradually became the "Everything's balanced and I want to stretch" stretch. It was only at the walk, but it feels like a good start.

Biomechanics, Naturally: Part II

Last week I briefly touched on how I've been starting to play with biomechanics with Royal, trying to get him to relax and unlock his body. I think the underlying tension in his body is what preventing us from having a really good connection with each other when riding. I've talked about how he can hold tension like nobody's business, probably because that's how he's lived his life. I recognize that tendency in myself as well, so I'm trying to work on that too.

The first step is helping him to be "let loose" in his body, completely free of tension. It looks something like this:

Obviously this is a tall order for the Fuzz, and we've had a few interesting sessions so far. Our ride on Tuesday was one big experiment, some of which went well, some didn't. I tried a few different exercise, mostly relating to the Basic Alignment Exercise and melting brace. The hypothesis behind the Basic Alignment Exercise is that somewhere between crooked and the opposite of crooked the the place of alignment. So if your horse is falling in with their shoulder on the circle, instead of trying to get their shoulder on the angle of the circle, yield the shoulder past the circle for a bit and see what happens. By going to the opposite of crooked, you and your horse go through the place of alignment, which feels good. Eventually, after doing that enough, you find where you and your horse feel balanced and good.

Of course, I can't explain all of this to Royal and have to try to help him find it. So on Tuesday, I mightily confused him by asking him to yield his shoulders, barrel, and hindquarters this way and that, hoping to help him unlock and relax. The only problem of this was that a confused Royal is often a tense Royal, and he kept locking up and refusing to yield. At one point, he almost reared, which lead to an emphatic discussion of "forward means FORWARD." After both of us were tired and confused, so I tried to fix it by doing the brace dissolving exercise. It's kind of the opposite of the GoC, where you're constantly ready to take the contact. In brace dissolving, you establish a connection with the rein, and then send you energy forward through the reins to the horse. Instead of potentially creating a brace, you basically sent yourself up as a fence post, albeit a very giving one, that it uncomfortable for the horse to brace against. That seemed to work very well, and soon Royal was reaching into the contact and pushing well from behind. It was only for a few steps, but it was among the best he's ever felt. And when we stopped, he yawned and yawned and yawned for a couple minutes. Very good result.

Although I felt like an idiot because I set up my cell phone record it, and I accidentally turned it off before we even started. So no video. *headdesk*

We had a much better OnLine session a couple days later. After playing with attention and focus (be more interesting than the cows!), we did a bit more BAE. As before, he started off very confused and tense, but then something interesting happened: he started to relax. He put effort into the yields, instead of fighting them, and starting doing little bits of stretching. Then after a bit, fully stretched out for half a circle, completely let loose and relaxed. And more yawning. We're off to a good start.

Biomechanics, Naturally

Since Steepleview, I've been playing a lot with Royal and biomechanics. I've been wondering if our troubles with a consistent connection with the reins has to do less with tension and more with his body being out of sorts. He's been carrying himself like a llama the majority of the time for the past 10 years (and probably the 7 before that), so it hasn't been an overnight change.

I made an interesting discovery while doing some Moving Massage last week when I touched his flank right in front of the stifle: he moved slightly away and immediately stretched down and sighed. And it happened on both sides. Huh. His hips have always been something of a problem area, but apparently calling attention to them was a good first step. I also experimented with moving his shoulders around on the circle, and that seemed to make a difference too. He's already started moving with more correctness and engagement.

We also went for a little trail ride... in the rain. It wasn't raining too hard, so we did alright. The CalmWafers seem to be having a positive effect: instead of freaking out and trying to head to shelter at all costs, he simply stayed calm and moved over under the tree cover with little fuss. Much better than our dressage test at Roebke's Run, but then we were BOTH freaking out about the thunderstorm barreling towards us, so it was doomed from the start.

So, yeah. Not much. I'll actually be able to put some of this into play with riding soon, but so far we've just been getting the basics on the ground, slow and steady.