What should you be working on with your horse today? Here’s one successful habit I use in training that always gives me total clarity!

Lack of clarity is probably the most common problem amongst riders when it comes time to train in the arena.

When people don’t know what they should be doing, they have a tendency to pick total random stuff that makes no sense when you look at the whole picture. It’s like running around with no purpose, doing actions that serve no purpose.

This behavioral pattern is often very confusing, overwhelming and frustrating for the rider because the random acts don’t allow you to track any progress whatsoever. This leaves you with the thought that you have no clue what you should work on and that you are somehow a failure.

It’s kinda like if you were trying to lose weight, had absolutely no process in your mind about how to do it, just picked random stuff and hoped that this would magically accomplish your goal.

This kind of magical thinking looks like this:

One day you might count calories and not exercise.

The next day you would weigh your food.

The following day you would exercise but eat whatever.

Then you would fast.

And, finally, you would decide to cut out carbs.

By mixing so many methods together, you would have no idea which one was working if you managed to lose weight at all. It’s more likely that you wouldn’t be able to track your progress and would wind up giving up, throwing your hands in the air proclaiming that you’ve tried everything, but nothing works.

The truth is Yes, you have tried everything but you’ve stuck with nothing, and that’s why you have no results.

I see horse owners/riders playing out this pattern quite often. They apply 100 different training or treatment methods to their horse, maybe they have some progress, but no one can figure out exactly what worked, so then they end up going more backwards than forwards and eventually give up.

If you’re in that cycle, let it stop here.

1. Start by deciding what it is you want to work on with your horse. What’s the end result that you desire and where should all your efforts be pointing towards?
2. Decide on ONE method/process to get you there. Mine is the training scale/philosophy of classical dressage.
3. Pick 3 things/exercises you want to work on that are aligned with accomplishing your end goal.

And here is the final ONE thing that I do every day that allows me to know with 100% certainty what I should work on every single time I come into the arena:

1. Practice the 3 things that you did the day before and work on improving them!! WHOOP WHOOP!

Yes! It is that simple! You don’t have to reinvent yourself every day. In fact, if you try to do that, you’ll waste a lot of time and energy and probably get nothing done whatsoever.

When one, two or three of those things get good enough to the point where you are satisfied with them, then switch them out one by one with new things that build upon the previous actions or somehow connect to your end result so you keep getting closer and closer to where you want to be.

The most important thing is that you remember to work on improving each thing from the day before. So, if you worked the shoulder in yesterday, work on shoulder in again today but improve on your execution. Do the same thing tomorrow, etc.

Sometimes I find that riders don’t know what metrics to measure their progress against, so here are a few to compare each ride to and measure improvement:

Let’s use the example of the shoulder in:

1. Did your horse respond to your aids in the shoulder in faster, lighter or better?
2. Were you more clear on what you were looking to achieve and were your aids, position, execution better?
3. Did you improve the angle of the exercise?
4. Did you improve the bend of the exercise?
5. Did the rhythm or impulsion improve?
6. Did the balance improve?
7. Did any resistance, such as head twisting, heaviness, excess mouth movement, etc., go away?
8. Did the horse get lighter on the bit in the process?
9. Was the horse more relaxed in the execution?
10. Did you gain any insights that will help you when you train the horse tomorrow?

I hope these metrics give you some clarity.

If you are working on several different things such as riding, in hand work or liberty, then pick which topic needs the most improvement and work on 3 exercises that strengthen that topic and only work on that topic that day. It’s not that you can’t mix it up, but most riders start doing the headless chicken thing if they have too many options, so that’s why I’m cutting it down to make it simple.

For example:

If you worked 3 exercises for liberty training on Monday, then work on the same exercises on Tuesday.

If you then feel like riding on Wednesday, remind yourself what the last 3 exercises you practiced last time you rode and work on them again. Do that again on Thursday.

If you want to practice in hand on Friday, try to remember what the last 3 exercises you worked on in hand were and then do them again.

This way you can work on improving several topics, but within all of them you are working on 3 specific things/exercises related only to that topic. If you were hard core, you could also allot “x” amount of minutes to each topic and end up practicing several topics within one session. That’s all possible too.

However, there is a small catch…if too much time passes between sessions on a topic, you might end up just having to repeat it.

So, if I practice in hand work only once per week and then a whole week goes by before I do it again, it’s likely that my next session will just be a repetition session without much progress.

If you’re looking for progress, you have to practice the same thing several days in a row, usually 3-4 days in a row. I could pick Liberty for example and just work on that, improving my execution a little each day and then adding a new exercise or two as I improved.

After that it would be okay to take a small break for a few days on that topic, as the exercises would have been practiced sufficiently enough to cause progress.

Here’s your homework:

1. Pick a topic you would like to improve, i.e., riding, liberty, trick training, in hand work or something else.
2. Pick three things (for example exercises/movements, etc.) within that topic that you want to focus on.
3. Practice those for 3-4 days in a row until they get better.

If you have questions or doubts on how to train your horse successfully on any subject, please feel free to reach out to me at?[email protected]

Ride with Lightness

Celie xo

For more awesome information on education, events and training, sign up for our email list by CLICKING HERE