How To   

As you practice following the rail at a constant gait, you may confront the need to tune up your phases for go and whoa.  A question from Cynthia illuminates this: 

"Hi Nita Jo,
I was watching one of Linda's lessons on a DVD I receive through savvy club. She mentioned that the student "Jason" shouldn't kick or pull up his heals to get his horse to move forward. I have this problem of pulling up my heals to get my sluggish Percheron/Thoroughbred to move forward - he tends to have an uneven rhythm which I would like to equalize...she never said what to do instead! Do you have an answer to this problem?"

Here's my answer to her:

Excellent question! :)

Here's a review of the 4 phases for "go":

Phase 1 for "go" is: bring your "life up" - meaning, lift your mid-section and take your belly-button forward and up a little (as if taking off) while you gently squeeze "all 4 cheeks." That means, smile and squeeze your butt muscles a little. Don't make this a huge effort; it should be light.

Phase 2: turn the "smile" into a light squeeze by turning your toes OUT (rather than up), which will put your lower legs into contact with your horse's sides. No exertion or difficult muscle work is required to do this; simply turn your toes out. Practice doing this while just sitting on your horse and standing still. He probably won't move when you "smile" with your cheeks and then turn your toes out (but if he does, that's great!), look at your feet this one practice time to make sure you're turning your toes out and not pushing them down or using the side of your foot to squeeze. Turning toes out takes almost no effort. If you feel you need more of phase 2, push your toes down and the heels of your boots will also come into contact with your horse's sides.

Later when you've got this going well, you'll find that it will often take just a hint of "toes out" to ask for more - a hint which no one watching will notice.

Phase 3: "spank the air" - meaning, swing your mecate or savvy string rhythmically back and forth across your shoulders. Be absolutely certain that you still have phases 1 & 2 "on" while you do this.

Phase 4: "spank the hair" - swing your mecate or savvy string rhythmically back and forth across your horse's butt and gently (at first) tag or spank him. You can increase the energy you put into this if he doesn't move off quickly.

Whenever he moves forward even the slightest bit during this process - phase 1, 2, 3, or 4 - release  your phases and relax into active neutral. That is, don't slump into zero energy, but quit asking for "go" and ride the new gait. It's important to hand over the responsibility for maintaining that gait to your horse: as Pat says"trust that he'll respond, be ready to correct - not one more than the other." This means allow your horse to make the mistake of breaking gait and then correct him fairly and effectively (without allowing him too long to be wrong).

(For more information and video, see your Level 2 Freestyle DVD. Also, be sure you know the phases for "whoa!")

If you have a question for me, please send me an email and I'll again select one to answer in next month's newsletter. Remember, too - the Savvy Club vault is full of answers to a variety of questions from students over the years.