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An Overview
of the Training Progression from Groundwork to Riding
In July, I taught at a clinic in Vermont where we coached students on rope
handling and other skills related to learning to safely lead and do groundwork
with horses. The focus of the
clinic was on providing lots of opportunities for hands-on practice and we
didn’t spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of Alex’s rope handling
and how it fit into her training progression.
In this article, I will refer to the “training progression” from groundwork to
riding, but it would be more accurate to say that it is both a progression and a
continuum, meaning that you can move back and forth along the spectrum as
needed.
· Groundwork in a halter and lead.
I start by introducing lead rope cues using Alex’s rope handling
techniques. I also introduce
walking casually and start to teach other cues for some of the same behaviors
(stop, go, turn) so I have the option of using the lead or not.
· [optional] Groundwork on two reins – either in a
halter with reins or a bridle. Depending upon my goals and my horse’s
preferences, I might add this step to introduce the outside rein before I start
single rein riding. Or, I can
introduce the outside rein through single rein riding and then go back and add
it in so I can do groundwork on two reins.
It’s not necessary to do Alex’s groundwork on two reins in addition to
the work in a halter and lead, but if you are interested in more classical
in-hand work, you will want to teach the horse to work between two reins on the
ground.
· Single rein riding (Alex’s version), which she
sometimes calls “Riding on a triangle.”
This is the ridden version of her groundwork and uses the same technique
where you pick up the rein, slide to a point of contact, wait for a response,
and release. It is easy to
transition from the groundwork to single rein riding because the basic idea is
the same and you can use the same exercises to improve your horse’s balance and
responsiveness.
· Riding on two reins – Once a horse is balanced
and responsive in the single rein riding, you can pick up the second rein and
ride on two reins. When riding on
two reins, you can use any existing cues your horse already knows, but you may
find you want to re-teach some of them if they cause your horse to brace or
become anxious. I do use rein cues when riding on two reins but the release is
much smaller so that I can ask for several behaviors in a row before I give a
full release. The complete progression is
covered through Alex’s books and DVDs, so I’m not going to try and explain it in
detail here. Instead I want to explain why she teaches using this progression
and look at how the early work lays the foundation for later work. I’ll also
share a little bit about how you transition to the next step.
Groundwork in a halter and
lead: Teaching Lead Rope Cues
In this phase, the focus is on teaching the horse to respond to lead rope cues
and teaching the student to use the lead rope in a clicker compatible way.
As part of this, you and your horse will learn about the importance of
body awareness, clarity, consistency, and balance.
The basic technique of sliding down the line, asking the horse for a
specific response, and releasing for a correct answer is based on John Lyon’s
“give to the bit” work, but has been modified by Alex to be more clicker
compatible. It creates light and
balanced horses who are very responsive to suggestions from the trainer, but
also good problem solvers when a new exercise or behavior is being taught.
So, when you think about teaching lead
rope cues, you should be aware that it’s never just about the lead rope.
Alex’s use of the lead rope is different than how it is used by many traditional
trainers who use it either to get horses to go places (by pulling) or to prevent
horses from going places (by restricting them).
In her work, the lead rope is a sophisticated communication tool.
Cues are taught using a combination of negative and positive
reinforcement where the focus is on educating the horse so he learns to pay
attention to changes in how the lead rope is used.
The goal is to have the horse recognize and respond to lead rope cues in the
same way he would respond to any other positively trained cue.
Therefore, in the early stages, when the horse responds correctly, we
click, release the lead rope, and treat.
When we release and treat, the horse is reinforced both by the release
and by the food reinforcer. Later,
how you reinforce may change and will vary depending upon the exercise, the
horse’s understanding of what you are doing, and the value of the release. You
may find you can use a release alone or a release in combination with some other
non-food reinforcer.
I should also mention that we are also looking for opportunities to show the
horse that it’s ok to experiment and encouraging him to actively participate in
his own learning. It’s very important to recognize small efforts on the part of
the horse and set up each exercise so that he can be successful.
Alex has spent a lot of time looking at the details that matter when using a
lead rope to ask for behavior. The basic
rope handling involves learning to slide down the line to the point of contact,
waiting for a response, and releasing.
Building on this, you can teach cues for basic behaviors like going
forward, stopping, backing, and turns.
More advanced rope handling techniques can help teaching horses to move
in balance and be used to teach lateral work.
Rope handling is a complicated subject and both the horse and the trainer have
to learn many new skills.
I’ve listed a few key points below, both to serve as reminders, for those who
have already had some exposure to the work (either through clinics or her books
and DVDs), and to explain why using the lead rope this way is so powerful.
These are not complete instructions. If you are new to this, I recommend
you buy Alex’s rope handling DVD or study the rope handling in the groundwork
DVDs.
A Few Key Points About Alex’s rope handling:
·
The trainer learns to
use both hands on the lead, sliding with the hand farther away from the horse.
If I am on the left side of the horse, I slide with my left hand until I reach
the snap or point of contact. Learning to put the second hand on the line so you
have two points of contact completely changes how effective you can be using the
lead rope because it allows you to control the horse at two points (head and
shoulder).
·
The slide needs to be
smooth and soft so that the horse doesn’t find the contact and/or movement
aversive. Some horses are very sensitive about ropes, hands moving toward their
heads, or pressure, so it can take some time for some trainer/horse combinations
to both become comfortable with sliding to the snap.
The advantage to sliding is that the horse has time to prepare for your
request and you can teach your horse to respond to lighter and lighter requests.
·
When her hand reaches
the snap (pinky to the snap), the trainer can either ask the horse for a
specific behavior using a known cue, or if teaching a new behavior, she can wait
for the horse to offer something.
Some cues that are commonly used in combination with the slide to the snap are
requests to go forward, backward, flex (laterally or vertically), or turn.
Learning to wait is important as it gives the horse a choice about
whether or not to respond.
·
As soon as the horse
responds, the trainer clicks, releases the line gently and treats. More advanced
horses may not require a click and treat for every release (more on this in the
next section.) The release is
important for several reasons. One is that it functions as a reinforcer.
Another is that the timing of the release tells the horse when it has
given the right answer.
· When teaching behaviors
using the lead rope, it’s important to think of shaping in small steps. When you
start asking for a new behavior, you want to click and release for any small
change in the right direction.
· This groundwork is not
just about basic leading. It can also be used to teach horses to move with
better balance on straight lines and circles. This leads to lateral work and
more advanced in-hand or liberty work.
Alex has several different exercises that help the trainer and horse to
explore improving their balance and connection. Some of the most useful ones
are: Pre-Why Would You Leave Me – Teaches the horse to walk
and stop on a circle. Practicing
the transitions improves the horse’s balance and the circle encourages bend and
a little bit of engagement of the inside hind leg.
This exercise also provides lots of opportunities to develop “go forward”
and “stop” cues. Teaching a horse to respond to
lead rope cues is an important part of groundwork, but we also want our horses
to respond to other kinds of cues. When leading and doing groundwork, I use both
verbal and visual cues with my horses. Some
of these cues may initially be taught in conjunction with the rope cues, but I
can also teach them separately and I usually do this when my horse is
comfortable with the behavior Alex calls “walking casually,” which I will
discuss next.
Groundwork in a halter and
lead: Walking Casually
Alex coined the term “walking casually” to mean walking with the horse on a
lead, but without using the lead to actively cue behaviors.
When I first heard the term, she was using it in a lesson where we were
walking in a simple pattern and using verbal or visual cues to ask the horse to
go forward and to stop. We did have
the horses on a lead, but there was slack in the line, so the lead’s only job
was to remind the horse to stay with the person. And, it was there in case we
needed to use it to keep everyone safe.
The term has evolved over the years and now I use it to mean walking with a
horse on a loose lead rope and asking for behaviors with mostly visual or verbal
cues. It’s less formal than in-hand
work and I am usually less concerned with head position and balance. I just want
the horse moving with me at an appropriate pace and distance. If a horse already has a basic understanding of leading, walking casually may be an option from the very beginning and you can use it as part of your basic groundwork. I like to use it when I want to give the horse a little break and I also find it helpful to introduce visual or verbal cues when walking casually. A lot of visual cues, especially those based on body language are easy to teach out of walking casually. For example, while walking with the horse, I can make a small change (maybe slow my pace a little) and click if the horse also slows down a little. I could repeat this until I had shaped a slower walk or a halt and eventually add verbal cues, if I wanted.
If a horse doesn’t have any basic leading skills at all, I can teach leading
using whatever training strategy I want (rope handling, shaping, targeting,
etc.) and shape walking casually over time.
If I was going to work on leading with rope handling, I would be sliding
down the line to ask for changes in his balance, pace, or direction and clicking
and reinforcing for correct responses.
Initially there might not be periods where he maintained his balance for
a few steps without needed some intervention on my part. But, as he became more
comfortable with leading, I might find that he can walk along with me easily on
straight lines or in simple patterns and I don’t need to slide down the line as
often. At this point I would be clicking
for maintaining behavior as well as for responding to cues and I would have
opportunities to explore other kinds of cues during the periods when we were
walking casually together.
It can be fun to play around with changes in your body language, position and
energy and see how your horse responds. I like to do this out of walking
casually because I find it is easy to just change one thing and see how the
horse responds. It’s a good way to
find out what your horse notices and decide if you can use it as a cue.
Later, I often combine these body language cues with my existing lead
rope cues and that gives me a lot of adjustability.
Some of the things you might want to explore are:
·
Pace – does your horse
slow down or speed up when you do? Can you build some adjustability at the walk?
·
Posture – does your
horse respond to changes in how you walk? Most horses will slow down and carry
themselves a little better if you do the same. What happens if you lift your
legs a little more with each step?
·
Weight shifts.
A lot of horses respond to shifts in the trainer’s balance and these can
become cues either by themselves as part of a more complex cue that has several
components.
·
Orientation – I use my
upper body position (torso angle) to influence the shoulders and hips.
If I turn toward the horse, I can shift the forehand away. If I turn away
from the horse, I can encourage the hind end to step under and over.
·
Does your horse respond
to verbal cues? Sometimes verbal cues
get attached to other context cues so it’s a good idea to practice using your
verbal cues under a variety of conditions.
If your horse becomes very fluent in verbal cues on the ground, he will
learn to respond to the same cues under saddle more quickly.
Verbal cues are useful because you can use the same cues on the ground and under
saddle. This is true for many “body
language” cues as well. It may seem unlikely that a horse will recognize the
ridden version of a body language cue, especially if it has a visual component,
but I find that they do. I think part of it is that if you practice a cue a lot
on the ground, you become very consistent about how you do it, and the horse
gets reinforced a lot for the associated behavior.
Then when you are riding, the horse
already has some reinforcement history for that behavior and can make the
connection to understand the ridden version (as long as you are consistent when
you get on board).
I do want to mention that while I’ve written about teaching “non-lead rope” cues
out of walking casually, you may find there are opportunities to teach lead rope
cues too. I find this usually
happens when I am experimenting with something else and the horse notices and
starts to respond to a change in the lead rope that was secondary to what I was
doing.
For example, let’s say I am teaching my horse to slow down when I think of
becoming taller and I walk a little more slowly. As I do this, I might be
lifting the lead rope slightly.
This lift of the lead will become part of the cue to slow down, which is fine.
Interestingly, some horses will take it a step farther, especially if
they are sensitive to lead rope cues, by generalizing and slowing down any time
I lift the lead rope. If I click
and reinforce for that response under other conditions, then I have a new lead
rope cue.
Ultimately you are going to want to have a variety of different types of cues
for both groundwork and ridden work.
I like to have several so I can choose the one that is most useful and so
I have a back-up if the horse doesn’t respond to one.
You may find that some horses respond better to different types of cues
or that some cues are more useful in different situations.
Any time you put into teaching cues on the ground will pay off when you
get to riding.
Single Rein Riding
If you’re used to riding on two reins, it may seem odd to learn a riding
technique where you only use one rein.
But the single rein riding is a natural progression from Alex’s
groundwork because it builds on what the horse and trainer have learned in the
groundwork. It uses the same
process of sliding, waiting, and releasing for a correct answer, builds on your
horse’s understanding of lead rope cues, and your horse’s balance under saddle
can be improved using many of the same exercises. Single rein riding can lead to
riding on two reins, if you wish.
The advantage to starting with one rein is that you can build softness and
responsiveness with one rein before adding the second rein.
It’s very common for horses to feel trapped when the rider picks up two
reins and this can lead to physical and mental bracing.
By starting with just the inside rein, the horse is getting information
primarily from one rein, which is simpler than trying to teach him to respond to
both the inside and outside rein at the same time. Then, when he is well
balanced and understands how to respond to the inside rein, you can add in the
second rein (in small steps), and teach him what that means, building on what he
already knows.
Single rein riding also has many of the same advantages of the slide/release
technique that Alex uses in her groundwork.
I’ve already mentioned that it is simpler for the horse if he learns
about one rein at a time. Here are some other advantages:
·
The rein aids become
cues that ask the horse to make a change, instead of being used to physically
move the horse.
·
Using the slide means
the horse has the option of responding before you take all the slack out of the
line. This leads to lighter rein aids.
·
The release functions
as a “yes” answer. As with the
groundwork, I initially click and treat in combination with the release, because
I think it adds clarity and most horses will try harder for food reinforcers
than for the release alone.
·
The horse learns to
carry himself and move in balance because he is not depending upon the rein for
support.
·
Learning to slide to
the point of contact and release is important for riders who might be inclined
to pull or hang on the reins. It teaches them to be more aware of when they are
asking for a change (“cueing” the horse) and the importance of releasing for a
correct answer. It also makes them more aware of how sensitive a horse’s mouth
can be and how important it is to learn to be gentle with the reins.
If you’ve used Alex’s rope handling techniques in your groundwork and your horse
understands lead rope cues from the ground, it’s usually fairly easy to
transition your horse to single rein riding because the basic technique is the
same. The difference is that in
ridden work, you pick up the reins at the buckle, slide down one rein to a point
of contact (near the neck, not the bit), wait until the horse responds, and then
release both reins all the way down to the buckle again.
Alex likes to say that riding is just groundwork where you get to sit
down.
If the horse has done a lot of single rein groundwork and is fluent in
responding to rein cues on the ground, he may quickly recognize the same cues,
even when they are given in a slightly different way because you are now sitting
on him. If not, you can shape the
behavior again by clicking and treating for small approximations toward the
final behavior.
Some horses, especially those that have been previously ridden with the reins
used in more traditional ways, may be initially confused or revert back to
previous learned behaviors including bracing, pulling or avoiding the contact.
So, you may have to start at the very beginning, by asking for baby gives and
releasing and reinforcing for any softening on their part. The good news is that
using single rein riding is a great way to help these horses, both because it is
different than their normal rein cues, and because it never makes them feel
trapped between two reins.
When introducing single rein riding, I usually to remain fairly passive in the
rest of my body, meaning I don’t give a lot of additional cues or aids (seat,
leg, etc.) until I have a sense of how the horse feels about them.
If a horse has learned to brace against my leg or reacts negatively
(twitching the tail, scooting forward, etc.) then it’s counterproductive to
combine them with the single rein riding, which is an opportunity to start with
a bit of a clean slate. On the other hand, if the horse seems fine with them,
and I feel they provide useful information to him, then I might add them in, as
needed, during the exercises.
In addition to rein cues and any other accepted cues/aids, I can use any verbal
cues that I taught during the groundwork. I usually teach go forward and stop as
verbal cues so I can use them when I start riding. Again, some horses will
respond to the cues right away, others may be a bit confused because I am no
longer next to them when I give the cue. Having an assistant to help the horse
understand that it’s the same cue when I am on his back, or doing a little
shaping can help get past that step.
In single rein riding, you can reinforce a correct answer by releasing, clicking
and treating, or both. I find I usually go through the same steps that I did
when working on the ground. This means I may start out by clicking, releasing,
and feeding for every correct answer. But, then I may find that there are times
when just a release is sufficient information and reinforcement, and I click and
treat after several good responses, or when I get one that is slightly better.
Riding on Two Reins:
When the horse is nicely balanced in single rein riding, I can start to
experiment with picking up the outside rein and see how the horse responds.
If he stays nicely balanced and accepts the rein connection on both
sides, then I can start to explore riding on two reins.
At first, this may mean I just pick up
the outside rein and carry it, but don’t actively use it.
I might ride with both reins for a few strides to see if he can maintain
his balance, or I can ask for a simple behavior that I can cue without using the
reins and then click, release and treat.
As he gets used to the pickup of the outside rein and being on two reins, I can
slowly start to use it more actively, mostly to adjust his balance, bend, and
head elevation. I also have to
teach my horse that I can change the bend without giving a total release and
picking up the new inside rein.
When riding on two reins, I can use any of my existing cues for new behaviors
and also start to explore how I can influence the horse with my seat, weight,
and other subtle aids. I can experiment with these aids or cues when I am riding
on a single rein too, but it’s often clearer to the horse once I am on two reins
because I can sit very quietly and just change one thing.
Some horses may be confused when you first transition from single rein riding to
riding on two reins and will be unsure about what the outside rein means.span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
OOne option is to go back to single rein riding, paying more attention to
what your buckle hand is doing, and finding moments when you can introduce the
idea that the buckle hand has useful information too. Another option is to go
back to the groundwork and work in a bridle or halter with reins and introduce
the outside rein on the ground before going back to riding.
When a horse is carrying himself in balance on two reins, I am going to ask for
changes without giving a full release as I did with single rein riding. Alex
calls this “floating on a point of contact” and it means I give a small release
(maybe just a softening of my arm) so I don’t disrupt the connection, but the
horse still gets some acknowledgement of any change he has made.
I usually transition to riding on two reins over several lessons, or even
several weeks.A typical pattern
would be to warm the horse up using single rein riding and then go to two reins
when I feel he is balanced and responding well to rein cues.
I might ride on two reins for a while if things are going well. If he
gets confused or braces, I can go back to single rein riding to get him soft and
light again. Over time, I end up
spending more of my ride on two reins than on one and eventually I can get on,
pick up both reins and start without any single rein work.
A Few Common Questions about Rope
Handling and the Training Progression
Do I have to slide all the way to the snap? In riding, the question is
“Do I have to slide until I take the slack out?"
How do I know when to
just release and when to click and feed?
How do I build duration
in the behavior I have cued with the lead rope?
When first using lead rope cues, I am going to click for
a correct response to the cue. If I
slide down and ask the horse to go forward, I will click as soon as he steps
off. I want to mark and reinforce
the correct response to the cue.
Then I slide down and ask again.
Once I know he will reliably step off after I ask with the lead, I can wait a
few steps before clicking. Most
horses will follow my body language and keep walking if the “go forward” cue is
following by a release and they have some history of walking with people. For a
horse that is brand new to leading, I may have to build this more slowly by
clicking after 1,2,3,4 steps. With most horses, I will continue to occasionally click
and reinforce a nice response to the cue, even if most of the time I am clicking
for movement. How well a horse
initiates movement is often a big factor in the quality of the movement itself
and the overall quality of behavior may deteriorate if the horse knows he will
not be clicked until a certain duration has been reached. Therefore, I do click
particularly nice responses to the cue so that that I maintain the quality of
the behavior from start to finish.
Do I have to slide for
every behavior I want while leading? Can I use other cues, or use the lead rope
in other ways? Cueing with the lead rope is not the only option when
leading a horse. Horses respond
very well to verbal and visual cues, especially if the visual cues are based on
body language. Since most horses
are led using a lead rope, I do think it’s important to teach them how to
respond to it, but you can also teach any other cues you want.
Katie
Katie Bartlett, 2017 - please do not copy or distribute without my permission
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