MARK RASHID Clinic Report

By Jodi Denning

Hi guys,

I've received several very polite hints that boil down to "where the heck is a clinic report" So in self defense ;-)

We're going to start at the end, and work our way back! It was the last day of the clinic, and Bud (hubby's home) was closest to the barn when I went out to get a horse to ride. I was feeling a bit lazy, and the other homes were quite a bit further away in the pasture, so I decided it was Bud's "lucky" day!

Bud is 8, and gets ridden a half dozen times a year, whether he needs it or not!

He is the "guest horse", and my husband's horse when he decides to ride. My hubby's riding typically consists of a beverage in one hand, and the reins in the other. He and Bud are a great pair!

Bud's rides typically consist of trail rides at a walk with another horse or two. or short rides down through the back side of our property. He's an easy going guy, and eager to please. So when Mark asks what I'd like to work on with

Bud, I said I'd like to work on my feel and timing on turns on the haunches and turns on the forehand I'm thinking Bud can serve as a bit of a "practice" horse for me. Bud had a couple other ideas! ;-)

So we begin with some real simple stuff. Walking around the end of the pasture we're riding in I'm asking for some circles, and occasionally Bud is giving to my hand but at the same time sometimes popping a shoulder a bit and walking through my rein - not following his nose Just a little, Not a real big deal So Mark asks me to trot, Now Bud usually goes along at a pretty good jog - the kind of relaxed jog where you just pretty much sit there and cruise along.

So Mark has me start asking for some more circles and turns. Interesting thing, but what was a fairly subtle case of Bud not following my guidance at the walk became a nose tipped in one direction, and 1200+ lbs of horse drifting out in the other direction at the trot And now Bud is trotting around with a good bit more energy than normal. The kind of trot where you're pretty sure you should be able to drop down at least one full jeans size if you rode it for very long.

Hmmmm. I'm thinking "this is pretty weird" I mean, after all, this is BUD.

So, Mark asks if I'd like to go ahead and work on this. Seemed like a pretty good idea to me! So he has me pick up a rein and ask for a turn (say to the left). Quiet, soft no big deal. If I don't get a try, and Bud is pushing through the turn. I just switch over and ask him to turn in the other direction

- the direction he is pushing towards - in this case the right. It's his idea to go that way anyway, so that was always pretty easy. But instead of just a turn to the right, I would keep asking him to keep turning until we had gone m a full circle. We are night back to where we started when I asked for the turn to the left and we took a whole lot of steps to get there. Then I would ask again for the turn to the left If he didn't get it, we'd just loop back around to the right and do it all again. Any time he pushed through the rein I would just change the turn to the opposite direction. Quiet, no big deal, no problem at all - as opposed to hanging on the rein the trying to force the turn in the direction I originally asked for and running the risk of starling a fight, or teaching him to pull through turns. We had till dark, so we weren't in any big hurry. Oh, and I'll mention that the majority of this pushing through the turns, ironically enough, involved pushing towards the gate that went back to the barn.

Now we had set up some poles on the ground to trot over for a couple of the previous riders. The poles were pretty close to the gate going back to the barn which turned out to be a very nice coincidence. If Bud pushed through his turns enough to drift all the way down there, we just went ahead and trotted over those poles. Once, twice and sometimes even three times. Then I'd ask him to head back out away from the gate.

Now Bud is a pretty firm believer in conserving energy. All this circling and trotting over poles, well it was a good bit of extra work for my pal Bud.

The choices were his and there was not a night or wrong here. We could do circles, and trot over poles. After all, that's pretty fun for me. Or we could go up in the pasture, jog and walk a little, and even stop for a nice little break after a soft turn or transition. Either way ms fine by me.

It's really not too surprising but it didn't take all that long before Bud was looking at this whole scenario with what appeared to be a little different perspective. We never got into a fight or fuss, there wasn't ever any confrontation and he never got "in trouble" .Things stayed quiet. But Bud seemed to be spending a little time thinking about what was working for him and what wasn't. Sometimes he'd begin to push through a turn, and then it would be like he would say "oh wait just a minute what am I thinking? You want me to go left') why I'd be more than happy to do for ya". And left we'd go. So pretty soon, the push through the turn was gone completely.

And it never even got dark on us!

Here are a couple more things that really stood out for me at the clinic.

Conceptually, and in practice, I felt like I had somewhat of an understanding of the idea of "reward the slightest try" before I ever rode with Mark Rashid. I had heard it several different ways, from several different folks. I felt I was making a pretty big effort to put that idea into practice. Well, suffice it to say there was plenty of room for improvement!

What I am, I think, beginning to grasp is just how incredibly slight that slightest try really is, and how quickly the horse can learn when we begin to really listen for and catch those little ides. For some folks, the try might be a step in the direction being asked. For others, it might be a shift of the horse's weight. But there are so many things that happen before that weight shift happens, and THOSE things are really where the "slightest try" actually begins. Mark's dialog of "feel that", "there it is", "that's it", "there's a change" as I am riding and trying to sense what is going on under me has helped me tremendously It sure has made a pretty significant difference in what I perceive to be a "slightest try".

When I first was learning Mark's approach, and I began trying to feel and release those teeny-tiny little tries, it was just a little puzzling to think about how that would build eventually into a more advanced movement (faster, longer, bigger, slower, whatever..) It seemed that you might run a risk of getting the horse somewhat "stuck" offering only little ides by always rewarding those little tries. But that sure wasn't what I was seeing with all the horses at the clinics, and it wasn't what I was seeing in my own horses. Although outside the clinic environment, I was still struggling a little with when to reward that slightest try, and when and/or how to go about asking for a little more. What I've finally realized is that by giving the horse the chance, and rewarding those little ides, the horse begins to just offer up bigger tries. The tries just build and build, it's not even so much that we are looking for a bigger effort before we release or reward. The try just gets bigger. The horse is telling us "you bet, I can do that for you, and here's a little extra to boot!". Pretty soon, the horse is offering up a pretty huge effort, and it is all coming from those little tries. It's one of those "gifts" our horse can give freely to us.

Another concept that sunk in a bit deeper for me is how important it is to keep a clear picture in our mind of what we are asking. There have been tons of times where I might be thinking about doing something (like trotting or cantering), and my horse would do it. From that perspective, this is no surprise to me. But I got a little different understanding of this at the clinic. It sounds so dang simple, but Mark caught me "in the act" of a shift in my mental focus, and I had some pretty huge realizations from that little experience! I was riding Spanky, things ware pretty fluid and soft, and we had been having a great session. We had been doing some speed control movements within the walk - slow it down, and then speed it up. Then Mark had me trot. Things were fluid and soft, and felt real good. Mark had me ask for a transition back to the walk, and so I did. I just thought about walking, settled into the saddle a bit, shifted me weight back a little, and gave a little feel on the reins, I got a slowing in the trot, but didn't get the transition. My mind shifted, almost instantly, away from listening to my horse and asking him for things (providing guidance and direction), to wondering why I didn't get the response from him I had asked for. Spanky was so "right there" with me before I asked for the transition, and I did get a response from him (slowing down in the trot), but I didn't get the walk, It surprised me a little. So, of course, I walked right on up to the "mental debate podium" that I know and love so well, and began discussing it with myself just a "little".

What should I have done differently? Was I too slow? Too fast? Too much? Not enough? Was I unbalanced? Was he unbalanced? Did I pick a bad time to ask for the transition? Yadda, yadda, yadda why, why, why? Mark helped me realize that I had put a question mark in my head, (well, actually a whole bunch of question marks), and I was no longer focused on helping my horse understand what I was looking for. Instead, I was thinking about what was already in the past -the transition that didn't happen. Now something that was so cool here is that Spanky didn't pull, speed up, get worried, or anything when I "left him" mentally. He just kept on trotting, pretty much waiting patiently on me to remember I was riding him, and ask him for something. Basically it was like he was saying "I'll just go ahead wait here while you work this out.. So you just let me know when you figure out what it is you want to ask me to do and we'Il try again". The instant I changed from thinking "1 wonder why didn't I get the transition" to "could you please walk for me...", I got it. Consciously, I didn't really change anything else about my position, my reins, my seat, whatever, when I asked for the transition again. But consciously changing what was going on in my mind sure made a big difference to my horse.

Jodi Denning