MARK RASHID Seminars
April 20-29th San Diego CA
The lanky cowboy from Estes Park returned to our Rancho last week for two back-to-back horsemanship seminars. This time he brought a friend, Trisha Wren, from Scotland. Together they are crossing the country, with Buck and Smokey in tow, offering to teach folks about good horsemanship and balanced riding. Mark teaches the horsemanship part, because he is the cowboy and he knows a thing or two about horses. Trisha offers to show folks how to develop their seat on the horse for a more secure and balanced ride. Trisha plans to travel with Mark for the next 7 months, so participants in Mark's clinics are getting two teachers for the price of one
As the clinics progressed and 1 studied each horse and rider in their lessons with Mark, some very clear themes emerged. I truly believe that there are no rules in teaching horses. That said, there are some sound concepts you can hang your hat on when it comes to your relationship with your horse. 1 suppose you can apply them to more than just your horse, but I will stick with horses and try to keep it simple (I have been known to complicate things). Mark offered the following themes to his students at our seminars. Many are not new, he has been teaching me how to apply them for years now. They represent the core of what I want to develop in myself, with the help of my horses.
1) Reward the smallest try in the horse & build on it. In every situation with every horse, there is softness somewhere. It is up to us to find the softness and encourage it. Mark has an exercise this year, for both the riders and auditors, to teach us about communicating with their horses.
You are given a goal and some simple rules to follow. What happens between the horses and riders reveals much about our communication. I followed Mark's rules perfectly and got my horse perfectly stuck. Rules can close your mind and make you unwilling as the rider to try something different. I won't give away the exercise because you have to do it to realty benefit from it. The more you put in to the exercise, the more you get out of it. I with say that I, as a horse, experienced well-timed, generous encouragement that made my job easy and fun. As the rider I got a good lesson in thinking outside the box.
A big example of offering a try came from a little gray Peruvian Paso. He did not know how to pick up his hind feet and he was worried that someone was going to take his feet away from him. Mark spent some time with him, asking him gently to lift his foot and rewarding each tiny try. The Paso never tried to kick Mark or leave him; he just stepped away when the pressure was too much. He would only travel a step or two then he would offer to stand still and try again. Half of the tries this horse offered
Mark were invisible to me, but Mark saw each one and the horse knew it With every shift of weight, every give from the head, every muscle quiver, Mark drew his hand back to let the horse know "Yes" and then built upon it Mark looked so sure of himself and he stayed very soft and slow. He bent to ask for the horses hoof. The horse all at once picked up the other hind foot and held it there in the air, a foot off the ground, for Mark. After going through aJ1 the worry, the try he offered Mark was so big.
This Peruvian Paso also showed us how to think outside the box. He was worried about folks touching his hock and Mark understood this. Rather than running his hand the entire length of the horse's leg, Mark would stroke the horse's hip, stop, and then just reach slowly for the pastern. The horse seemed more comfortable with this and he began to offer his hoof to Mark's hand. The next day his owner bent down and asked this horse to pick up his hoof and the horse placed it in her hand.
2) Support your horse, help your horse. Mark reminds his students to think in terms of supporting your horse. If you get in the habit of thinking this way, you can avoid the frustration of correcting your horse. Encourage the positive, learn to be effective, and don't take it personally when your horse offers something you think you didn't ask for. Mark told us a story about Chet Atkins, a famous guitar picker here in the States. Chet had a new guitar and he was playing it in the studio. Folks kept approaching him to tell him how great that new guitar sounded. After a dozen people told him, "Man that guitar sounds great" he stood up, walked over to chair and set the guitar down in it. Then he asked everyone, "and how does it sound now'? It is up to the rider to develop and create harmony with the horse.
"Softness doesn't come from your bit, it comes from your hands, and it really doesn't come from your hands, it comes from your heart."- Mark Rashid
3) Pick one thing you want to do with your horse and build on it. Remember to work on one thing at a time with your horse. Prioritize your goals and build on them. Be ready to change your priorities when your horse presents something new. In one of my first sessions with Mark I was riding my mare Goldie. I asked Goldie to come on the bit. She was traveling in circles. I would have rather she traveled on the rail, but she was keeping the trot I asked for and trying hard to come on the bit to find her balance in the contact I was offering. I did not try to correct her when she came off the rail. It could have easily confused her if I started to use leg aids. As we worked on this, we jogged our forward and our trot turned in to a jog and then a walk. So we had to change priorities, re-group, and get the forward before we could work on asking her to come on the bit.
4) Think outside the box! There are no rules to horse training. If someone tells you there are, then they are putting you in a box. Don't let them do it. Try to think for yourself and your horse. In an effort to help Goldie carry the bit more quietly, 3 months ago I dropped Goldie's bit a notch so she carried it loosely in her mouth. When we approached Mark for our first lesson, he asked me what I wanted to do. I pointed out her busy mouth as she chomped the bit.. Mark suggested I raise the bit up a notch or two because it was a little low and he guessed she might be having trouble picking it up and carrying it. When we adjusted it her mouth she went immediately quiet and stayed that way for the rest of the lesson. That was all it took. Just a simple change from me, instead of continuing the way we were going and hoping she would change.
Another example of this was a mare that was worried about her upward transitions. She was 12 years old and she rushed from the walk to the trot. Mark asked the rider what she usually did to help the horse when this happened. The rider said she usually did nothing; just rode it until the horse slowed down which sometimes took a while. Mark suggested turning the horse as soon as she started to get racy to show her that we are not looking for speed. He asked the rider to bring her back down each time she started to leave, and then ask for the transition again. It worked well for this mare and you could see her begin to soften and understand that she was not alone in this, that the rider would help her come back and be safe in the trot. Mark pointed out that with some horses you can let them go and see if they can find the softness themselves. With other horses you have to step in and help them. The lesson is: if it isn't working, change something. There are no rules. Think for yourself and learn to listen to your horse. Don't sacrifice your horse if a training approach isn't working just because someone told you that you have to train your horse that particular way. There are many different horses out there and what works for some wont work for others.
Yet another example of this was a trailer loading session. Mark was able to load a horse that had been a problem in the past this horse was willing to load, just a little worried about the trailer and unsure of what he was supposed to do once he got in there. An auditor asked Mark to give him a method for loading horses. The auditor asked, "How would you approach this with another horse?" Mark replied, "I don't know." Then the auditor asked, "Give me three different ways then." Mark replied, "I don't know." Each horse and each situation is different. That is why it is so important to think outside the box.
5) We are not training for today; we are training for tomorrow. There is no need to get it perfect today. Get it better and build on it. How does your horse feel? Set realistic goals when you ride your horse. Compare how it feels now to how if felt yesterday. We all have off days, so try not to be critical. Look for the try the horse offers and build upon it Duster, my four-year-old mare, has felt sluggish to me under saddle. I wanted to encourage Duster to carry me in a fast walk. With a little coaching on my cues, I got it in 5 minutes. Then Duster offered some nice transitions and she was beginning to come on the bit. I quit there. She gave me everything I asked for and I knew she would be better the next day.
6) When I listen to my horse I get an education, when I don't I get experience. Experience is important because it builds the foundation for your education. Give yourself permission to try and make mistakes through your experience. This is how the horse learns and it is how you learn, too. Through experience you will begin to feel what your horse is offering you. The conversation between you and your horse will start to build and the
horse will teach you all about himself, if you will listen.
7) Build your foundation strong so you always have something to go back to if the wheels fall off. If the horse gets worried about something new, he will find comfort in a solid foundation because he can go back to something he is sure of. In the past, Goldie worried about the canter. I knew this because she hesitated to offer me the canter and I in turn rushed our transitions. What I didn't realize was that she Goldie was not sure of herself in the trot We did not have the trot solid yet She knew that the trot was worrisome, so once she got in to the canter she had nowhere comfortable to come back to. I have spent the last year working on our walk and trot, at different speeds. Now our trot is pretty good so she is ready to canter. She offered it up easily when I asked. Mark pointed out that this was because I had built a solid foundation and she felt safe.
Trisha Wren, our balanced riding instructor, taught us how how to sit more securely in the saddle. In my lesson she showed me how to weight my stirrup evenly on the ball of my foot I found that J have been riding for years on the outside of my foot, no wonder I lost my stirrups from time to time! Next she traveled up the leg and showed me how to soften my knees. This wrapped my leg around my horse so that I was right there, ready to cue and support my horse. She continued up they leg to the torso, making changes in every rider's position so they sat aligned and balanced in the saddle.
I had problems thrusting myself forward as J posted to the trot. Trisha showed me in this new position how to lean slightly forward at the trot and stand up and down, without rocking. This made all the difference. No more rocking in to the post, just stand and sit. I was able to keep my legs quiet on my mare's sides by being balanced and secure in the saddle.
Some of us students would get a little overwhelmed as we tried to put it all together. Mark encouraged us by saying, "If it was easy, anybody could do it." As the clinic came to an end, Mark gradually let us go. He directed us less and asked us to plan our own lessons. He was not going to let us down if something started to fall apart; he simply wanted us to start thinking for ourselves. This was very important to me. As my confidence grew I began to acknowledge that what I am doing with my horses is of my own design. I have taught my mares what they know, with the help of Mark and a few other great horsemen and women. I can take the credit and I know when Mark is gone I can carry on. See you next year.
