Moving any foot? re Brannaman

Skib

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Dec 21, 2003
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I am starting a new thread for this question, so my curiosity is not within KPnuts diary.

Just to recap - the USA trainer Buck Brannaman (of Horse Whisperer Fame) says that one should be able to sit on one's horse and ask that horse to move any leg and pretty much in any direction. i.e. place a leg where one wants it.
When I went to a demo, I got the idea that he controls both front legs with his reins and the hind legs with his legs but KPnut reports Buck using his legs to move the front feet too, cueing in front of the girth.

I cant yet do this but I want to try. So ideas and comments would be welcome.

Is there anyone here who can already do this with their horse? Or when training?
Would it be a bad thing to teach this (especially front foot movement) to a UK horse ridden English and not used with cattle?
And if so how do you cue it ?

Experimenting this morning I found that (if my horse was standing four square to start with) I could ask the right fore to step sideways but the left fore then followed it - which makes sense. As a horse needs to stay balanced
In my first attempt it was the right fore that moved across to the right first - which I thought made sense from the point of view of a UK RS horse.

When Brannaman says you should be able to move any foot does he expect all the other feet to remain still ?
Or is the first step a first step in a turn or shift of position as it would be in Rashid - When working with cattle far more emphasis is placed on the front end of the horse than when one is taught dressage turns in the UK (I think)
I should make it clear that there are no rosettes to be won or any point in my asking the horse this. Just a sort of challenge that there is something a trainer says a good rider should be able to do, but I cannot. RIs have often said when I am on one of my fav. horses - There is nothing that horse wont do for you Skib - And I think it comes from my love of messing about on horses.
 
The exercise we learnt was broken down into phases:

Step 1 from halt: Ask the horse to flex with your right hand so her head is at least at 90 degrees. Legs not on. If her feet move, keep the feel on the rein until the feet stop. Then release. Repeat until you can flex either side with a light touch on the rein and no foot movement. Rein is asking for lateral flexion and as legs are not involved then horse should not move the feet.

Once step 1 is reliable then step 2 is: instead of releasing when the horse flexes you move the right rein out to the side in the direction you wish the horse to step the right front leg across. This is the 'invitation to follow a feel'. If the horse does not step across add the left leg in front of the girth to ask the shoulders to move over. Stay in that position (right hand at hip and to the side, head flexed, left leg on) until horse steps right leg across. Ignore all other movements. As soon as horse steps release instantly and wait at least 10 seconds before picking up the reins again and starting all over. Repeat, repeat until horse can step left or right front feet one step. Once that is reliable you can keep the 'invitation to step across' alive by not releasing until you have 2 steps. Then more. Or you can insist in a little more quality by not releasing a small step but only a decent reaching across step.

Separately you learn to roll the hindquarters using lateral flexion and leg behind girth.

Once both movements are reliable separately you can do both - roll hind quarters to the left half a circle, then bring front across to the right to complete the circle. A nice little dance move that involves very precise control of the feet. We can do this separately and are working on the full circle both on the ground and under saddle. I'll post a vid if I can ever find anyone to film it!
 
When Brannaman says you should be able to move any foot does he expect all the other feet to remain still ?
Or is the first step a first step in a turn or shift of position as it would be in Rashid
s.

Bucks said you move one foot at a time when learning a new move to make it clear. Later it all gets blended into flowing movements/serpentines, pirouttes, spirals, tear drops etc. He said horses do not need it broken down like this - but people do!
 
ETA today I was having a lesson and Amber was so much more responsive to my outside aids when circling. I think I have over-relied on inside leg/hand to get bend but using the outside leg to turn her worked very well so she did not have too much neck bend. I know I have been taught to use the outside aids many times before and thought I was using them, but I think controlling the shoulder so much in the clinic has made it click a little more for both of us.
 
I expect (a ridden horse) to be able to move a single foot, a single step, in any direction and I may chose to have the other feet follow on or not and I might do this from a standstill or whilst moving. Being used to this I find it very tiresome riding a horse who can't do this, to me it feels like trying to steer a steam roller compared to a push bike :p perhaps it was my western background that instilled this, I know it certainly developed it.

In terms of practicality, I use this often, when going down a trail and spotting something at the last moment that I don't want my horses foot on/in, like a rabbit hole or plastic bottle (that may spook them) or when trying to get them through a particularly tricky gap and needing them to step in an exact place/sequence to get through without taking my knees out.

I control the hind feet and the ribcage with my legs, if I want to move the shoulder I control the nose and the ribcage together. So to step the right foot over to the right I would close on the left of the ribs and neck and open the right neck and ribs. If you look back through the challenge posts I did there was one in there about controlling different feet, same principle on the ground or ridden really.
 
This is an interesting thread. @Skib I too had a go at doing this, out of curiosity. I found that without fail when I asked Raf to move, eg, his right fore to the right, he moved his left fore first (to the right) followed by his right foot. At this point I gave up since he and I were obviously on different pages and I didn't know what to do to correct it. However, I might have another go now that I have read @KP nut's explanation above.

What I did realise later in the day was that if I need Raf to move his feet, say to line up next to a gate, to pick up something from the wall, or in hand to squeeze himself into an awkward spot where I am perilously perched on a bit of fence or something wanting to get him in exactly the right place so I can hop onto his back, he will put them where I want them to be - precisely foot by foot, not by my direction but by his own instinct, although I am obviously loosely cueing him with legs and reins, or in the case of mounting, with a little pull on the reins and a verbal 'Raf, move that foot over one step', which I'm sure is just human gibberish to him. So when it matters to me he understands and is perfectly capable and willing to move his feet to the desired position. I wonder whether this is enough for me. It would be nice to be able to do fancy pirouettes but I don't really need to.
 
This is an interesting thread. @Skib I too had a go at doing this, out of curiosity. I found that without fail when I asked Raf to move, eg, his right fore to the right, he moved his left fore first (to the right) followed by his right foot. At this point I gave up since he and I were obviously on different pages and I didn't know what to do to correct it. However, I might have another go now that I have read @KP nut's explanation above.

What I did realise later in the day was that if I need Raf to move his feet, say to line up next to a gate, to pick up something from the wall, or in hand to squeeze himself into an awkward spot where I am perilously perched on a bit of fence or something wanting to get him in exactly the right place so I can hop onto his back, he will put them where I want them to be - precisely foot by foot, not by my direction but by his own instinct, although I am obviously loosely cueing him with legs and reins, or in the case of mounting, with a little pull on the reins and a verbal 'Raf, move that foot over one step', which I'm sure is just human gibberish to him. So when it matters to me he understands and is perfectly capable and willing to move his feet to the desired position. I wonder whether this is enough for me. It would be nice to be able to do fancy pirouettes but I don't really need to.
sometimes when teaching it, if you look down at the foot you are trying to move you can inadvertently stick it in place by weighting it more, which then frees the opposite leg and in an effort to comply they move that one across instead :)
 
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What I did realise later in the day was that if I need Raf to move his feet, say to line up next to a gate, to pick up something from the wall, or in hand to squeeze himself into an awkward spot where I am perilously perched on a bit of fence or something wanting to get him in exactly the right place so I can hop onto his back, he will put them where I want them to be - precisely foot by foot, not by my direction but by his own instinct, although I am obviously loosely cueing him with legs and reins, or in the case of mounting, with a little pull on the reins and a verbal 'Raf, move that foot over one step', which I'm sure is just human gibberish to him. So when it matters to me he understands and is perfectly capable and willing to move his feet to the desired position. .

This to me is fascinating! Mark Rashid and Buck Brannaman both talk about 'feel' and as far as I can work out this is not just a technical thing to do with clarity of cueing, softness or timing. It is about horse and human communicating mentally. So intent/attention are so important. They also both talk about motivation. If it matters to you it will matter to the horse. Mark says 'ride like the cows are getting out!' on a sluggish horse! I remember trying some of this sort of stuff out with Thyme after a MR clinic and getting my legs muddled up so I was using the wrong leg. My leg was asking her to yield diagonally RIGHT, but everything else (focus, attention, intent) was thinking LEFT. And she went where I wanted her to go not where I was actually cueing her to go. She ended up moving into my leg to move diagonally left. Which was precisely what I wanted but was the opposite of what my aids were saying.

So I think Raf knew where you wanted his feet because YOU knew where you wanted his feet and 'it mattered' so your motivation made him motivated to get it right, and that was enough info for him to comply. So if you WANT canter pirouettes I am sure he would give them to you. :cool:
 
Just a thank you to everyone. For taking the trouble to answer in detail and comment - I booted up the computer to have the details fresh in my mind before going off to ride this morning.
 
Rode Max yesterday, playing around with these ideas and movements. He became incredibly light in the hand and responsive. Off the leg but very easy to collect or to transition down. Not quite sure why - perhaps he was getting his hocks underneath him better. Perhaps the lightness of my requests led him to soften too? Who knows. But afterwards we ran through a dressage test and he was better than I have ever known him. RI happened to walk past and stopped to say 'wow he's looking fantastic'. So it's nice to know that cowboy riding can translate to English dressage! The judge's comments for Max are always 'against the hand' as he gets over excited when doing tests on grass away from home. So it will be interesting to see if work at home carries over when we compete him again.
 
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I definitely think there is something in 'you have to expect lightness to get lightness' not even sure who said that but it stuck in my mind :p
 
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