When you ride, you're teaching your horse. That doesn't even suggest that your horse is learning what you're teaching. Conversely, your horse is always learning things, even if you aren't consciously teaching him. A horse will always seek maximum freedom. If it is a reward which you offer him that provides that freedom, he will attempt to make it happen again. He'll eventually learn how. He can also find freedom by shaking you loose or making you too frightened to adapt your aids spontaneously to his changes of movement.

In teaching, you're dealing with the mind and communication. The mind of a horse is sound. It gives your horse a good memory and equilibrium but little ability to reason in his artificial environment.

Our problem is communication. When you communicate verbally, by sign language or by body language (which is the case with your horse), you must develop a language which is common to both parties. If you're to understand what I say, I must speak in your language. If I am to understand your response, you must speak to me in mine. Since a horse has only one possible form of communication, you have to adapt to the use of body language.

The process of learning language is a slow one requiring definitions of all the words being used. You first define words and phrases for your horse and see to it that he understands them. Then sentences and paragraphs begin to make sense to him all on their own.

There are two critical ideas to consider before you can expect to teach a horse anything. First, when you teach a horse even a simple exercise such as the halt, you are really assuming that he can understand a lot. When you ask a horse to halt, what you are really saying is:

1. collect
2. change from forward motion to stopping
3. maintain lateral flexion
4. maintain direct flexion
5. stay at the bit
6. do not resist
7. do not stiffen your spine
8. do not look right
9. do not look left
10. bring your hind legs under you
11. do it smoothly
12. be prepared to move forward
    and several other things.

1. I don't want to stop now.
2. What's going on over there on my right?
3. And what's going on over there on my left?
4. How come you want me to stop and you're still using your legs?
5. You're making me very nervous!
6. How come you're bouncing around like that?
7. Am I in trouble again?
   and several other things.

This brings up the next critical point. You must be willing to listen (or feel) for his responses. You have to deal with what your horse thinks if you expect him to think at all. Since you want him to learn, you obviously want him to think. You can't deny everything that he thinks other than those things that you want him to think. If you label everything else disobedience, you are not likely to produce the kind, quiet, satisfied, curious, pliable and lively mind which your horse can have.

The key to teaching your horse is to start simply and allow plenty of time. Before your horse can learn things quickly he has to learn how to learn. When you use your aids to ask your horse to do something, you are creating an obstacle. When your horse responds correctly, you give him freedom by relaxing your hands and legs. That is what your horse is seeking. Your horse will repeat the action which led to the reward. If you are asking for something that is too complicated for him, the reward may not come soon enough. Your horse may learn the wrong thing. He may learn that a reward is not forthcoming so why bother trying.

When you present something new to your horse, he will go through a trial and error process to find the set of movements that lead to freedom (or a release). Imagine that in each case your horse starts out with a list of 100 possibilities. Out of that 100 possibilities, the one that you are looking for could lie anywhere on the list. Let's say it's number 75. As he goes through his list, one by one, if your aids aren't released, he must continue until he gets to number 75. When he is released, he knows that something in that part of the list did it.

Now, let's say that he takes everything from number 50 to 75 and moves it up to the top. Now, you start all over again and repeat the same aids. He'll start at 50 and go to 75 and get a release. Now, he'll move everything from 60 to 75 to the top, then everything from 70 to 75, then everything from 72 to 75 until he gets it. The siren goes off, the gong is hit, EUREKA! - you've released and you've succeeded in teaching him ONE WORD in the entire language. Fortunately, your horse has a good memory and will probably remember what he has learned. He can accumulate quite a good vocabulary. Although this doesn't sound much like a riding lesson, the fact remains that that's just about how it works. In this way, you can teach your horse positively instead of negatively.

The subject of hands is a subtle one and one which is often misunderstood. However, it is necessary to develop your hands to teach your horse. A green rider starts out with no hands, meaning that he has no "feel" at all. As he develops as a rider, he develops enough security and knowledge to have good hands, hands that don't interfere with his horse. If he continues to study, from there he can develop educated hands, which are the hands of the artist in riding. These are hands which create something better in the horse each time that take contact, hands which feel very deeply into the horse, hand that "speak" and hands that "listen".

And then there are bad hands (or hard hands), hands that "clash", hands that "speak" before they think, hands with a closed mind behind them, hands that produce nothing but resistance, hands that give a horse no hope of getting freedom while giving the rider what he's looking for. They're hands that never accomplish what they set out to do (assuming that the rider knows what he wants to do), and so they never release.

It is often thought that hands which exert pressure are hard hands. This is false. Horses are very physical creatures. If you've ever noticed that horses often play by ripping pieces out of one another's hides and can easily knock down a weak fence while scratching an itch, you would suspect that the pressure that we can exert would not be considered extreme. It is also worth noting that a horse can feel a fly on its mane, and can find that extremely annoying. Even though the bit is inside a horse's mouth, if used correctly, it is applying pressure to the corners of the lips, not the gums. This isn't an extraordinarily sensitive area. Also, you must realize that you are dealing with an animal whose body weight is 1000 to 1500 pounds. That's not much lighter than a small car. That we can control them at all, considering the difference in our sizes, is remarkable.

If you've ever driven a car without power steering and power brakes, you appreciate the difference when you have them. The same difference exists in riding. You may start out with a horse which requires being forced into response. But as you educate and "soften" him, his mind is providing the "power steering and brakes" which allow you to use light pressure. Conversely, the horse who is too light must be made to pull slightly (or go to the bit) or communication will be strictly "hit and miss".

Avoiding hard hands requires that you do not clash your aids. Before you use your aids, you must know what you want your horse to do. You must know what aids you intend to use to achieve it. You must realize when your horse has done it (or has come close, which is the first step). And, you must acknowledge that by rewarding with a release. If you do that, your horse will not respond to pressure as a "clash", but will learn from the pressure and will subsequently lighten and soften. Then you've taken the first step toward having educated hands.

Developing an educated leg is quite similar. In order to produce a horse that is light and sensitive to the legs, it is necessary to teach him. At first, your horse doesn't know anything about responding to the legs. You can press as hard as you like but he won't respond. If you use your leg heavily and then graduate to the use of the stick, your horse will assume that he shouldn't respond until he feels your leg used heavily. If you use your leg lightly and then graduate to the use of the stick, your horse will assume that he should respond as soon as he feels your light pressure. If you can imagine speaking to someone who always speaks very loudly, you would miss things said at low volume. However, if you spoke to someone who always whispered, you'd find yourself listening very carefully. Your horse does the same thing once trained.

Knowing and understanding what your horse is doing under you is a prerequisite to having educated hands and legs. "Feel" is often an enigma to riders. Some people learn to feel all on their own by experience. Others can develop it with education. Very few people can't develop it at all. In order to develop "feel", you must have one special quality - THE DESIRE TO KNOW YOUR HORSE BETTER. When you "feel" your horse, what you are really doing is trying to understand what he is thinking and feeling at that moment. you're listening with your hands. You do that by noticing how he is responding to you and your aids and how he is moving. It has nothing to do with making him respond correctly. However, if you have "feel", because you know what your horse is like all the time, you can change him accurately and make him into the horse that you want him to be.

In order to develop "feel" you should try certain exercises. First, you must be able to sit to the trot comfortably. If that is difficult for you, it may be because your horse's movement is rough. Feel it. If that's the case, make it smooth enough by slowing it down. Don't try to sit better to a bad trot. You may have to slow it down so much that your horse attempts to break into a walk. Here is a situation where you must keep in mind that your horse can learn any simple thing if you are patient and repeat until he gets it.

If your horse breaks, put him back into the trot. If it's too fast, slow it down. He may break again, and again, but if you stick to your guns he will figure out that you want him to trot slowly and will do it on his own. That gives you a chance to get comfortable, which will be the beginning of developing "feel".

Once you've accomplished that, you may still find that you can't sit well enough. You might even find that the way you're sitting is making your horse nervous. If you can feel your horse, then he can feel you. If your body is stiff, it probably feels to your horse very much like it feels to you when his body is stiff. Although sloppiness is not what we want, it can help if you focus some of your attention on maintaining an elastic spine. This can make you more comfortable with your horse. But, more importantly, it can make your horse more comfortable with you. The most difficult time to remain elastic is when you are attempting to change your horse. We don't easily coordinate firmness and elasticity. In time you'll develop it, but for now simply experiment. You'll get closer than you think.

Next, at the walk, do "position right and left". Position right is an exercise whereby you bend your horse's head to the right, first with flexion in the jaw and then continue by achieving lateral bending of the neck. Position left is the same but to the left. All of this must be done while keeping the body straight. Softening a horse's jaw is very important and difficult. Your horse can very subtlely resist you and show his tension by stiffening the muscles in the area of his jaw. Even if he is not misbehaving dramatically, you won't get a good performance or a good feeling from a horse who is resistant in his jaw.

As you attempt this exercise, if your horse is truly resistant, you will have a humbling experience. You'll realize that you simply can't make things happen unless your horse is willing. You have to make him willing. Then, he'll give you whatever you ask for.

As you apply your right indirect rein, your horse may initially respond in a vast variety of ways. He may respond ideally, keeping his body straight and elastic, softly bringing his head in from the poll, flexing the muscles at the right side of the jaw and relaxing the muscles at the left of the jaw, then adding a soft bend in the neck, giving you position right just as you asked. He may also tip his nose to the right while resisting to the outside with his poll. He may bend his neck to the right and never soften his jaw. He may shift his haunches to the left, thrust his jaw to the right, look to the left and pull and lean or other things.

This is your opportunity to "feel". It's your job to feel your horse's reaction. Once you feel what his reaction is, you can begin to fix things up. Your right indirect rein is the one that you are using to ask your horse to flex his jaw to the right. But, the rest of your aids must be at work helping your horse to come up with the correct response.

Be careful not to try so hard to do things the right way that you are unwilling to experiment. Also make sure that you are not so eager to produce a certain result that you forget to notice that it is beyond your horse capability at the moment. Perhaps more warm-up or you could request a bit less bend, compromise, listen, feel. Unless you experiment with your aids and movements you will never figure out what to do with your particular horse to make things happen. Let's use the example of position right. You know that your right indirect rein should give you position right. Now, you must figure out on your own, by feeling your horse's response and reacting to it, just how to apply your other aids (left hand, left and right legs and upper body weight) to make it happen correctly. If you don't experiment and feel your horse's response, you'll never be able to teach him how to do it, since you'll never be able to reward him for something that he's done correctly. It will simply pass you by.

Keep in mind that it's OK to make a mistake. The inconvenience of your horse's learning slowly, by continuous repetition, carries the benefit that he'll probably not learn anything the first time. That gives you the chance to make a few small mistakes without creating problems. Also keep in mind that it's OK for your horse to make a mistake and that you shouldn't take it personally. If you do take it personnal, you'll never take the time to feel, you'll always be giving orders, just like a person who never listens but is always talking.

As you become comfortable with performing position right and left at the walk, do them at the trot, slow sitting and regular posting. If you can use "feel" in these exercises you can use it in all of the others.

Development of "feel" is often thought to be reserved for the elite who are extremely talented individuals or those who devote extraordinary amounts of time to riding. That doesn't have to be true. It is something which should be pursued on all levels. Don't feel that you are being presumptuous by trying to develop "feel" on a beginner level. You can and should. You can work on it at any speed. You don't need much experience at all. All you have to do is remember to "listen".
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