Call it what you want

Instinct - straightness and Indian Dressage

Understanding straightness in horse terms.
Prey animals walk in a zig zag way. They do this so they can always see what's going on behind them incase of an attack.
So us as humans wanting a straight line because that's what our dressage test wanted is not going to convince your horse to want to go straight down centre line towards the judge. Because I'm the wild they wouldn't do that. If they were going to approach something they would do it slowly and most likely pretend that they are just eatting.

So how can we work with out horse to crest that straight line we want.
Make the horse feel safe and relaxed is first.
Second give them a porpose. We all feel good when we have a good reason to do something. That's actually basic instincts.
There is a reason we all do things.
We eat ... because... we are hungry.
So let's give our horses a reason to go straight.
In nature, for horses, that's does not exist!
But relaxation does!
So get your horse relaxed.
Your horse won't relax until he trust you.
So maybe we do need to go way back to the beginning of time and work out how to get our horses to trust us.
Think about how an Indian might have made friends with a wild horse.
Because that horse ultimately would lead him straight into the face of danger. Now that's some full on dressage right there!!!!!
But it was done with no tack!
So there must have been some pretty epic relaxation and connection there.
There would have been a hell of a lot of time and patience and many years to produce an Indian dressage horse, something I like the sound of. Because I think proud, when I think of an Indian.

But I still haven't spoken about how to the get the horse straight.

Well that's because it is a bi-product of relaxation that why.

So if you focus on relaxation and forward, you will get the straightness.

This is something that is talked about so so often. But it just needs to be explained in different ways, because everyone learns differently.
I am very lucky because I have had many coaches, and the three the have had the biggest effect on my riding, have all had the same values.

I do train a lot on my own because that's just me. I like working shit out myself, why? Because that's how I understand it better.

So I have written another chapter where I spoke about my horses anxiety during a ride and how once I got forward, he gave me zig zag.
And that's good, I could work with that. I understand him wanting to zig zag, that is his natural instinct.
So I built on the trust we had and then it naturally turned into a horse that was walking out pretty straight.

I had given him focus and I had an intention. I wanted forward, he gave me straight.