I am putting this little lesson together in response to a question about how do I get “pay attention to me please” under saddle?
A hindquarter yield makes a great “pay attention to me please so that we can keep each other safe.”
I’ve chosen exaggerated pictures so that you can see what I mean. There’s no point in doing a video, because if it’s done right it’s so subtle you wouldn’t see what the rider was doing anyway and there’s no point in doing it in a crappy way because that would be teaching you crap. 🙂
Pictures one and two are of the person teaching the horse to step under from the pressure of the hand where the leg will be when she’s riding. She has just tilted her horsse’s head towards her with the rein and used her hand where her leg will be later, to explain to the horse that she would like that leg to step under. Use your hand with direction and Feel and don’t over-ride it – i.e. don’t push the horse into resistance – you want them to be thinking and you want relaxation in their mind and body – so, feeling inside yourself, communicate with your hand in the direction that you want the leg to step.
And at the beginning, you may need to take your hand off and soak up appreciation for the first sign of movement in that direction and wait for them to lick and chew. You might even lift your hand off if he picks his ribs up and flexes a bit more in that direction, the first time or two and then go for a step next time (perhaps). You may even get a lovely soft step first ask. Whatever you get – what a star!
The amount of bend in the horses neck is about right for this initial teaching on the ground, although I would look for more subtlety later.
Pictures 3 and 4 The rider’s position is very exaggerated for what I’d be looking for. This is more the big explanation I might use if the horse didn’t understand what I was asking. There is no One-ness with the horse in this riding position exaggeration.
To do this with more One-ness under saddle, I would start asking for this with just a small rotation of my body at the same time with my seat bone weighted to the inside. You can see an exaggeration of the weight to the inside of the turn in Picture 4.
To do a rotation – imagine that I have eyes on the front of my hips, the front of my shoulders, the front of my knees and the front of my toes – then turn ALL my eyes, including the eyes in my head, in the direction I want to go. We can do this in a Live Seminar – just ask me for a feeling demonstration. 🙂
If you have your weight on the inside of the turn, turning all your eyes at the same time, you’ll find that your inside leg pushes against the horse automatically. If you’re flowing together in one-ness, he’ll just step his hind leg underneath him and you won’t need the exaggeration in these pictures above.
Remember all our talk about over-riding – you don’t want to be pushing a horse into resistance to get a turn like this – you want a relaxed happy horse turning with you.
If he doesn’t pick his leg up, either wait there with that clear, gentle feel on your inside leg that happens when you turn all your eyes and have the weight on the inside – so he can think his way through and remember the feel of what happened when you taught it on the ground.
OR he may need more “lift” in the front end first as a baby step before you even think about turning all eyes.
Practice this on your chair horse and get very clear about what you’re doing with your body and how the horse is going to respond.
If you have an emergency and need pay attention to me please urgently
If the shit ever hits the fan and you need “pay attention to me please” under saddle urgently, you can use this hindquarter yield to bring your horse’s attention back to you.
IF you’ve been doing the REAL leadership thing with the combination of food and systematically supporting your horse to be confident about all kinds of things in their lives and IF “pay attention to me please” is an established response on the ground too, then your horse will be HAPPY to mentally come back to you under saddle, even under pressure.
The same rotation and weighting of the seat bones can be used with mega more subtlety, to get this preparation for a shoulder in. See that hind leg stepped under? Same thing as I described above, different purpose.
If you can get your horse to step under themselves like this, flexed like this, in relaxation (i.e. happy and flowing with you and no resistance) and if you can develop that to be even on both sides, you will have helped them in their strength and ability to carry you happily.
From that relaxation you can move easily to shoulder in.