Photo: Yes, laughing here, you are still on your Fast Track to Brilliant Riding! This Lesson will teach you to back up so stunningly that it will be like getting the little yellow duck to glide backwards in the water of a bath tub – and if it doesn’t feel that easy yet, follow the feeling inside like Michelle does in the video and revise the Keys to Success in the Revision Lessons below – and repeat until it does. Poetry on horseback is within your grasp!
The Lesson
I told you you’d be learning world class horsemanship and world class riding and here you are right in it.
Those words “gliding backwards on Cloud 9” are not a whim, I had to find magical words to describe what happens when you really nail stop and backup with your horse in this beautiful, beautiful way.
Some riders with very large Comfort Zones of their own, can gallop around on a horse who is not under control and who are not communicating together and have that not too far out of their Comfort Zone.
Well not me – not this little black duck!
And not you if you are looking for riding together as one being either…
My deep sense of safety on a horse comes from KNOWING, all the way to my bones that I can stop when I want to or need to and that stop is on auto pilot. This is what we have been working on with all the threads of all the prior lessons leading into this one.
Here at Rokeby I have our very special barrel on 4 legs that is covered in carpet, that we call Magic – because soooo… much sheer magic happens on Magic.
For this Lesson, I want you to find your version of Magic. It may actually be on your horse’s back if BOTH of you are that deep into your Comfort Zones. It may be having someone hold your horse to give you that “space” to be in your deep Comfort Zone.
It may be that you do this Lesson for the first time facing the back of a chair that has your legs wide enough to simulate your horse and stacking books under the chair to get the right height. Do whichever feels good.
Have you noticed that the success of taking these lessons from your chair to your horse depends on both you and your horse truly being in your Comfort Zones?
Some of the previous audios have been of the kind where I am pausing and allowing time for you to follow my instructions. That is not the case with this audio. If you wish to follow the instructions with my voice, you will need to hit the pause button and come back when you have done the suggested exercise.
THIS Lesson is the next piece of the back up puzzle. In your last lesson you established a conversation about your horse giving to the reins softly – using the reins as a fall back position if your horse didn’t understand the request of the body position. This Lesson is about the body position that will make it possible for you and your horse to glide into a stop and backup on Cloud 9.
Then, in the next lesson, we will cover another kind of stop that combines the rein and body into a dance to a stop and into a backup.
Note: There is both an audio and a video section to this Lesson.
Lessons for review that I refer to in this audio:
– Anchoring your magnetic butt on your horse.
– A conversation about stopping and backing up.
As always there’s a written version of the audio below.
Click here for the alternate recording of Gliding to a stop with your horse
And now for the video part of the Lesson…
This video is of a live lesson with Michelle and Rapunzel. These are amongst Rapunzel’s first stops and backups with two reins in the rider’s hands EVER and she is learning HOW she can be soft within those reins. The job is not finished yet, but oh my goodness what a beautiful start they have made. Oh yeah – this is the second time Michelle has ever sat on Rapunzel and Michelle’s first ride in two years…
If you have trouble with the video click on the youtube word in the bottom right hand corner and watch it in youtube.
Enjoy the moment of levity with Bobby who was loose in the arena and had made it his job throughout this day to make sure that Michelle didn’t get too serious! THAT is also an important point…
Revision Lessons
Review these Lessons that contain valuable Keys to Success for this lesson:
– A conversation about stopping with reins as a fall back position – i.e. a way of explaining what you’re looking for.
– About anchoring the magnetic riding seat on your real horse.
– This lesson has the footage showing the position of a happy foot in the stirrup
– Soapy bones and having all your joints smoothly available for movement
– For the deeper Quiet Mind for positive problem solving.
And of course, always remembering that this is a well supported program – with questions asked and answered on The Forum, the live seminar pretty much monthly and private sessions if you need them, with me or my team – take advantage of all that support if you need it.
Written Version of the Audio
Have you noticed that the success of taking these lessons from your chair to your horse DEPENDS ON BOTH YOU AND YOUR HORSE TRULY BEING IN YOUR COMFORT ZONES. It’s a key factor and probably the most important factor. Only in both your comfort zones can you truly listen deep inside to each other and find the position and communication that you are looking for.
A back up is supposed to be a beautiful soft lifting of your horse’s feet. If your horse’s feet are dragging, then they have been pulled into a back up. Not to worry though, because with Lesson 66 and 67 and the next one coming, you will change all that.
So let’s get into this Lesson. You can do this on your horse or practice first in a chair.
1. Listen inside yourself, find that place of deep Inner Awareness. Notice everything about your breathing if you need to, feel your heartbeat if you need to, notice the ebb and flow of energy in your body if that’s the thing that pulls you most into that place of awareness.
2. Then bring your horse into the equation, FEEL your horse underneath you and feel the way your energy changes as you bring your horse into this Lesson as the teacher. Specially if you are sitting on the chair – feel your horse and bring them in as teacher. When Michelle did this lesson on our Magic barrel, I swear I thought that barrel was moving backwards, the energy of backwards was so strong.
3. Drop into your effortlessly powerful posture, drop into your magnetic seat – you should just about be there straight up now, unless there is something in the way. If you feel you need to, you can review the older position lessons. Like everything else, if there is something in the way of your magnetized butt, then don’t hold it against yourself, contact me so that we can resolve it. So far everyone I have worked with has been able to find that magnetized butt – even the two ladies who were semi disabled with back problems. Even with their disability, they found the perfect place for THEM – which is, incidentally, not where I would have put them intellectually.
4. From that place of Inner Awareness and with your soft ahhh eyes and the gentle smile that goes with that, notice everything about the way that the energy moves through your body. You could even get someone to push on you gently like I will show you in the video that comes with this lesson, so that you can feel the strength and feel the exaggeration of the magnetized butt that comes from this position.
5. A stop and back up should always have an element of float forwards – anything else will have a brace in you and cause a brace in your horse. I used to be able to slide Bobby to a stop with a backwards lean, but I also spent the next umpteen years fixing his back problems that were caused by both he and I bracing so hard.
6. Now we are going to learn to glide backwards on Cloud 9 with your horse. Still in that Inner Awareness and with your soft ahhh eyes, slide your tail bone closer to the ground and at the same time, float forwards with your upper body. It’s a much stronger feeling than your normal seat. Notice the feelings that happen when you do that.
7. Notice any places of bracing in your body and make whatever minor adjustments to your body that you need in order to soften that part of your body and make like the soapy, sliding bones with it.
8. Notice what happens to the rest of your body when you tip your chin up a little – notice what that feels like. Notice what happens to the rest of your body when you tilt you head down and look at the ground in front of your horse – and notice what that feels like. And let’s hear some feedback on the discussion group about this please!
9. Notice what happens with this exercise if your toes are just in the stirrups and also if your feet are all the way inside the stirrup.
10. Try and do this exercise with your back slightly arched and notice how it feels and how that arch impacts the rest of your body and the energy of your stop and back up. Then do it again with your lovely straight backed magnetized butt.
11. Try this exercise with your shoulders slumped forwards and the front of your body kind of collapsed over itself – and notice what that does to the rest of your body and the energy of the stop and back up. Then come back to your lovely magnetized butt again and feel the comparison of the exercise in your good position. Hmm interesting hey?
12. Now here is the piece de resistance… the icing on the cake, the final piece of using the body alone for a stop and a back up. IMAGINE that your hip joints – remember the joint where your long thigh bone meets your pelvis that we showed you on the skeleton – IMAGINE that your hip joints were softening and opening wider. Don’t move them, just IMAGINE that you were opening those joints. I swear even good old Magic tried to back up when Michelle was doing this the other day!
13. Wait for your horse to understand this. Wait and wait and wait. And when you are actually on your horse’s back doing this, then whether they have moved backwards or not, sit back up into your normal magnetized butt – even get off if you feel it’s necessary – and wait for The Chew.
14. If they DIDN’T move backwards, then after The Chew you can ask again, listening inside yourself for any adjustments that you may need to make in your own body to get the feeling that I am describing. You can, if you need to, use the reins in the way that I described in Lesson 67 to explain what you mean by this body position, remembering that there the reins are a signal and they should have absolutely no pull whatsoever.
Enjoy!