Mark Rashid Clinic - Common Themes

The format of the clinic was 8 horse/rider pairs. Each pair got to work with Mark for at least an hour, and more if needed, every day. There's a break for lunch, but it's pretty intense and completely fascinating. As usual at these clinics, the riders and horses were very diverse as to breeds, disciplines and the experience level of the riders. Although every pair was working on different issues - or at least with different emphases - there were some common themes. I thought in this post I would outline some of the common themes and then in later posts talk about the specific experiences of some of the pairs. A lot happens over the three days, and every pair made significant, and sometimes truly amazing, progress.

One thing that always makes the clinics interesting is that Mark's horsemanship progresses, each time I see him. He has new insights that are brought to bear, and new and better ways of communicating with us about them. His thinking also isn't static - sometimes he changes his mind about how to do something most effectively. There isn't a "program" that each horse and rider are expected to follow - this can, I think, make it harder for less experienced horse people to apply his teaching - I know I found this hard at first.

So here are some common themes:

1. If you don't have in mind a particular speed, direction and destination, your horse will have to fill in the gaps himself. You have to give the horse direction, not just put on the aid and wait to see what happens next. Same thing applies to speed - if you don't intend a particular speed and quality of gait, you can't expect your horse to guess right. When you feel the horse starting to form a different thought, get in there and offer direction. We spend too much time giving cues and then telling the horse what we don't want them to do after we've waited for them to do the wrong thing instead of directing them to do what we do want them to do.

2. Make sure that you give a release only when you've gotten the feel you want - head set is much less important than the feel in your hands and in the horse's whole body - once you've got the right feel you can make all the adjustments you want. But headset doesn't come before softness. Also make sure the feel is soft from the inside of the horse - the horse's mind and thought are soft - not just compliance from the outside - this is a difficult concept to put into words but you can see and feel it. Giving releases (sometimes when we don't even realize we've done it) is how horses learn to push into the bit and brace - they've been taught to do it and think it's correct. This can happen even in small things - if your horse comes to a halt softly, but then you give a release when the horse gives a little push on the bit - that's what you're teaching the horse to do.

3. Almost everything a horse offers up to us under saddle has been taught to them by a human, often unintentionally, or is the result of the human providing insufficient direction. Our own body attitude, feelings and physical tightness have enormous influence on the horse due to their sensitivity. Most humans are not soft in their bodies or minds, and are not connected to themselves, and then wonder why they can't get softness from their horse or a connection with the horse. You can't separate horsemanship from the rest of your life - it's all one thing and what is going on in one place will carry over to the other. Most humans live their lives in a constant state of low level panic (from a physical/mental point of view) and the horse can feel this. You may need to work on yourself as much or more than you work on your horse.

4. The way the rider breaths greatly affects the horse - your breathing needs to be rhythmical and in time with the horse's feet. Horses can have breathing issues too - more about that in a subsequent post. You need to breath, not shallowly but fully from the diaphragm, all the time, from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep - this is the basis for relaxation and softness in your own body. If you aren't soft yourself, it will be difficult or impossible for your horse to be soft.

5. Think and feel in your mind what you want to happen and only then ask for it with an aid - the aid is merely a secondary cue for the action - the time interval between thought and aid can and should be very short. You're directing the horse's thought with your thought, and offering the horse the feel you want.

6. Ask for the feel you want from the beginning. If you expect all of your cues and interactions with the horse to be a 1 on a scale of one to ten with 0 being no pressure and 10 being the most pressure you can use, then make sure the feel you think and intend is a 1, all the time. That doesn't mean you don't have to get bigger sometimes to get things done, but the 1 has to be on offer every time from the beginning. This is the same as Harry Whitney's "start where you want to end up" - see my earlier post on this. If you want to only use a 1 with your horse, use a 1 everywhere else in your life - in how you walk, how you open and close a door and how you put a plate on the table - that way you carry the feel of a 1 in your body and mind and can bring it to the horse. If everything in your non-horse life is a 5 or a 6, how can you expect to be able to consistently bring a 1 to your horse in the thought and feel you want for you and the horse to have together?

7. Participate in the activity with your horse. It's "we go there" or "we do this" not "he goes there" or "he does this". This is how you build a connection with the horse. Match your energy to the energy you want the horse to display - bring your energy up or down by thinking and intending the feel you want so your horse will understand. This applies in ground work as well as in the saddle. Mark feels that the way some people do groundwork - standing still in the middle and having the horse move - builds in a disconnect that then makes it harder to get a true connection in the saddle.

8. Emotion has no place in working with horses. Every thing should be matter of fact. Even if you need to get big, it should be done without emotion - anger in particular has a damaging effect on your relationship with the horse. Just deal with what the horse offers up - don't attribute human emotions or intentions to the horse - horses aren't "disrespectful" (behaviors that we think are disrespectful are almost always learned behaviors), "disobedient" (sometimes they struggle with what we want and can be very determined to do things the way they have been previously taught is correct), "sneaky" (this is usually us not paying attention or providing direction) or any of the other things we attribute to them. A horse with serious behavior problems - bucking, bolting or rearing for example - is often very troubled mentally and emotionally or may have serious physical pain issues - the horse expresses how it feels with its body.

9. Softness isn't slowness in cuing, or tentativeness, or even smallness. It's a feeling - you can be precise and definite and in fact have to be. But being precise and definite doesn't have to be big - in fact almost all of us tend to overcue, often by a large amount. Precision and being definite are a matter of timing and intent, not the size of the cue. In fact, if you and your horse are really connected, cues don't have to be physical at all - you just mentally offer up the thought and feel of what you want and it is instantly there. Softness can also be there if we have to get big.

10. To get a gait transition, think of it in terms of rhythm, not speed - thinking "go faster" or "go slower" doesn't tell the horse enough. Prepare - think the exact rhythm, feel and speed you want - if you don't know this in your own mind, how can you expect the horse to know what you want? A question Mark often asks is "Is this the trot you want?" to which the answer the rider gives is often no. The reason the trot wasn't what you wanted is because you left it up to the horse to decide instead of determining precisely what you wanted before asking for it.

11. Although you should never give a release until you get the feel you want - not just the feet moving but from the inside of the horse - once the horse has given you what you want a number of times - not a large number, 2, 3 or 4 times - don't keep repeating it to check if the horse has still got it. If you do that, the horse is likely to think that he isn't doing something right and that you want something else - and will start offering up other behaviors in the search to find what you want. And then everything falls apart. Either step up to the next stage in what you are asking for - if the horse is giving you three soft steps in the walk now ask for 5 - or move on to another activity and come back to the first activity later in the day or the next day - the horse will benefit from the time to process. Always participate with the horse in an active way through your intent - have in mind what you are looking for - no mindless riding, groundwork or lunging/driving around the round pen - if you're mindless there won't be any connection with the horse and although the horse may be compliant that's from the outside only.

More later - but here's a preview of the horse/rider pairs:

A cute Hafflinger/Welsh cross and her 11 year old rider:

An Icelandic mare:

There was a very cute Fjord gelding, with a relatively inexperienced rider, that I somehow failed to get a picture of - too busy taking notes, I guess!

Then there was the breeding stock (no color) Paint gelding - a lovely horse:

There was the chestnut quarter horse gelding doing basic dressage:

Here is jmk from Buckskin and Bay and her big buckskin gelding Scout - she's done some interesting posts about her clinic experience:

Then there was the very experienced horsewoman with two horses - although she's only in her early 20s, she's been riding with Mark for over 10 years and now works to train and also start horses. Her first horse was a Hanoverian/Appaloosa - a big guy:

And her second horse - a perlino gelding who was being restarted - this was the most interesting horse of the clinic for me:

More later!