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Today Max was given a standard workout with lateral flexion in the morning, this is a good workout and excellent training and Max is slowly improving in this area. However, I have a problem. Max's Lateral Flexion is really not good enough yet to be reliable for any serious riding. If I were to ride him and ask for a flex of the neck he might obey, or he might not. If he does NOT obey, he learns that disobedience is an option and it might become a habit. On the other hand, Max was brought to me because of a bucking problem. Thus it is incumbent upon me to spend a lot of time on his back so that he learns to tolerate people riding him. So the bottom line is that I need to ride him but not ask for a flex until he is good with flexing. The solution is of course to start teaching him to respond to the shift of the riders weight. And of course in this process, reins are really not needed so I dispensed with them.
In the video below, you see me riding Max without a bridle or halter on his face. He needs to really start listening to the subtle shift of my weight. If he ignores it, I start to make things unpleasant by really leaning and making him off balance. For the most part, Max is pretty smart and learns quickly. I did not have someone available to take the videos, so I had to take them myself. You will occasionally see my shadow in the video with holding the stupid hand held camera to my face. I hope it makes sense.
This first video shows me just starting with him, and not asking a lot except to walk. Max is very good and compliant.
In this next video, I am basicly making sure that I can still get the trot out of Max. I give him the voice commands, and kiss at him, but his response is extremely sluggish. I am not happy about it at all, but, I remind myself that gait changes are not really the focus of today's lesson.
In this third Video, Max has made some pretty decent progress. He is now responding to the shifting of my weight. He starts out walking to the left which I encourage. Then after awhile I ask for a turn to the right, and then eventually a turn back to the left. This he gives sluggishly but he does it. I will expect a great deal more response from him in the near future.
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on June 24, 2009
at 6/24/2009
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