Karen Rohlf: Freestyle Riding: What, How and When
Featured in Karen’s February 2008 Newsletter
Discuss in General Chat here:
http://www.createforum.com/naturaldressage/viewtopic.php?p=4999
Q. Karen,
We know you have addressed freestyle riding in the past, but there still seems to be some confusion on the topic. We have several ‘sub-questions’ that all relate to the bigger first question:
How do you ride freestyle and balance that with the NEED for a horse to travel biomechanically correct (balanced, straight, not incorrectly bent or inverted,etc) while carrying the weight of a rider? This seems to be a very big concern among many riders on our forum. Many riders feel the horse will not have the proper posture in freestyle because he won’t have a full connection and ‘circle of energy’ to allow his back to properly lift, etc.
*Do you have a horse ‘confirmed’ in seat aids at freestyle (ability to transition up and down, make circles and figures COMPLETELY without reins) before asking him to accept contact?
*How does freestyle fit in with your metaphor of loose reins being like a bad cell phone signal? Should a horse still have some contact and/or connection with the bit in freestyle? In other words should freestyle be more like ‘long and low’ or ‘down and forward’ or is it a total free-of-contact riding.
*How do you know when to return to freestyle after you have progressed to riding a horse on a more concentrated rein? Do you flow between freestyle and contact during each ride, first riding in freestyle then returning to contact as needed for balance or straightening?
A.
“We know you have addressed freestyle riding in the past, but there still seems to be some confusion on the topic. We have several ‘sub-questions’ that all relate to the bigger first question:
How do you ride freestyle and balance that with the NEED for a horse to travel biomechanically correct (balanced, straight, not incorrectly bent or inverted,etc) while carrying the weight of a rider? This seems to be a very big concern among many riders on our forum. Many riders feel the horse will not have the proper posture in freestyle because he won’t have a full connection and ‘circle of energy’ to allow his back to properly lift, etc.”
I think of it in this way:
There are many ingredients to that wonderful balance and connection that you are describing as a full connection and a circle of energy . For example: Free, forward energy, the feeling that the horse is just there underneath you, light on his feet, accepting of connection – yet in self carriage, moving with an engaged hind leg and a strong, elastic top line. These are not things that we humans invented…horses already have this capacity, but yes, by sitting on them, if we don t put a focus on making it easier, we are likely making it more difficult for them.
Freestyle riding is one tool to help achieve these qualities (IF you practice your freestyle in a way that focuses on this outcome). Many students think of freestyle as letting the horse just do what he wants and letting him struggle to find an answer. Freestyle to me just means giving the horse a real opportunity to feel what it is like to be trusted, light and responsible. For me, I ride freestyle (meaning having a focus to not use my reins to maintain what I am asking for) if I have a horse that is not ready to ride in connection with the reins. What I mean by this is: if I try to ride in a connection with the reins in this moment, there is a good chance he will not have a positive connection due to a long list of possible reasons.
Yes, I think we do have a responsibility to help horses develop a posture that will allow them to carry our bodies in a healthy and pain-free way…but we must be careful not to think that the answer lies only in their mouths. Freedom to move is so important…and remember, they know how to move their bodies better that we do…unless we are excellent in our efforts to use our reins to make them better, there is a high chance we are actually making it harder for them. Any problem in the body will show up in the mouth, and a mistake in the mouth will certainly negatively effect the whole body. Once a horse has an issue in his mouth, it can be more difficult to change later, so I do my best to keep the connection in the mouth as trouble-free as possible. I use freestyle to eliminate having problems in this very delicate, sensitive area of the horse…meanwhile doing my best not to create other problems by not having that connection. The mental, emotional benefits to riding well without reins are huge…the physical benefits can also be huge (self carriage, perfect impulsion, excellent seat connection) IF we do it well. There are many many times that I use a freestyle-type exercise for the purpose of improving my connection with the horse when my reins are there.
So then, there become two questions.
1. Ideally, if we were perfect in our ability to ride our horses in connection with the reins, would we still need freestyle? And…
2. In reality, since we aren’t perfect, is freestyle a chance to have another avenue to achieve a quality of balance, trust and communication until horse and rider are better prepared to ride in connection with the reins?
The answer to the first question is Yes . I think the really great trainers are riding in freestyle much of the time. It comes down to your definition of freestyle. Great trainers/riders really are using their hands only for communication about connection and can drop the reins and still have a light, rideable horse. There are many times when I am training horses, that they may start to become heavy or not positive in the connection, and there are certain freestyley kind of communications that I can return to that will quickly interrupt the momentum of a horse beginning to fall out of balance and lean on (or hide from) the reins. For example: one reminder of a well-established exercise of stay on the rail and stop in the corners and relax can be called upon and is worth the million strong half halts that may be needed to get the same result, in a horse that gets pulling around the arena and falling in in the corners. Of course in order for that to work, I must have put the time in before that to make that a well-established and understood exercise.
I have rehabilitated many dressage-trained horses that have been bored to death and abused by poor attempts to ride in connection with the reins (dressage-trained was in quotes because that must not have been dressage training the way I dream of it). With these horses I put a big focus on freestyle… it is amazing when they finally realize they have a choice and they are trusted and they are shown that I want them to be bold and make moves on their own! Just today I was joking that I should call my system: The Method for the De-Petrification of the Zombified Dressage Horse !
If your training is going well, (no matter what the technique), there is nothing like the feeling of heading off with no reins or no bridle on a horse that has been given the opportunity to carry you up and proud on his own. His posture will be up and light and engaged.
The answer to the second question is also Yes . It is a question of process versus product. There are many times i have a horse, or a student who are not ready to ride in connection with the reins in a positive way…should they not ride? Should they go into the horse’s mouth and start trying to figure out how to have a nice soft contact even though the horse is impulsive and the rider is unbalanced? No! They should be given some exercises which will develop their balance and individual responsibilities now, so later, when they are met, they will have a better chance of that connection being yummy.
The real answer is to be able to do either strategy WELL. Then you can decide which strategy each horse needs at any particular time to make the most progress. Riding with the connection or not each has their own set of benefits and pitfalls. The reality is, until we are perfect, we must choose our lesser evils and a path of least resistance.
*Do you have a horse ‘confirmed’ in seat aids at freestyle (ability to transition up and down, make circles and figures COMPLETELY without reins) before asking him to accept contact?
It really does depend on the horse…it definitely needs to be good enough …and that is decided by taking everything else about the horse into consideration. The horse needs to be thinking along the right lines…Remember, I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with using the reins (or not using the reins)… just have a clear idea of what reins are actually for… to make subtle positionings of the head, to suggest the length of neck and to provide another point of contact by which to feel the horse and supply information about the body. Ultimately I would love to do this bridle-less…but sometimes my freestyle is on long reins, and sometimes it is on short reins, which I am still not using, I just am shortening my time delay between when my horse goes of course and when I can give him clearer information… Soft touch or: taking the slack out of the reins without asking anything of the horse in respect to flexion, to me is basically riding freestyle without loose reins. When I am training well, I never actually have to ask for vertical flexion or connection. If my horse s body is prepared well, when I go to soft touch, the horse does the rest. my focus is just to keep riding my hands forward to the connection so I don t restrict him. Which brings us to the next question:
*How does freestyle fit in with your metaphor of loose reins being like a bad cell phone signal? Should a horse still have some contact and/or connection with the bit in freestyle? In other words should freestyle be more like ‘long and low’ or ‘down and forward’ or is it a total free-of-contact riding.
Once you are riding truly in connection with the reins…it is ideal to be able to keep the reins in a consistent connection. Now, this doesn t mean that I don t release very often… maybe an inch every few strides, maybe all the way to the buckle for a circle… maybe so slightly that no one knows but me and my horse. But the end goal is a horse and rider who can remain light and in a consistent connection… streaming information and feedback to and from each other. Long and low is a separate subject…for example I can be long and low in connection with the reins, or bridle-less. I could be in an uphill posture in connection with reins or bridle-less. Freestyle can have a postural focus…or it could not…separate subject. Maybe we just need another term…I guess for me freestyle just means that I am not so concerned with the things that reins are for in that moment (head/neck position, or feel through the reins). It is pretty cool when you realize that you actually can influence these things also without reins, but now we are getting into some pretty advanced bridle-less technique that is not necessary for normal successful training.
*How do you know when to return to freestyle after you have progressed to riding a horse on a more concentrated rein? Do you flow between freestyle and contact during each ride, first riding in freestyle then returning to contact as needed for balance or straightening?
Make this a mantra: freestyle inside the finesse, freestyle inside the finesse . Yes, I love to flow between the two, from day to day, or within a ride, or feeling the freestyle in the finesse by micro yields of the reins in each moment… private ones between me and the horse that prove to him that I am there, but I won t pull on him, and I expect the same from him.
I know I am training well and mindfully if, after doing finesse for a few days, I can simply go without the reins and my bridle-less is as good or BETTER than the last time I checked on it. And if I ride freestyle for a few days, then return to finesse it is BETTER than the last time I checked on it.
I will now tell you about a young horse that I have coming along. He has been a little challenging for me as far as finesse, so perhaps you can relate to this more than if I simply gush on about my fabulously perfect Mr Monty!
Ovation is (I hope he’s not listening) a horse who is not exceptionally dressage-talented, motivated or responsive by nature. He touched the electric fence 4 times in a row before taking one small step back. If he started stumbling at the canter, he thought it was probably easier just to go down than try to pick himself up while cantering, and his first thought when you put a feel on a line or reins was: oh thanks for giving me something to lean on! But… he is super cute, tall and has nice gaits that I do believe are developable. That, along with his having the creativity of a factory worker can actually result in a horse that is quite reliable and happy to be given ideas about what to do. He doesn’t go for all the touchy feely stuff…he wants to be told what he needs to do and left alone and that can be a nice ride.
So when got my freestyle “good enough” I decided that it was time I improved his posture (oh yeah, his preferred head carriage was lowish and with his nose stuck straight out!). But I didn’t realize that my freestyle really wasn’t good enough…I had actually been controlling him, very nicely, but definitely controlling him and preventing him from getting too off balance. I m a professional! I know what I m doing! Why not? I ll just help himwith this! This of course did neither of us any favors. We were in the horrible in-between…not really freestyle and not really in connection… I was just very quietly, slightly, desensitizing and supporting him. If I were teaching a student with this horse I would have said that: he would be connected and round when his body was ready, so if he wasn’t in a good posture and positive connection in the reins, it was because there was a missing piece in his body or mind. But believe it or not, I don’t always listen to myself!
Alas, I am very effective in my techniques of changing a horse’s posture so after 3 rather taxing sessions he obligingly yielded to my hands and became round. Except now, because he wasn’t really ready, I had created a round, soft, bobble-head who was now anxious. Oops.
That was when I re-read my own book, signed myself up for a lesson with myself and decided that to follow my own ideal philosophy I should get my freestyle better. Not my riding around letting him do what ever he wanted, struggling… but my practicing of our responsibilities and my trusting him. So I did it… mindfully. This is what I focused on:
Bridle-less. I took off all reins and things on his head that I may be tempted to fuss with and he would be tempted to lean on. I did walk, trot canter transitions. Was this scary when I felt him getting stumbly? YES! Did I just sit there and let him fall all over himself? NO! When I felt him falling I said: hey, I wonder if you can back up” (or do a forehand yield, or transition… or… or…) so maybe he would start to think: hmm, I better pay attention so I can be ready for these transitions!
I put a big focus on improving his freestyle responsiveness to forehand and hindquarter yields and transitions to them from motion (I didn’t care where his head was). This created greater mobility and straightness and led to being able to do classical lateral exercises (shoulder-in, haunches-in..) as well as finding an alignment where he was balanced and able to release his top-line. This made him more supple in general. Then I made sure he really followed my focus on follow the rails and point to points. I definitely made sure he understood what it meant when I sat up at attention and brought my weight back, and we practiced him raising his neck and front legs up on cue. I would also walk around freestyle then transition to standing still in the gorgeous horse posture, then back to freestyle walk around. (Basically I pretend someone is taking a photo of us halted at X in the Olympics and I mess around until he finds the posture then I release 
). This was especially fun to do when he was pointed at the barn knowing he was done…he figured out pretty quick how to proudly strike the pose! We also did the stretching exercise online and riding to create general suppleness.
When I had all these pieces I started going from freestyle to taking the slack out of the reins at the walk, trot and canter…and guess what? He found his natural posture and was soft and round…no bobble head, no wrestling. Now we can begin to enjoy riding in connection with the reins, thinking about things like him filling up the connection, subtle neck positions and now my reins only make things better and easier for him.
I think we have to change the picture of the goal of freestyle…it is not running madly around with an unbalanced horse…that is just often an unfortunate moment in the process…The same as riding in connection with the reins is not meant to be hanging and pulling… We are all learning and before we are perfect we will make mistakes…Mistakes in freestyle have a particular look and mistakes in finesse have a particular look. Know your goal, know your horse. Assess what the missing pieces are, and know your toolbox of strategies.
Riding in connection with the reins is a tricky business… There are so many things to feel in those reins. The whole body and mind come through into your hands… Do your best to diagnose what you are feeling… can you feel the yummy feeling aof pressure from a horse filling up the connection and confidently holding hands with you versus the feeling of pressure of a horse’s body out of balance and landing in your hands versus a brace in zone 1, versus an emotional horse who is trying to get away?
I know you are all thinking about this, and it is so beautiful to know you all are thinking about it. Do your best to assess what is going on, and what is the best for your horse. In the end your beautiful horse will have a strong, elastic back, light forehand, freedom of movement, total seat connection, confidence in your hands and engaged hind-legs… and only you will know what the best recipe” for that particular horse and you is… what sort of combination of freestyle, finesse, liberty, trail riding, galloping cross country, non demanding time, jumping, lateral work, stretching, collecting, riding in hackamore, riding in a bridle… you must do in order to achieve your goal.
I hope this helps you gain some harmony and lightness!
My very best,
Karen