Ep 10: The enemy of a flying change is a rider who wants to make a flying change

I just think the more you take a motion out of it and the more and the less you actually get really crazy about doing a flying change and just focus on the system of training all of the pieces, the less problems you have with the changes in the end.

From performanceriders.com this is the Parbury Podcast. I'm Nat Foxen, and each episode I challenge World equestrian Games top 10 dressage rider Brett Parbury to explain and discuss what I call a pabrism. That's a pearl of wisdom I've written down over the years of working together in our performance writers programs. Brett doesn't know what today's pabrism is. Let's get into it. Okay, Brett, for today's papyrism, I'm going to do that thing that I really like to do. I'm going to give you the first half of the pabrism and you fill in the second half. Okay?

Okay.

All right. The first half is today's pabrism. The enemy of the flying change is.

Okay, it's the person who wants to do a flying change.

I love this. The enemy of a flying change is a rider who really wants to do a flying change. Love this one. It's very specific. But I think we can probably take the conversation a little bit more broad than just flying changes. So let's see what happens with today's conversation. So what do you mean by this, Parism?

Well, I think, you know what I've noticed in myself over the years of training changes, multiple horses, many, many mistakes made, is that I only ever have a problem when I get a bit over ambitious, or let's say over zealous. Zealous. Sorry about making the change. So rather than think about all the ingredients and not progressing through the changes in a very systematic way and training the changes in a systematic way, the moment I become really overly keen on doing the change is the moment I let things happen. And because with flying changes, there's always so many moving parts and so many things going on at once, the horses don't really know exactly what reaction they gave is the one they should do again. You know, they. So they often just throw a whole bunch of things at you. And it's when we reward, like, take the pressure off and reward is the thing they're going to do again. And when the rider is so overly keen on getting a change done, and what we do then is we throw them across and they're not sure exactly what they did that got them the reward. So.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah.

Rather than be really systematic and just like, boom, boom, boom, and just adding in pieces of information one after the next. Try this. You know, react to this. No, don't do that. React to this. And really being systematic and. And thinking about all the bits. The person who wants to do a flying change is just only thinking about getting across to the other side, the other leg, and what happens in between can be disturbing for the horse.

That makes perfect sense. You know, I think it's a great exercise for us to put ourselves, you know, in the sort of head of the horse, if you will. And how. How are they interpreting this situation, looking. Dive a bit deeper into what you see riders doing when they just really want to get this flying change. What is it that they do?

The first thing, and probably the most consistent one that I see, is them throwing the horse's shoulders across and virtually coming up out of the saddle, throwing the front end of the horse across and not thinking about the fact that we need to do a fine change from the. From the back end first. So. And during that process, not really concentrating on the setup and not getting. Giving the horse every opportunity by setting them up well for the change. And, yeah, that. I reckon that's probably the most common that I see.

I think also, you know, with the flying changes, it's such an emotional thing for riders. Like, it's a big milestone in our training journey. We. We get quite worked up about it. It's something that it's a goal for many riders to be able to train and ride a flying change. And so I think also for those reasons, we tend to get a little bit crazy then when it comes to riding it, because we've built it up to be this massive thing in our heads, whereas in actual fact, for the horse, it's not really probably that big a deal.

Yeah. The other thing, which, I mean, there's two things that I always think that complicate flying changes. One is the fact that there are so many moving parts, there's a lot to think about, and there are a lot of moving parts. And the other thing is the fact that the answer is very black and white. It's either a clean change or it's not, or it's a. It's a flying change or it's not. So, you know, you can do a half pass that has not enough flexion, enough bend, not enough energy, or any other exercise in dressage you can do and get away with it not being quite right. But a flying change is either right or wrong. And that, I think, also Mucks around, you know, with, with riders. Because then you say to yourself, okay, well what am I going to allow to be not quite right versus what am I going to repeat and, and fix up right now to try and get that out of my horse's thinking, you know, get that completely out of the thinking of what, you know, on the I want them to do. And it's, it's, there's a real process there and I just think the more systematic and the less, the more you take emotion out of it and the more, and the less you actually get really crazy about doing a flying change and just focus on the system of training all of the pieces, the more, the less problems you have with the changes in the end.

Okay, I reckon we should dive into that because your, what you teach or how the strategy or the approach that you teach to training flying changes is exactly the same as training anything else. So it'd be good to work through that using the changes as an example. So what is it? What is a better approach to training of the changes?

Well, there's three main ingredients in flying changes. There's a candida that has some energy. Once upon a time I used to say a quality candor, but I have seen some pretty normal candles create some pretty decent flying changes. So now I think it's just that the canda has purpose and has energy. That's one ingredient. The, the next ingredient is the fact that the horse is able to be set up and able to be adjusted in the candle. So the canda has, it can't be just like a, a working candle only it can really. You have to have the adjustability to be able to make a working candor into a collected candle. It's advisable to have, have enough control over your candidate to be able to do a 10 meter circle in with balance, to be able to canter down the long side in balance in a nice collecting candor, to be able to make a balanced canter walk transition and then a really good strike off into canter again so that the horse understands that process. And then on top of that that you can set the canter, the old canter up with the shape that you want the horse to be in for the new canter. So that it's usually described as a slight RONV shape. So but you don't do wrong there, but you just, it's just described as a slight RV shape so that the, the front of the horse is slightly, and I mean ever so slightly flexed to the new direction. And in the same time the shoulders and body of the horse goes into the new outside rein in the direction of the new outside rein, and the balance of the horse goes a little bit over to the, towards the outside rein. So the, the inside where the horse has to jump, the change through becomes a little bit lighter and, and, and the horse is in a better balance. So that, that's called the setup. So without the ability to be able to set the horse up, you're really not giving yourself the best chance to be able to do a flying change. And for a number of reasons, but we can discuss that a little later. And then the third thing is that the horse understands what a canter aid in each direction is. And it's important that the canter aids that the horse doesn't run away from the aid and the horse actually understands a walk canter right and a walk canter left. Because that's essentially what you're asking them to do. You're asking them to do a new canter aid in the moment of suspension between two candlestrides. So it's just a, it's a candle walk, candle without the walk steps.

I mean, I think even that process of breaking down the training into three sort of ingredients is going to be a new way of thinking for many writers. I know when riders come into the program, this way of breaking down into ingredients is a fresh idea. And it's great because it then gives you more ideas of what you need to work on rather than thinking to yourself, oh, the changes, just the changes aren't working. I can't make it work. I just have to. Ride changes all the time, train changes all the time. But with your system, it's like you don't actually have to train the changes so much. You pick out, figure out what ingredient isn't working, right?

Yeah, that's right. And I mean, the, the things that I mentioned there before, like the can the candidate has energy and the adjustability of the candidate, that stuff that you do anyway, like, you're doing that within your canter as part of normal fundamental training, as you are with the walk canter aids each direction. So you, it's not as if you're doing this specifically when you're doing changes. You, you can be doing this anyway. It just comes down to when you actually ask for the flying change that you really make sure that you don't lose these things when you ask for the change. So, you know, a classic is we're coming along and we want to do a flying change and we put our aids on and the Horse doesn't. One of a few things. One is they either sometimes run away because they feel the aid and they think, oh, what do I normally do here? I normally go. So they tend to want to run away in that moment and rather than us get a rush of blood to our head and go sort of with them in the runaway and still keep asking for the change and let it all speed up and then the horse gets sort of left with no option other than to lose balance and change or not change and get a fright or both times I get a fright. We should at that moment correct the canter by saying, no, no, no, wait, these aids don't mean run just like when we're cantering. Normally, if you were to run away, I'd correct you. So correct them in that moment and don't get this sort of rush of blood of like, I have to do a flying change. And that's what I mean about the rider becomes the enemy of the change. Because it's what happens when we ask and what they do that if we've only got one thing on our mind, like, and they'll run away or they'll dive across in the shoulders, they actually take from that. Oh, they want me to run. They don't take from it. Oh, they want me to do a flying change. They usually take from it. They want. Or they take from it. Oh, my shoulders are to dive across.

So yeah, okay, so we can't be so single minded that we throw all our other training out the window in those moments.

Yeah, that's right. So the idea there is just to keep it simple and just correct the problem as it arises. So if you're cantering along and you've ridden through the setup and you get to the point where you want to put your change aids on or your new canter aids on, whatever problem arrives at that moment, school it as if you were schooling normally because that makes sense to the horse if you school. If they give a, they give a reaction to an aid, we school it to say, no, that wasn't right. And just because they don't do the change in that moment doesn't mean they're not thinking about doing the change. So it might be the next one or possibly ten times later that you ask. And you might, you might add in there a walk break and a walk canter and a can of walk and a few other things to kind of get them thinking. But I think what riders do sometimes, what I notice anyway is because the horse doesn't respond, that they tend to Try to immediately create a response and I think just give them a, give them, give them a chance to actually process what's happening here. Maybe I should do something. What can I do? What makes sense for them to do and then if they do the wrong thing like speed up or, you know, dive sideways or whatever, school that at that moment to show them. No, no, that's not what we want. Try something else and then you might, you know, come back to walk and pick up the new candid. Just to give them the answer and let them problem solve. I mean, they've got to, they do have to be a little bit experimental in what their reactions are because it is such a, it is such a different response for what they've. They're schooling up until that point. It's a different response for them. So they've actually got to learn it through a process of experimenting.

Right.

And I think we need, us writers need to let them experiment a bit, not get too upset with them when they make a mistake, but just repeat it or correct it and let them go through that. And it does take, it does take time. Like some horses, very few can learn it within a short time. Most of them take a long time to become established in the changes.

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So one good one to reward is if they change behind. So if, if the horse is cantering along and you've done everything right and you've put your aid on, or it could be the second or third time you're. You've asked if they then cross gate in the cander or change behind, that's worth rewarding because they've. Well, one, the rider hasn't allowed the shoulders to dive across. So there's one really good bonus that's come from that and Two, the horse has decided that when it feels the rider's aids, it's going to try and do something with its hind legs first. Right, that's, that's a great breakthrough there because once you can get them to understand when you change your legs in from one ken to the other ken, do something with their hind legs, it's much easier to get the shoulder to change than it is the hind leg to change in the grand scheme of the whole thing. Of course, there's going to be horses out there that laid in front, but overall, the harder one is to get them to change behind. So that would be something that you would reward if you've had a horse that's been running off and running from the aids. You reward the fact that they stayed underneath you when you changed your legs to the new position. You reward the fact they didn't run off. You can just do that with your voice and reward them that way. You reward the fact that at least you've trained them not to run away. Because the running away can be a major, major enemy to a flying change. It, it, it riles up their adrenaline, and when they get adrenalized, they don't think well. And it's, it, it just has longstanding consequences when you allow them to run away through a change. So they're probably two examples and, and you can strip it back from there. So if you're just training yours to allow you to set them up, that's also worth rewarding. So if you think about it as you're just rewarding all of the pieces, flying changes are not about teaching them what to do. It's kind of taking them through all the things that, that you don't want them to do. And what you get left with is the fact that you want them to a flying change. And so they don't learn the flying change. They learn all the things they're not supposed to respond to and how they're not supposed to react by doing it and getting schooled through it. And then you get left with the reaction of a flying change.

I love that because it helps us understand that all the wrong answers are okay because that we have to go through all the wrong answers to get the right one.

Yeah, exactly. And look, training changes is hard because the rider then has to do different things with the shoulders and create deflection and keep the canter and sit there and change their legs over. And there's so many things to do. I often say it's like, it's like patting your head and Rubbing your stomach. Like, there's a lot to think about. And also for the horse, there's a lot for them to think about. So it is a. It can be a frustrating time in a horse's training. And, you know, often now in the program, you often, you know, you and I often talk about if. If training a horse to Grand Prix is like climbing Mount Everest. Well, training the flying changes is like getting yourself to Base Camp because there's a. There's a climb involved just to get to there. And once you're over, that doesn't mean the journey's easier, but it can take a. It's a hell of an effort to get a horse to do nice, clean, even changes on both reins. And even. I really emphasize the concept of an even flying change left and right to do them consistently on the aids on both reins. It's not easy.

No, it's a huge milestone. So, I mean, you've mentioned it a couple of times that, you know, this can take a while. And yeah, it's the trek to Base Camp. I can imagine that there's probably a stage, if the changes are taking quite a while, that the rider really does start to get quite panicky about it and they really want to make it happen. Can you give us an idea of what sort of time frame is acceptable? Is there a limit?

Well, I think what the time frame is, is actually then getting them to be consistent. So learning a flying change might happen a bit like, you know, three months, a week, but it's the consistency then to be able to do them anywhere. So I. I think, and this is probably. I'm saying this more so. So that riders can, you know, calm down a bit. But I always think it takes a year to get a really established good flying change and that it could be two years, it could be six months. But I would say, like, give yourself a year. Know it's a process. Know. Know that there's going to be everything thrown at you in that year and be up for the challenge. And just remember to stay systematic. Think about your ingredients. School the things that go wrong. Don't reprimand them, but school them and be up for that and just keep. Keep chipping away at it. And. But like, I've had horses that have got a hold of them in a week. Two. Two horses come to mind. And then I've also had horses that took two years. And then also I've had horses that have always had difficulty in flying changes. Some have become very easy, and some have always had difficulty just in the Nature of not only the way they were taught, but just in their action, of their candor, their. Their responsiveness. Some horses just aren't as easy in changes as some others.

Are there any other areas of training or movements where us overzealous riders can do more, can be more of a hindrance than a help?

Yeah, usually highly collected exercises, because the highly collected movements, such as piave and canter pirouettes, they feel like the horse is going to stop because they're actually. You've taken away all the impulsion or that, all of that forward propulsion, if you want to call it, and you're putting the impulsion into this carrying position in the horse, so the horse is carrying the weight behind and giving this impression impulsion upwards. So rather than pushing them forwards. So when you start writing very highly collected exercises, it feels like they're going nowhere and it's a bit of a new sensation. So oftentimes riders will override those. Collect those collected steps, thinking they're trying to stop the horse from stopping. So that's an instance when overriding or an overzealous rider to keep the energy up or whatever you want to say, needs to just take time because sometimes you've just got to sit there and let the horse do it and get out of their way. Because it is a lot about us feeling the horse that's underneath us. And, and there's no doubt that highly collected ex, or highly collected paces and exercises and movements do feel. It's different. It's a different feel to a horse that's, you know, doing the exercises that art has collected.

It reminds me of sometimes in the program you'll, you'll say to our riders, you know, the first stage of this is that you're just going to have to use your imagination.

Yeah, it sounds a bit weird, but really it is like to develop a high level of feel. Sometimes it's impossible to feel it. So sometimes if you're riding to feel it, you'll often override it when you're first learning it. So. Because our field just isn't finely tuned enough. So. And I've. I've done this mistake many times and I've also coached a lot of this sort of thing and I've. I've seen that happen a lot. And what I say to people is like, sometimes it's better to imagine that you felt it rather than ride to the point where you did feel it, because oftentimes when you first asked the horse to, you know, through a half halt or, or something first Ask the horse to, to come back on the hind leg, it actually happened. And, and if we go then further to feel it, it's too far. The horse came back too far. Or, or it got, you know, you lost impulsion or something. So sometimes when you first ask, just imagine that you felt it because it's, oftentimes it, it did happen and the horse will develop from that. Like, you gotta remember they're trying to learn this by making one mistake at a time. And it doesn't help when we're, we're giving them the wrong info.

Yeah, that's right. They don't even know what they're trying to learn.

That's right. Dude, they're just so. It's, I've noticed just in my own writing, sometimes it's not what happened, it's what didn't happen, which actually built the horse to be more confident and better and rather than, you know, oh, yeah, oh, okay, I felt that. And then oftentimes it's been overridden.

Oh, fascinating. I love that. All right. What a great training conversation. This was all started with the parbism that any of your writers in your program would have heard a million times. The enemy of a flying change is a writer who wants to make a flying change happen.

And again, I love making these statements where people go, oh, what do you mean by that? That sounds really weird and cryptic. But, but yeah, I'm glad we're getting the opportunity to, to discuss these because, you know, that's a, it's, it's a weird statement when you first hear that.

Yeah, exactly. But it's, it's great because someone make.

A client change you without wanting to do it. But, but there's wanting to do it and there's wanting to do it the right way. And, and doing it the right way is staying systematic and staying calm and schooling on the way through rather than just being overzealous and throwing them across and then dealing with all the issues later because it's a nerve wracking time for them in their training.

And I love that we can apply this approach to other movements as well. It's great. I've got some gold nuggets from this conversation. Great stuff. Thank you, Brett.

No troubles, Nat.

See you next time.

Talk soon.