Ep 13: If you're going to light the fire, you'd better be ready for the smoke

You're training away, you're going along and you think, I wouldn't mind asking for a bit more. So you go, okay, come on. So then the horse goes, okay, and gives you this burst of energy, but it comes through in the wrong way. That's lighting the fire and handling the smoke is. What am I going to do now?

From performanceriders.com this is. Hello, this is the Pabry podcast. I'm Nat Foxen, and each episode I challenge World equestrian Games top 10 dressage writer Brett Parbury to explain and discuss what I call a pabriaism. 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 pabraism is. Let's get into it. Hi, Brett, I've got a brand new Pabryism for you today and I'm going to do my favorite thing of giving you half the pybism and you can fill in the rest. How does that sound?

Okay, let's do it.

Let's go. The parbism is if you're going to light the fire.

You better be ready to or prepared to handle the smoke. Now, I borrowed that one, by the way.

Oh, no.

Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's, that's a Patrick kd. He. He says that. Really? Yeah, it's our light the fire. You better be up for handling the smoke or something like that.

You know, it's our first stolen pavrism.

I've got plenty. Don't worry. I've got plenty of stolen ones.

We're getting towards the middle half of the year, so it's going to move towards original parism to stolen parisms. Now, I love this one. It's one that you have mentioned plenty of times who are riders in our programs. So do you want to give me the, the one on the 101 the basics about this particular stolen partrism?

Well, I mean, it refers to putting energy into the horse or training the horse through some form of resistance. So if you're going to go there, which you have to do, if you're going. If you're training horses, you've got to, you know, to be athletes, you've got to go there at some point to train them through resistances or even just to ask them to try harder in the work. And what that refers to is if you're going to go there, you better be up for handling what the aftermath of that is. And you know, those of us who have been horses A long time. Know that if you've got a horse that's a little bit sort of disobedient or misbehaving or a bit cheeky and you kind of reprimand them a little bit or try to, you know, bring that behavior back into line, if they have gotten away with that in the past, they're more than likely to just up the ante and try harder to get out of it. And, and in that moment, you've got to be committed, you've got to decide, well, this is something that I can't handle, or double down, because you, you do have to. At some point, as much as I'd love to think that training horses could all be sugar and carrots and beautiful and rainbows, at the end of the day, you do have to get through these moments. And, and if you start the battle, you've just got to be clever and work your way through it and make sure you come out with a positive result, not a negative result. And that is all about pressure, release and comfort and repeating and rewarding. So.

Okay, let's have a work through some examples. And I think the interesting thing with this idea is that it applies to cases where like you say you're going to make some changes or ask some questions of the horse that the horse isn't going to be so happy with and you're going to have to deal probably with some resistances. But even if we bring it back to a really basic level, like an everyday training level, Brett, I feel like it also applies to things like, well, you know, you say you want a really active, sharp horse because we all in dressless shape say we want sort of the hot, active, really hard working horse. But even that comes with a bit of smoke, right?

Well, I mean, you don't want them too sharp. You want the horse to be responsive and look like they're alive, but you don't want them crossing that line to show tension. So there is a, you know, if we wanted to break that into positive and negative tension. So positive tension, the horse is working underneath you with purpose and, and trying hard. And then negative tension is the horse is doing the same, but there's resistance thrown in there as well. So that would be the difference between positive and negative tension. And what dressage more than like, sorry, especially today we're wanting to see the harmony and, but we're still wanting to see the expression. So you're wanting to have that positive tension. And the judges and the public and the participants are quite good at seeing negative tension. And the negative tension is where you see mouth issues, tail, ears, irregular steps. So oftentimes, if a rider is getting what they think to be a lot of energy, and if it's a bit negative, usually the posture of the horse will change, although the mouth will get a bit busy open, the tail swishes. You know, all these are all signs of a horse that's giving effort, but it's a negative, it's a negative tension. The positive tensions, when the horse just becomes more elegant, grows in stature, connects better, that's a positive tension. But where I'm going with that is sometimes to get to positive tension, you have to pass through negative tension because the horse doesn't really know what you want. So you're training and you're trying to set things up as best you can. And this is where the word, this is where the saying, if you're going to light the fire, you better be up for dealing with the smoke. You're training away, you're going along and you think, I wouldn't mind asking for a bit more. So you go, okay, come on. And you've trained your horse to respond to these, to these signals. So then the horse goes, okay, and gives you this burst of energy, but it comes through in the wrong way. So that's lighting the fire and handling the smoke is what am I going to do now? Yeah, so, so do I back off this because I'm now a bit worried that I'm creating the wrong tension in my horse or the wrong posture, or do I keep training my way through this and try and convert this into a positive tension where the horse lets go through their body but still keeps this extra level of energy? And the handling the smoke is the decision you make at that point in time. That's sort of the, that's, that's the reference there. That would be, I guess, where that's been used in that context, that saying and trusting yourself, like trusting yourself to go right out. I've, I noticed this. I've, I feel this is negative, but I'm going, I, I know it's not correct, but I can't get to more expression. A better horse, a horse with more pose, a positive tension without going through this first or at least trying to get through it. What would be a, what would be a bad thing at that moment? And when I say bad, I don't mean like it's not awful, but is, is first of all not noticing the difference between the negative and positive and thinking that that is the correct tension. That's one mistake the second mistake and rewarding it. So in rewarding that, that negativity and that bit of nervousness that comes with the horse, with that, the next mistake to make is to then set a whole group of aids resisting against the horse to try and hold it in that space, hold it in that box. So holding on the front, gripping with your knees, grinding away with your seat, whatever it might be, trying to maintain that by holding it there, that will only then produce more negative tension. Like it'll just get more and more negative. And that's when you get the. The posture, the irregular steps, the mouth issues, the tail, all those things. So.

So can you explain that a little bit further, what you mean by that? When we're. When we're sort of holding them too much in that box?

Yeah, I mean, it. Ultimately, what we as trainers have to seek, and this is, you know, Horsemanship 101, is the release of pressure as a reward. Now, in dressage, there is, let's call it, degrees of releasing pressure. Like, you're not going to just give the reins away and throw it all away. You're going to release a little bit of pressure to make the horse comfortable and reward, and then over time, you're going to let. More often, the horse is going to do this by itself. That's the goal, that your aids become a guide. And the aids guide the horse to do this. And then the horse is able to do it largely on their own. The more we train them, the more they should do it by themselves. That's. That's the goal of. Of dressage. But that's incredibly difficult to do because it takes timing and feeling to be able to notice and release aids and all that stuff. So I won't get too deep in that. But. But. So if so, it's much easier. It's actually an easier way to ride by hanging onto them. That's easier. Like, you just hold on, and the person who holds on the longest and the tightest, you know, gets through the session. But you're not training your horse to let go and convert this into a positive type of attention. The horse becomes a bit resistant and negative. And. And then if you go and add more pressure to get more from them, that there's a good chance that'll even get more negative, you know, postural changes. All these things that you see that are. That are sort of labeled as mistakes or horses going a bit incorrectly, that. That's all to do with what I'm saying here now. So the better way, which is the more difficult is to, you know, get the horse traveling correctly, ask for a little bit more energy. Light the fire. Come on. Try harder. Come on. And then when you get a little bit of a reaction from the horse, whether it comes through positive or if it comes through positive, immediately reward it. If it comes to a bit negative, maybe it's not worth, like maybe don't back away from it. Work your way through it with timing and feeling and teach the horse how to convert it into a positive way of going. Using their top line, letting go over their top line, not stretching long and no one takes. Should take this too literally and too exaggerated, but using their top line better, going over their back, getting more off the ground and then having a rider that's able to manage this through the half halt, through the shoulder control and all the rest to then create a horse that gives you more expression over time. But in that development, I mean, anyone who's been listening to this podcast for a while knows that we go on a lot about this is a sport about of development and anything that comes around quickly and fast is usually unsustainable. It's better to have slow and steady growth in this and, but then in saying that don't take 10 years, like just do it as the horse tells you that they're comfortable, then ask for a little bit more and then reward them when they give you a bit more. And yeah, and develop them over time.

Just a quick message from us. If any of the ideas discussed today resonate with you and you'd love to dive deeper, head over to performanceriders.com there's a bunch of free content for you and there's loads of opportunities, opportunities as well to work with us by enrolling in one of our training or mentoring programs, performanceriders.com so the ParburySM we're discussing today is if you're going to light the fire, you'd better be ready for the smoke, which as it turns out, is a stolen fabryism from our friend Patrick Kittle.

It's a Kittel ism.

It's a Kittelism.

So I don't know where to be honest, I don't know where he got it either. But, but, but Dave McKinnon, our good friend, he said it once that Patrick told him that and I thought, well, that's a great one. I like that. I like that. And it is good because it for a writer to know that. Yeah, okay. Every writer, even the great writers, are going to have moments where they ask for more and they don't necessarily, it doesn't Just always pop out beautifully like they see on TV or see on the intern. It actually comes out a bit negative and you've got to work your way through it. It just gives you a, a little bit of confidence to, you know, that not everything bad that you feel in training is wrong, you know, and that's, that's a, that's a big one. I think when you're training, as we know, 99% of dressage is done by yourself. And when you're riding by yourself, you need to have some form of, in sort of confidence because if you keep doubting yourself, you'll only then put uncertainty in the horse. The horse won't have any clarity. That's why I'm so big about each rider creating their own system. Like really making sure you're training to a system. Because if you, the rider, make yourself, invest your intelligence and your time and your thought process into creating a system that you then just make yourself accountable for doing daily. You can be consistent enough that you can ask the question, these tougher questions and the horse will give you an answer and you can notice whether it's right or wrong. Does that make sense? Like if you, if the consistency is the key, it's when you're doubting yourself and you're here and you're there and you're changing your way and oh, you know, this coach there, it just doesn't work. I've never seen it work properly. So, yeah, back. We're back. We're back on the same message which keeps coming through in this podcast is, is I really would like it if every single dressage rider out there could take the time off the horse to really be a better person for the horse, a more informed, healthier, clearer. All these things, all these self development things that we talk about a lot in the, in the performance riders program. Just do that, be, invest more into yourself and I guarantee your horse gets better. I guarantee it. You don't have to be on your horse in a lesson to improve in this sport. You don't.

Yeah. Okay, so can you give me another classic example of when we have to deal with a bit of smoke in this journey that we're all on to Grand Prix. When's the sort of classic moment along that, along that line, do we have to deal with a bit of smoke?

Look, anything involving more energy will generally create a bit of a bit of smoke. And, but, but flying changes that, that flying changes process. You know, I did a clinic in Melbourne on the weekend and I mean, I've, I've lost count of how many of those riders. You know, been working with those riders for about four, three or four years now. I've lost count how many times we've put horses through the changes process. In that clinic, just on the weekend alone, there were three horses all rolling through the changes process. And every horse reacts a little bit differently to that process. Some of them get a bit stirred up, some of them get a bit backward thinking. Some of them kick at the leg, some of them run away from the leg. So there's definitely uncomfort and reactions that you don't necessarily want to feel as a dressage rider. But, but, but the, the fine changes training process just brings it up and.

That'S a superb example of what you were talking about before that. Just because that thing is going, feels like it's going a little bit wrong doesn't actually mean it's a bad thing. And going wrong, the kicking at the leg, thinking a bit backwards, it's, it's part of the process, right? It's, it's working through the smoke.

That's right. And noticing it and then working your way through it. You can't advance yourself through the levels of this sport without doing this. Without having days and periods of real uncomfort and confusion from the horse's perspective and even some self doubt from a rider's perspective. You can't go through it and not have that. And that's why I love it so much, to be honest. I love the, I love this sport because it is so, such a, such a long sport of development. But there's so many mountains to climb on the way through correctly. You know, everyone can train a fine change. I mean, there's thousands of horses in this country that do flying changes. Jumpers, camp drafters, blah, blah, blah. But, but our changes have to be on a, in a sequence, on a line, on, you know, straight at. The changes that we end up having to have in dressage are just way more accountable for all of the things being correct. Because I'd hate for someone to listen to this podcast who is in another sport going oh my God, it only takes me a week to train changes. Right? Horses are fine.

Right.

It's just a different, we require different things from our flying changes than anyone else.

Yeah, I think changes are a great example. You know, the, the changes process, asking for the change, setting up the change, especially in the early days, is lighting the fire. And then all the reactions you get, all the crazy reactions that they throw at us in those moments is the smoke that we Work through.

Yeah, but it can even be simpler than that. Training a really good walk trot transition. Right now, a walk trot transition where you're walking, you, you compress the horse into an active, collected walk and then you ask the horse to spring into two beats. Not just dribble, dribble off or trot away from you with a flat back, actually become round and, and give you this spring up into two beats through this sort of a round up transition that can light a fire. You know that you have to have it, the horse has to bring a bit of energy to that and you're not letting them run away with it. So where are they going to put it? Sometimes they put it into a bit of naughtiness. So, but that's what you, you don't want to suppress that. You want to, you want to shape it into what you want it to be. But it might first, that energy and that sort of containment might first in the first couple, you know, few times or month or so might present itself as a naughtiness. That's another example of lighting the fire and dealing with the issues and working your way through it.

Final question for you on this one, Brett. I'm interested to know when you feel it's appropriate for riders to outsource the lighting of some fires along the way. I don't know if I'm taking this analogy too far, but by that I mean if we anticipate that there's going to be some serious smoke, how do we know when we should really work that through that ourselves or it's more appropriate to get a professional on the horse?

I think when the, I'll stick in the analogy. When the smoke becomes a bit dangerous, you know, like or past your skill level, you know, they can get a bit naughty. Especially, especially these young, these young, athletic, quite sensitive dressage horses. They can be an ath, you know, they're, they're athletic and they can be a bit naughty. So I think if you, if you're looking for something and the horse is showing some threatening signs, I think it's worth considering talking to a professional. Not, not necessarily for them to ride the horse. Just bounce it off them and say, listen, I've been training some changes and this horse has given me some real, some real doozies, some really big excuses why they're not, they don't want to do it.

Yeah.

Can you, you know, can you watch me do it or can I just get some feedback on this? And there's a good chance that professional is going to Say, oh Look, I've had 10 horses do that. That's fine, just push on. And of course the coach or professional is going to then say, listen, do you feel comfortable with that horse throwing itself around like that?

Right.

And if the rider goes, oh no, I'm probably at the limits of my ability here. And I'm a bit worried because the last thing a horse, a young horse learning something new needs in its life is a rider that's worried and starts to either shut them down or let them get away with things at the wrong moment. That's what reinforces behavior and, and that's what makes the professional or, or the next person who comes along. It makes their job twice as hard because that, that reaction from the horse has been reinforced.

Yeah.

By a rider who's a little bit worried. Right. And it's normal. Like it's self preservation is a normal thing. I don't think anybody should be worried about the self preservation instinct. Like just be honest and transparent. Yeah. Because I mean, it's okay to have self doubt, but just notice, oh geez, I let pressure off there. Right. At the wrong moment.

Right.

Oh my goodness, that, that could be a problem. Because if, if that horse and I just, you know, this is back to Horsemanship 101. And this is for everybody out there. The horse is looking to get a pressure release. That's the reason it's being a bit naughty in the first place. When you're asking the tough question and the horse goes to a little naughty behavior, it's looking to get rid of this pressure. If it succeeds, that verifies. That was the right move, that was the right decision. So when the next time you ask it, they're going to try that and they're probably going to try it again. And they're probably going to try it with even more determination because that worked for them the first time.

Yeah.

And if it works for them multiple times, you can only imagine how hard they are to convince out of not doing it later on. So, so the moral to that story is don't be worried about if, if you are in over your head. Just don't go too far. Like don't go too long. Get some intervention earlier. You'll find that that'll be, that will be better than having a bit of an ego and worried about what people think of you. Who cares? No one thinks anything about you. Trust me. They're just thinking about themselves. Yeah. So. So.

And there's no special prizes for getting through dangerous situations yourself.

That's right. When we're all clapping and cheering when you're cantering around the Sydney CDI with the rug on, no one's going to care about three years ago you chickened out of training the changes. So.

Exactly.

So that's just the moral to that story.

So if you've got a naughty horse, just call Brett and he'll be happy to ride it.

Brett's retired from that sort of thing. 25 year old somewhere.

Yes, that's right. Exactly. Awesome. Thank you so much, Matt. Really interesting topic and I will definitely be sending this one straight to Patrick Kittle to get his personal feedback as well.

Yeah, look, it's great. I'm glad we can incorporate something from Patrick because I, I really like him. He's such an intelligent guy and very successful, very driven and yeah, good to weave him into this podcast cost.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Brett.

Thank you N.