Ep 39: Take the word soft out of the picture

Yeah.

As opposed to what the whole concept of dressage is all about, which is getting the horse working from behind with impulsion through a straight, you know, balanced body, um, and then achieving that feeling of self-courage to find the lightness. You'll also probably find the softness too. So yeah, that's probably what I was meaning. I was trying to get, um, her to understand, like, or to think about what What is soft? Like, what are you trying to find here?

Can a horse feel soft to the rider and yet still not be going how you want them to go?

Yeah, that's it. Like, I mean, the judges, as we know, in dressage— dressage is a— just to sort of go back over this— dressage is a sport that is completely, uh, about developing collection. So, you know, as we go up the levels The requirements for collection are harder and harder. So, it's a sport that's built around developing collection, not developing lightness in the hand, not developing softness in the hand. It's the collection of the whole horse and the way in which the horse transfers the weight back and has impulsion and responds to half-halts. and enables you to keep them straight and balanced and yields to connection and draws, draws forward so they're using their topline. This combines to become lightness. So then when you're bringing it to softness, the softness I think is more a reflection of the rider, the rider having a soft approach to having connection. That's one. So if that's the one good word— uh, sorry. The one good thing that can come out of a rider riding around going, oh, I'm looking for softness, I want to find softness, is it actually makes them a bit softer. But there is such a thing as being too soft with your aids and not actually getting the response, but we'll come to that later. But where I'm going with this is the softness, I would imagine, is like a suppleness. So that the horse becomes a lot more supple to the rider's aids. So, for example, when you put the horse into shoulder-fore, does the horse lean hard against the rider's inside leg, or do they actually melt around their inside leg? As it is, you know, there would be a softness in that response. If you go to put the horse into another position like a shoulder-in or a travers or a half-pass, does the horse lean all over the aids, or does it actually respond to the aids? Which I think is a much better descriptive feeling to be looking for, is response to my aids, yielding and drawing, horse in balance, horse, um, you know, directly underneath me, horse going onto the line where without resistance or minimal resistance, that for me is a much more tangible feeling, something to go, oh yeah, rather than chasing this— the horse for softness. Does that— Right. Does that make sense? Like, it's just like something a bit more specific where you can go, yes, yes, no. Yeah, horse didn't respond to that aid. Um, versus this overall like, oh, it's a feeling of— I don't know, I don't know.

Is it a little too airy-fairy? Like, I think we can't quite— it's like kind of sand through your fingers, like you can't actually grasp what it is.

What I think it does do is firstly, it, um, it distracts a rider from actually riding the things that work, that, that need to work. So it's very, very likely to take a rider onto a tangent. And as we always say in the program, tangents in horse training will take you nowhere. Like, you go nowhere when you're, when you're branching off onto tangents. Chasing a concept of light or soft as an overall concept will take you nowhere. It'll take you to a tangent. Actually, I came up with this really good thing the other day, um, which just sort of fell out of my mouth as I was doing a masterclass. But you know how I use the analogy of structure versus riding on feel alone?

Yeah.

And I use the, uh, the example of when Mel, my wife, calls me and says, on your way home, go via the supermarket and I need you to pick up this, this, this and this. And I walk in the supermarket, the moment I walk in there, I forget what she wanted me to pick up, meaning that I went in there with a plan, the supermarket just completely erased my memory. I go off on a tangent and I find myself in the biscuit aisle, right? Kind of where I want to be.

Yeah.

And rather than— and that's what a tangent in training is. You get on with this great plan, then feel, feel pulls you, like feel, and let's say soft is a feel and so is light, just as an overall concept. They drag you off onto a tangent and there you are in the biscuit aisle scratching your head wondering what you walked in the shop for. And that's sort of, that's where I end up when I have to do those things. So rather than, Going, okay, I want to feel like when I ask for flexion, I can actually use my aid and the horse responds. And then I feel yielding and drawing, and I feel that my horse is yielding to connection and drawing forward to it. You know, I feel like I can keep the shoulders to the outside, place the quarters to the inside. I feel the horse's body strain, but the horse is actually putting itself into the position I want it to put it into. I'm not chasing softness. I'm chasing, did this actually happen? Did the horse respond to these aids? That's probably a good example of how having something that is more— has more of a definition and more of a tangible yes or no answer will keep you more consistent when you're training. Rather than the feel of this sort of vague thing dragging you into tangent land, and an hour later or 40 minutes later, you really realize, I didn't work on anything to do with the test or the, or the training or what I wanted to do.

Or you're in the biscuit aisle looking at the Tim Tams.

That's right, wondering which flavor Tim Tam we should buy next.

Just a quick message from us, if any 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 as well to work with us by enrolling in one of our training or mentoring programs. performanceriders.com. So there are 2 things you've mentioned there that I want to dive a bit deeper into. We actually mentioned 4 things. Responsiveness, balance, yield, and draw. I want to go a little bit deeper in this episode into yield and draw. These are 2 things that we— maybe there are more productive things to be thinking about than soft. So can you tell me a little bit about what yield is?

So yield is when you take connection to the horse, you know, through the bit, you know, through the reins and the bit to the horse's mouth. What's the, what's the first response? Does does your horse just brace themselves and lock against the jaw and just go like that too? Or do they actually feel the connection and yield? Like if you said, "I'm taking yeah thirty grams of connection," does the horse yield but not drop the bit? You know, ultimately they just ident they just feel it and they yield to it. And to yield to it, their neck muscles have to relax. So their poll relaxes, their jaw's relaxed, and they relax the chain of muscles that goes through the topline and through that neck and topline, and they relax onto the bit. That's the goal we're chasing for there in the yielding process. But with a horse being on the bit or through, you know, through's another— through has a few more components, but— Like, through is this common term we use in dressage, which really, I mean, has no relevance to anything else outside of dressage. But this through feeling of the horse yielding, becoming rounder, and drawing, meaning their neck's not getting shorter and tighter, they're actually drawing forward. Opening up and relaxing their back muscles with it. So they're not only relaxing neck muscles, they're relaxing back muscles to become rounder. And, um, and, you know, this concept can also be taken too far, like where riders will ride around on this big long, um, sort of neck and down and, um, everything, rather than actually saying, you know what, the, the, the gesture, the, the body language of the horse drawing is enough. You know, the horse is in my— in the frame I want work them in, they're yielding and they're drawing where I can feel them wanting to pull their neck longer, but I'm not— they're not actually doing it. That's probably the best explanation, is they're not actually taking the neck really long, they're just drawing and not pulling their neck back and shorter to the rider.

Okay.

So that's— yielding is the— is the first— is the feeling of the contact going on and the horse actually relaxing the muscles, and drawing is in reaching the neck. the whole topline forward.

And I can see why it's more useful for us to focus on the yield and the draw, because you said things like, this is how you're finding the relaxation in the neck, the relaxation of the muscles over the back. And then I think, well, okay, the result of that, what the rider is feeling in their seat, is lo and behold, softness, Right? That's how you feel. Soft sports is over the back.

Well, that's it. And then this is the thing, this is the most controversial part of this whole sport. Like, I was watching something online the other day, you know, where all wisdom is found out online and on

YouTube.

And it was someone who had been, you know, who does a bit of posting and bits about the training, and they— the message is great, like, nothing wrong with the message. And if they're influencing some people to be nice to horses, that is so good. I'm really happy for them. But when they were putting their own videos up, I'm like, man, that horse's topline is tense and that is tight and that is not what we're looking for here. Um, and you know, you'd love to try to help, but I tell you what, that can open a can of worms. But you know what I mean, like just say to them, no, no, you, you've gone the right way, but you've just got to get the horse more round and through. Like, the horse has got to let go. And this is where the misunderstanding of a horse that's round and using their back and, and behind the vertical in a bad way becomes really misunderstood. And because it's so easy to see, right, because A horse's neck being down and the horse's nose being behind the vertical is really clear to see. Anybody who has a— who thinks they've got some experience in this can make comments on it. Mm-hmm. But they're not really understanding the importance of the horse's back and the muscle structures that run through the horse's back and how they affect the use of the hind legs, the use of the horse's midsection, Just the stress factor, the fear factor in the horse to be working within this fear outline, this afraid outline of tight over the top and back, uh, topline and back, how that's actually really detrimental to the horses. And yes, okay, I agree, the poll is at the highest point, but it's in— it's there in a bad way. Mm-hmm. And that's what, um, needs to be explained better and better and better and better. by our sport about what is the ultimate in connection from— for a dressage horse, from the back to the front through the horse's back, and where that is ideally suited through a neck position, and how that can differ between different horses. Now, have I just gone onto a tangent? Because this is like—

That was a good tangent.

Yeah, I was actually liking that, but, um, Softness. Now, so looping this all back to softness, a horse that is relaxed in the topline, yielding and drawing, and letting the rider into their back— and that includes all the muscle structures that come off that back, so hips and ribs and midsection and shoulders— there's more chance you can get better responses. So the horses will feel the aid better when they're a bit more relaxed through these areas, feel your aids better, and that will produce what hopefully is the soft feeling people are chasing, is this direct response from the aids. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't need to be a hand aid, it could be a turning aid, it could be putting your leg back and putting the horse's hindquarters to the inside, because the soft feeling that I interpret from the word This is my interpretation of soft, is responding to the whole horse. Mm-hmm. And I would almost go to say, when I have my horses and they are in a good position and they are yielding and drawing and I have them in front of my leg and I have the shoulders where I want and I place the quarters, that the actual softness becomes the softness in the joints of the horse's hind legs to allow the joints to bend and to take more weight and carry more. That would be where I think the word softness could be better used, is that the joints, rather than the joints being hard and stiff, that they're actually— the joints become softer and start bending, and the horse starts working all those muscles that Need to allow those joints to do that.

Okay, I love this because we've got some things to focus on as riders for our homework: yield, draw, and focusing on finding responsiveness in our horses within balance.

Balance is the hardest one. That, that really— that's where I think a lot— it's a real challenge for a lot of riders to feel a horse in balance and It's funny because when they feel it, it just feels so much easier. Hmm. I think the more experience you have as, as a rider and the more experience you have in placing your horse into different positions and just feeling them traveling normally, um, it'll start to make so much sense. The more you can feel balance, like the more you start to feel it, you go, oh wow, okay, I didn't realize I've been cantering around this circle with my horse falling sort of a little bit down and forward the whole time. Um, and now I can feel this balance and now I can correct it. So balance is a big one. I mean, there's probably a, a whole podcast just on balance.

Yeah, there's a few episodes.

Yeah, it's, it's one that's also quite hard. I mean, it's very hard to achieve, and that's where you see the top riders, their horses always look in balance.

Yeah. And that is what makes it look so easy, isn't it? You think, I get on that horse and do that. That's how easy they make it look.

Yeah.

Lots of food for thought in this conversation. Really enjoyed it. And I think that all of us writers have a few more tangible things that we can replace or use in our writing instead of the word soft, things that are going to help us get what we're finding better than thinking, where's the softness? I'm trying to get the softness. So thank you very much, Brett.

Pleasure. Thank you.