Ep 7: Exercises are for people, aids are for horses

If a writer stops and says, that was really good, or can I just debunk this exercise or try and figure it out? For me personally, I'm like, why not? Like, if this is going to make them better after when I've left, that's important, not just the fact that it looks amazing here and now. And then, by the way, I'm going to kiss you goodbye and Good luck.

From performanceriders.com this is the Pabri podcast. I'm Nat Foxen, and each episode I challenge World equestrian Games top 10 dressage writer Brett to explain and discuss what I call a pabraism. 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. Okay, Brett, for today's paburyism, I'm going to give you part of the sentence and you can finish it.

Okay?

Are you ready?

Yeah.

Today's papyrism is exercises are for people.

And aids are for horses. Yay.

Well, that would have been embarrassing if.

You didn't get that I was a bit nervous.

So this is something that you say all the time. It's one of the top five classic papyisms. Exercises are for people, aids are for horses. Let's start at the beginning. What on earth do you mean?

Right. Well, we often write exercises. There's a lot of different exercises that people will have in their repertoire and coaches will have in their repertoire. And those exercises are generally probably the big thing that people take away from coaching and lessons. And. And because I'll often ask riders, you know, who have you trained with recently? And they'll say, oh, I went to such and such, and they had some really good exercises. Right. And it led me to think about back to when I was sort of starting to get my head around the sport and what's required in the sport and everything. And I was learning exercises like there was no tomorrow. And then I realized that the more I got to know about riding and dressage and training, the less I did exercises and the more I rode purely on the feeling of the horse and what was required at the time. And then, then that exercise. Sorry, that feeling then took me to an exercise, and I got to thinking about, why do exercises work? Why do people come away from the training sessions with. And basically what they can remember is the exercise and not necessarily. And they often remember, you know, the horse felt better, the horse improved. And what I'll ask them is, well, why do you think it improved what, what happened there that made the horse improve? To try and get them to think about the fact that all the exercise is, is a visual pattern that the instructor says, ride to this point and make this shape or do this turn or do something, and then ride it to this point and do it again or do something else. So basically, it's just a. It's. It's a pattern. And what that pattern does is it makes the rider, first of all, ride structure, and then secondly, put on the correct aids. And the horse doesn't benefit from the exercise. The horse benefits from the structure and the consistency and the fact that the rider then used the correct aids. So what I was trying to demonstrate to people there is it's not the exercise that makes the horse go better, it's the aids and the structure that makes the horse go better. The exercise is for you, the rider, to give you a pattern, something you can see, something you can stick to, and that will make you more consistent and put on the right aids. So that's where I was going with that one.

What's an example you can give us of perhaps a typical sort of exercise somebody might ride and what. How that translates to the basic aids that we could be using instead?

Yeah, I mean, one of the most obvious ones. I mean, when you get up to the higher levels with changes and half passes and pirouettes, that's when a lot of trainers will have two or three really favorite exercises. I mean, you can always say with a bottle of wine and a blank sheet of paper, you can create a thousand exercises like it's about who's got the best imagination. But over the time, experienced coaches will have two or three really good exercises that they know will work. They know the riders engage in, and when the riders engage, the horse benefits, and they'll have these favorite ones. And I've heard of a lot, right? And I'm always open to listening and hearing more exercises. But as, as I hear an exercise, I try and think of, well, what part of the horse did that affect and, and what aids did the rider use to, to make it work? But look, with, with the spar as an example, pirouettes are good. Like, there's. Every coach has got two or three pirouette exercises, flying changes exercises. There's always an exercise with flying changes. When we talk pirouettes, that's canter and walk, half passes. You know, all those things have varieties of exercises that can go with them to make them better and get the rider riding more of the horse and not just getting fixated on the half pass or the pirouette, but even at the lower levels, something just as simple as turning the horse is, can often be done on an exercise. So that would come back to the old square. You know, when you, when you see riders having to, when you coach a rider to, to walk a square or a diamond, you know, instead of riding a circle, where that sort of allows the horse's shoulders to fall out to the outside, where you get the rider to write a diamond instead of a, a circle to get more aware of the turning aids that are required at each four points of the diamond.

Right. So yeah, you're, you're, the rider is even by accident focusing on turning the shoulders around rather than, like you said, on the circle, sort of forgetting about those outside aids a little bit and potentially letting that shoulder fall out.

Yeah, that's right. So, I mean, that's a good one. Just to go back to the pirouettes, I think probably the pirouettes are the ones where the exercises come in most handy because in the pirouette there are a lot of moving parts. When training, let's say a candle pirouette or even a walk pirouette, there are a lot of moving parts. Parts. And the riders tend to focus on, you know, we're only human, so we can only focus on so many things at once. So oftentimes when we're starting to focus on a lot of things, the first thing that goes out the window is the structure and the actual where the horse is in the arena. So what will happen is a rider will come in and start to ride, let's say a working canter pirouette, and then they'll keep the, the shapes will change. So this, the, the working period will get bigger, it'll get smaller, it'll go to the left, it'll go to the right. And what I always say there is for that horse to make it smaller on its own or make it bigger on its own, or go to the right or left on its own, it had to go through some of your aids. It had to, it had to either get behind you, it had to either push out from the heart, like get away from you a bit, or fall out through a shoulder or an outside set of aids or, you know, any like that. If, if, if the rider has lost the, the structure of the exercise, the horse has run through or has not responded to one of the aids. So part of the fact of saying, right, well, I'm going to make my pirouette working pirouette here between the quarter lines. So for example, I'm cantering around and I go right, I'm going on a straight line, I'm riding towards C in candor and I'm. Now when I get to the quarter line, I'm going to make a working pirouette that stays here between the two quarter lines and that at least makes you put the exercise somewhere where you know you've got to stay. So if the horse makes it too big and goes outside the quarter line, you, you make the appropriate adjustment and put it back on the exercise. Or if it makes it too small again, the same thing and the same with falling out and taking the pirouette off to the left or the right. Those just the benefit of writing a structure into the exercise and then making sure that you stay on the pattern of the exercise will make you put the appropriate aids on and make you notice things, you know, notice that, that something's happened here. I'm not on the exercise anymore. So.

So that's a definite benefit for exercises, isn't it? That it by nature puts a little bit of structure into what you're doing. Put some parameters there.

Yeah. And then when you're doing the test movement, and I'll use pirouettes again as the example, you do have to do them on a place, you know, they don't say just riding this vicinity and do a pirouette. It says do it between here and here or on this line. So you have to get used to that. And the quicker you can get used to it, if you can make, if you can get yourself getting used to riding structure when you're training in a working sense, then it's much easier when you go to ride it in the test to ride the same structure but then in the test, in the test shapes or in the test movements.

Yeah.

So it is, it does, it does come back to you in accuracy and judges scores, you know, the judges will notice when you are more, more definite with where you ride things.

So the part reason we're discussing today is exercises are for people, aids are for horses. If the rider doesn't have an understanding of the aids that that exercise sort of made them put on the horse. So they come away from the exercise feeling like the exercise was the thing that got the job done. And then of course they can't, they can't translate that to any other context because they weren't aware of the aids.

And I was just thinking about what you're saying with exercises are for people and aids are for horses. It probably should be exercises for people and correct aids for horses, because the exercise invites you to put the correct aids on. And it's set up, that the exercise is set up so you ride the correct aids. So this is where structure, you know, when we talk about riding structure, this is, this is just. There's no better example than exercises and the fact that they work to show us riders that structure is important and not just to ride around on, feel alone, but to actually ride with structure and feel knowing. Yeah. And like you said, it's one thing to know the exercise, it's another thing to know what the exercise is for and what aids to use. So, so when, and what I'll often say to riders is when they're having a lesson, either with their coach or with a visiting clinician, if, like, try to try to just ask a few more questions and, and if an exercise really works, I'd be inclined to stop and maybe just go, you know what? Can I just go through that? Because that's, that really felt good. And I just need to know what, why did that feel better? You know, at the end of the day, I think, I just, I just think that a question or dressage coaching has got so far to go when it comes to modern world coaching and the old riding lesson of just don't say anything, shut up, just keep going, and I'll tell you, everything to do is just so freaking outdated. It, it's, it's, it's. You know, maybe once upon a time it was needed, or maybe it is today, too, I don't know. But in saying that, I'd prefer try to create a real rider that is a thinking rider that understands they, they have knowledge and they know exactly why that exercise worked, and they're empowered by that. I don't necessarily need the ego boost on the day to make the horse look amazing because I've had this right, and I've, I've had it from both ends. I've given lessons where on the day the horse looks really good and you're like, wow, I'm sure that rider would come away from that thinking, that's the way to go forward with this. And I've also ridden in lessons where the horse has gone amazing. But, you know, the true measure of whether a lesson is successful or not is whether that person can repeat it over and over again after the lesson on their own, at home, on their own. Yes, yes, totally, 100% successful part of the lesson. So if, if a writer stops and says, that was really good, or can I Just debunk this exercise or try and figure it out. For me personally, I'm like, why not? Like, if this is going to make them better after I've, when I've left and make them understand things and be able to be better to their horse and get their horses going better over time, then that's important, not just the fact that it looks amazing here and now. And then, by the way, I'm gonna kiss you goodbye and good luck because, you know. You know what I mean? So that's, I guess that's what I'd like writers to think about when they're away. Sorry. When they're doing coach clinics and things to come away with the knowledge of why these things worked, why did those aids work? What aids did I use? Why did that exercise involve those aids and was I using the correct aids? And now how am I going to adjust that?

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 professional 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 I really commonly hear from riders who come to work with you in our programs, can you please give me an exercise to solve XYZ problems? Problem I'm having XYZ problem. I need an exercise to solve that, please. What, what do you like to say to those riders? Do you like to steer them in a different direction or, or do you do. Maybe you like to prescribe an exercise?

Yeah, I think like my answer to that question would be, well, what's the issue? Like, what do you think the issue is? Why are you looking for this exercise? And then try to work out what part of the horse they're not quite connecting with or don't feel like their aids are working and then go, well, here's two exercises that, that I did that, that relate to the part of the horse that you're having the problem with. And you know, could be putting the hindquarters in, could be putting the shoulders somewhere, it could be having impulsion coming into something or the half to create collection like this. It's not rocket science. So there's only sort of half a dozen scenarios that are not working. You know, it's, it's actually a very simple sport. It's just very difficult to do. But. So there's only a couple of things that could be going wrong. So what I try and find out is what the problem is. These, this is the part of the horse that's probably the most likely source of the problem. And then here's two exercises or, or an exercise that focuses on this thing. And to do this exercise properly, you need to use these aids. And it's these aids that your horse is responding to. Not the exercise, the exercise for you. That's to draw the lines in the sand, that's to give you the imaginary shapes, that's to give you the structure to put the correct exercise, to put the correct aids on.

It's almost like we need to freeze the video partway through that exercise in our mind and think, well, how did I shape my body? What aids did I put on the horse at that moment?

Yeah. And I mean, it's funny, like, you know, in our program, the first module in Breakthrough is structure. And often get quite a few people commenting saying, oh, you know, how can you ride structure? And not, you know, if I like to write, I like to write on feel. And I'm like, well, so do I. But I can tell you structure is important because one, the dressage test is the most structured thing you're ever going to do. That's one thing. And two, if you don't think structure works, how come exercises work? How come we have all these exercises, the exercises that provide structure? And when a coach comes along and says, okay, I want you to do this shape, I want you to ride over to there and I want you to ride a 10 meter half circle with quarters to the inside, then ride back on this line to see, or, you know, I'm just making this, this up. And then I want you to ride shoulder four on a half ten around this circle. And I want you to do that 10 times. Well, that's giving you structure. So the rider.

Yeah.

Switches off mentally and just concentrates on riding those specific aids.

Yeah.

And then after a little while, the writer goes, oh, wow, that felt, that felt great. Yeah. But the idea is to take that, what happened in that, in that little pattern, take that into your normal writing.

You know, one thing that popped into my mind as you were talking about the writer going through that exercise pattern, is that something the writer's not thinking about at that point is they're not getting obsessed about what, what the feel is in their hands, for example.

Yeah, that's right, that's right. It takes away a lot of the chatter.

Yeah.

A lot of the sort of things that pop into our mind going, oh, leaning on the reins. Oh, I've Got better do this and do this. And that randomness. That randomness and that. Those tangents. Yeah, that we all go on. It takes all that away. And once. And when the rider does it a few times and they start to believe in the exercise, you know, you know, one of the reasons they're doing it when the coach tells them is because they believe. Okay, well, I'm in a lesson and this could work. I'll believe in it. It's. It's when they believe in it, then they'll keep doing it. And it's the. Keeping doing it. It's the consistency and doing it. Doing and doing it is what works in the end for the horse. Tangents and randomness just does not work for horses. You're better off to stick to something and see it through than to go 20% into it and feel it's wrong and go somewhere else. Just won't know what's happening.

Yeah. So what I'm hearing there is that it's. It's not the exercise itself. The exercise is not the magic bullet. It's what the exercise requires of us of riders to do. And then the consistency, that works for the horse.

That's right. Yeah.

Let's dig just a little bit for a couple minutes into the. The second part of the papyrism, which is AIDS are for horses. Okay. We all know what AIDS are. Well, we think we do. Can you talk to us a little bit about how the horse responds to aids? What sort of aids the horses respond to, and. And how they sort of process that in their horse brains?

Yeah. Well, the first thing horses require is that they don't like it when AIDS clash. So if we have AIDS that are clashing, or one aid that means two or three different things to them, they don't really quite get that. So horses like it the most when AIDS are specific to one response. And one aid for one response, not one aid could mean that the rider is looking for two or three responses, different responses, so they like it specific, clear and consistent. That would be. That would be the main thing there. They also like it when there's a sequence or a. An escalation. So a light aid, something that gives them a signal or a whisper, and then something if, you know, of course, if they don't notice it or they notice it and don't respond to it, the next aid must be then slightly firmer because we are working with an animal that is being trained off pressure and release and uncomfort and comfort as the motivation. So that increasing the aid to something firmer is that whole pressure release, uncomfort comfort response that we're looking for. So you're making it slightly more uncomfortable. And then again, if there's then no, no response, or the horse doesn't know it, or the horse doesn't want to respond, then there's the next day, which is even more uncomfortable. So they like, they like to have a, a clear understanding of those rules. If the rider just goes to the most strongest aid first, that's not a great thing for the horse because the horse, the horses do have a sense of fairness. They do, they do have this, I don't know if you call it a, a barometer, a fairness barometer or whatever, but they do think, they do think that this relationship should be a fair one. And they will get it. If you are, if you have a sequence that is, that is understandable. So a softer aid, no response, firmer aid, no response, firmest aid response, or let's even say over response, back to soft aid, the sequence goes again. And it's important that our riders understand that too, that the soft aid can be just the thought in some instances, or just the touch of the horse's skin or touch on the contact, whatever it might be. But I want riders to really think about that sequence because that's the, that can often be the difference between a rider who is riding with a lot of feel and a lot of. And looking like they're having, you know, they've got this beautiful, harmonious way of riding versus a rider who looks like they're working super hard. It just comes down to that timing of aids and that sequence of aids. Softer, firmer, firmest. And some riders have a much softer approach in a, in a first sense. And some riders have a much firmer approach in the firm sense. So that's what I'd say to riders is to think about that. So they're the aids that, that's how a horse responds to your aids.

And all in aid, pardon the pun, of finding moments to do nothing.

Right? Yeah, that's right. That's what the horse would like the most, is for us to sit there and not get in their way. Of course, it's impossible to do this sport by doing nothing. So it's then about having multiple little signals that the horse is noticing and responding to because over time they've learned how to respond correctly by having thousands of very small signals where the horse is responding to the littlest aid on the first moment in the first instance. And that is what makes the rider look like they can sit there and do nothing and staying out of their horse's way. And that's what the horses want the most. They want to be able to do this work within this relationship in the way that is the most comfortable for them.

Okay, there you have it. That's a wrap up of the Parburyism exercises of people. Aids are for horses. Lots to think about in that one. Brett, it's time you go and get on that horse in the background that is ready to go.

I can hear, hear him out there. He's calling out someone.

We'll see you next time.

Yeah. Thank you, Nat. See.