Sarah Martin Dressage Teaching the Rider to Feel

This has been a spin of a week- moving horses to California for 2 days, 3 days at an FEI forum which ended up being VERY exciting after a bit of a slow start, two days teaching in Little Rock, and now judging Training through Second Level classes in Houston. The challenge in all of this is to keep adjusting your eye and your information to the level necessary, and to continue to provide inspiration and encouragement while you correct what needs fixing! I found it so assuring to listen to Courtney King at the FEI conference as she spoke to how HARD Lendon always was on her- because her aspiration was to be an Olympic rider. She said she asked Lendon one day why she was so kind to the rider after her, and so hard on Courtney, and Lendon replied “Because she is here to have fun, and you are here to become an Olympic rider.”

This is a real aspect of dressage training, showing and judging. I think it would be a fascinating forum to have 3 people in the arena wearing the “Training” hat, the “Judging” Hat and the “Coaching” Hat, and to discuss the horse and rider in front of them from those 3 perspectives. Switch horses, switch hats- and hear how the perspective changes. This is a demanding and very precise sport, and yet it is accomplished at it’s best with “supple relaxation”. Right there you get a picture of what we are up against as we train, as we compete and as we advise. Would judge’s have it any better if they were called “Advisor’s?” For that is what their critique is…advise regarding what is enough, and what isn’t.

Anyway, it’s the one place I HAVE to be on time. Enjoy your ride!

I am currently in Florida attending the FEI Trainer’s conference. As we start day two I am feeling a bit disappointed as I had thought there would be more focus on the PSG through Grand Prix at an FEI conference, and yesterday incorporated an hour each dedicated to 4,5,and 6 year old’s- I’m sorry, but despite the introduction of “FEI” 4,5 and 6 year old tests, I do not feel it is FEI work and it is not what I came here to see. But it has given me a chance to think about the spectrum of training I have experienced in this country,especially as a lot of the growth I was able to experience came from being able to spend 3-4 months training here in Wellington with first Carol Lavell and later Kathy Connelly to anchor my own Grand Prix training. Carol is such an avid student and teacher, and was always very willing to share her experiences with Herbert Rehbein and Kyra Kyrklund. My time being able to watch her school Gifted with these Masters is clearly imprinted on my memory. Kathy’s time both with Herbert and with Ernst Bachinger of the Spanish Riding School gave her such tremendous insights into dressage work and the wonderful use of long lines as a training tool, I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to learn with Kathy.That experience encouraged  me to meet and then spend 5 years bringing Karl Mikolka to our stable. What we have here in this country is not a “set” way of approaching Dressage, but the wonderful opportunity to combine “schools” of philosophy and technique. It is all based on a classical discipline and approach, mixed with American ingenuity and a willingness to use what works. The Dutch have become some of the top breeders in the world by being open to taking the best sport horse lines and carefully selecting and combining, by staying away from “line” breeding and being open to breeding the best performance horses to the best performance horses. I believe we have seen dressage in the US improve because we have the opportunity to experience not just one strict method of training, but a chance to expose ourselves to many different, yet underlying same, techniques that broaden our depth of understanding of a discipline that has been around since 400 B.C. It’s quite a feeling!

When I think about how my animals and I communicate, I sum it up as “we are able to communicate our intentions.” I had one person studying animal communication tell me that a chicken started doing high math with her, and I have to say she lost me at that point. High math is out of my conversation realm, so if a chicken or an accomplished college professor went there with me, I would surely miss it!

On a basic level, I believe animals are aware that people have pretty limited conversation skills- we can’t smell the obvious, we can only speak to our species, and only if they already speak our dialect, and we don’t hear very well. Our telepathic skills are virtually gone, and when we do encounter them we tend to dismiss them as coincidence. For the bulk of humankind it seems we wrap ourselves in the myth of  Divinity and believe we are superior to the animals, when in truth those animals that have made it to pet status rule us in ways we would never tolerate from our spouse. Can you imagine if your spouse complained like your cat does to get fed, only to then turn up their nose when you place the food in front of them? I know not all domestic animals have a blissful life, but I also know that mine do- and on the days that I am overworked or overwhelmed, I sometimes wonder if the reward we reap for living a good life is to come back in the next one and rest like my dogs do…

At any rate, what I have found over the years is that I can raise and lower my energy and intention, and thereby communicate basic intentions to, in this case, my horses. I have found that when I am working in a one on one session, especially in a round pen or riding, that visualizing what I want, or going to that place in my body, helps accomplish what I am trying to achieve. In my experience thus far I have had the closest telepathic communications with stallions. In this way I mean that I could visualize what I wanted and start to achieve it more with stallions than mares or geldings, as a rule. However I would also say that this may be coincidence, as it seems like different horses have different degrees of willingness to allow you into their mind, if you will. Maybe the stallions were simply less guarded. I can also say that it was something they could open and shut – and when they chose to shut me out, I would have to get pretty physical to regain their attention!

I had a gelding in training with me at one time who arrived as a 5 year old with a sketchy training background and a reputation for being a bit of  a “rogue”. He was self destructive in the stall, had even taken to biting himself, and could pack a pretty big burst of bucking when the mood took him. He was a good mover and had the dressage ” look” so had been picked up and passed on quite a bit when he came to me. I was young enough not to mind the bucking, and hungry enough to want to have a horse like this in my line up.I set him up to live outside, which stopped the self mutilating and pretty much stopped the bucking. We were at a show one day and as I approached the far arena for his test, he stopped and froze solid, staring at the arena, and I very distinctly heard a voice say “I am going to die here.” It scared the hell out of me. It was an internal voice, and had such conviction that I did not doubt it, and in the moment I first thought it was a premonition. My entire body went weak with fear, and I felt the horse bunch under me, and I knew a bucking explosion was coming. Self preservation kicked in and I got the horse moving, and altho he did not want to go, I got him up to and around the arena. We got through the test but I was on tenterhooks throughout the ride- to this day I have never experienced a ride where the fear and angst in the horse underneath me was so constant. When we finished, he went into a complete state of relaxation, almost diametrically opposed to the state of angst he had been in. The owner, who had watched the ride, was ecstatic- she said he had never looked so good, and was stunned when I said he was the most tense he had ever been, and assured me “that it was not visible”. Indeed, he scored in the 70′s and won the test, but I do not know how that circle of fear he was in was not apparent on the outside.

I found out a few weeks later that he had been beaten severally at that site by a male trainer who had a temper problem when the horse was about 3 and just starting under saddle. It seems logical to me that what I got was his memory- again, one filled with so much fear and conviction I actually heard it. The greater miracle, to me, is that a horse could feel that level of fear, and then conquer it to accommodate what I was asking. The irony is that I intensified my request to him, and focused so one hundred percent on every single footfall because I thought the voice had been my own, and that I had scared him! Since that kind of thinking ["I am going to die"] , and that level of “voice” has never happened to me again, I am quite sure it was the horse’s thought process that I picked up.

Intention, visualization, voice. What is your experience?

Last night as we sat with friends at dinner, it became more obvious to me that what I take for granted in understanding animals not only is alien to some people but actually not even of interest to them. I imagine everyone reading this blog has some degree of interest- and every degree of experience.

I have come across animal communicators as a matter of course being around animals all the time. My first few times I had hefty doses of skepticism as I listened to what they had to say. The topic draws authentic and also charlatans, so while some of what I encountered resonated, others were pretty easy to blow off.

My first personal experience was with a mare that I was attaching side reins to. She was a thorobred that was leased to a student of mine, and we were lunging her for the first time. The mare had experience but my student was just meeting her, so I was going through the process of setting up the side reins, and explaining to my student as we went how to be very methodical in the approach so as not to confuse or restrict the mare. I had just said “Mare’s can be especially claustrophobic, so it is important to just start with the inside rein,” as I was reaching the inside side rein toward the bit. Literally as I touched the bit I heard a really loud “clang” like a cage door slamming, and I saw the mare racing backward with both side reins attached very tight, and she sat down and rolled over sideways into a low line of pine trees. She was not wearing a saddle, but just a surcingle.

This happened very fast, and as I looked at the mare, she had her eyes half closed, and my hand was still just resting on the bit ring. I was so surprised that I told my student what had just happened, and we agreed to go REALLY slow and start without a side rein. I adjusted the side rein out as long as it would go, and when we did attach it we just started with an inside rein in either direction, no outside contact.

I called the mares owner that night, a friend of mine who lived back East. I described what happened, and she said yes, that had happened at a place she had been, that the pine trees lined the arena on the long side, which is what I had seen.

In general, my experiences around animals has been from the intention side of things, which I will write more about tomorrow. This was the only time I was ever given both sound and visual imaging from a horse, and I am sure it was because of the depth of her fear. I am definitely not a person with the gift of communication, but in that moment even someone as dense as I got the message. I wonder how often I miss others, but to be honest I do not think horses spend a lot of time putting detailed images our way. But I am curious if others have had anything similar- please feel welcome to e mail me at ahd@indra.com. More on intention as communication tomorrow…

I have just finished reading “Kinship With All Life” by J.Allen Boone. Kindly given to me by my friend and student, Sally Patton, it is a book written by a Hollywood Screenwriter in the 1950′s who is entrusted with the care of a unique German Shepherd used in movies. Pre Rin-Tin -Tin, this was a dog who had been trained in Germany as a military dog, then purchased and brought to the US to be trained to become a Hollywood star.

The uniqueness in this book is in the effort the people surrounding this dog [named Strongheart - remember, this was Hollywood] made to observe, interact, and become aware of not only what they wanted from the dog, but what the dog offered to them. There are aspects of the book that remind you it was the 1950′s, for example this quote:

” The conventional trainer, following traditional and rigid patterns, places his emphasis almost entirely on the physical. As long as his animal looks its best and obeys orders promptly, he is satisfied… A minimum of intelligence and a maximum of force are employed in order to compel blind obedience…The animal’s resistance is so broken down and it’s spontaneity and initiative so dulled that it supinely does whatever the trainer demands. With its thinking and natural impulses walled off, it becomes a four legged slave, submissively serving the moods and whims of the Human Ego that is playing God to it.”

“The animal EDUCATOR  does just the reverse of all this…he treats the animal as an intelligent fellow being whose capacity for development and expresion he refuses to limit in any direction. He knows that the animal’s appearance, actions and accomplishments are only the outward expressions of it’s state of mind. He seeks to help the animal make use of it’s thinking faculties, so that there will be corresponding results in its looks, character, and actions.”

As I read these paragraphs I thought “Wow, we sure have come a long way since THOSE days!” I thought of how I have stopped telling my horses we are going to “work” but that instead we are going to “work out together.” I thought about how intense the non verbal communication with my horse’s is, and how for many years now I have been made increasingly more aware of how getting my horse to “hook up” mentally is the real goal, and that when that happens, the performance aspect is always more solid. I thought about “Natural Horsemanship” and what a favor these magic market manipulators have done for waking up people to the awareness that horse’s are not a one way street.

I also thought about being at an Adult Camp in Ohio, and walking through the barn early one morning, and finding 3 quarter horses in western tack with their heads tied to their chests and huge curb bits in their mouths. My horror was so immediate that without a second thought I entered the stalls and removed the bridles. When I brought this up with the owner of the facility I was told that the Western Trainer did this every night before leaving for a show. I told them I could not work at a place where this was allowed- and was never asked back.

I thought about the world wide movement championed by Klaus Balkenhol and Dr. Gert Heuschmann against the practice of Rollker.

I thought about a Schizhund trainer who had visited us about 10 years ago with his magnificent dog who he clearly loved, yet he blithely put a shock collar on the dog and when showing us a Schizhund demo he pressed the collar and put the dog into the dirt when he perceived that the response was not immediate enough. I had no idea that was coming, and when it did I cried out in horror and insisted that he take the collar off as long as he was with us on our property, which he complied with but never accepted that this “method” was unfair.

Of course, what I realized is that although I do believe we are all advancing in our ability to recognize good and fair training, there is also still plenty of room for improvement. It is a tricky course to walk, this business of working with animals, as is the business of raising and educating children. I don’t believe that children need to be spanked, and I sure know plenty of people who do. I know that I survived it just fine, but I also know that the rare times it was meted out, I understood the punishment and the crime, and it made sense to me. I think that base of understanding is what we must truly work to understand, and that we must truly work to establish with our animals.” Am I being clear?” is one of the first questions I ask myself as I both teach and train. Dressage is such an intriguing study, as the more you practice and study, the more the world of communication opens up to you for communicating with both people AND horses. As I become a better “student of the horse” I become more aware of communicating with other animals. I am going to use this week to write about some of the more obvious moments I have had, and I want to put out a request to hear from any of you who choose to share communication moments you have had. Maybe by raising our awareness we can keep working our way to a greater balance, with each other and with our much loved companions.  Please send me your experience[s] at : ahd@indra.com or contact me through Facebook. I look forward to an enlightening week!

In the December newsletter #2 [as promised- there is an advantage to being frozen out of the arena!] I cover a video of Tara working on her own with half steps with her horse Donzer, and look at some photos taken of Trisha Kerwin in our last clinic working on some finishing piaffe work as we prepare her mare Nike for Grand Prix competition next spring. I wish I had video from Trish’s lessons, as we used the turn on the haunches in piaffe to help Nike understand how to close up her joints, elevate her shoulders and activate her steps by yielding her laterally during the movement. As I told Trish, it was truly a “full circle” moment, as all the years of using turn on the haunches came to bear as Nike, who had gotten a bit confused between Piaffe aids and Passage aids, had started to offer too much loft in the Piaffe, and was staying too horizontal, plus getting a bit wide behind. As soon as we used the half step, shorten, pirouette in walk, back to half steps, you could see Nike start to say “Oh, THIS is what you mean!” We then activated the walk into piaffe, and used the pirouette in Piaffe to help Nike stay in the closed balance of Piaffe. It is so fun to watch the light go on for the horse as well as the rider- Nike’s eyes literally lit up as she found her rhythm and heard the praise. Trish has excellent feel and did a beautiful job reorienting herself to the feeling of an active and up Piaffe. This is such a hard movement to work alone, as when the horse is truly active and up it is very hard to tell what degree of activity you have- job security for coaches and ulcer medication! At any rate, no matter where you are working, remember that the work you do today is laying the groundwork for tomorrow- next week, and next year. And with any luck, you are laying the ground work for a competant Piaffe 3-5 years from now!

Be sure to receive the December Newsletter by signing up at www.sarahmartindressage.com and then watching for your e mail confirmation to arrive- if it does not, check your spam filter! In addition, if you sign up and do not receive an acknowledgement, contact either Tara at taranolan@live.com or myself at ahd@indra.com and we will make sure you get on the list. You can request back newsletter issues from Tara. Enjoy your ride!

Nike gets it! Trish Kerwin riding perfect aids

I have very exciting news for Open and Adult riders- USDF Delegates have approved that USDF can move forward with developing a National Championship for Adults! This will cover all levels from Training through Grand Prix, and will include Freestyle. The system will add another level of excitement to the Regional  Championships as the Champion and Reserve at each level will automatically receive an invitation to the National Finals. There will be all sorts of fine print, such as Declarations of Intent and score minimums that must be met, but that is why we have until 2013 to get this organized. For the first 3 years Kentucky Horse Park will be the initial Host site, with an intention to rotate the show from east to west once it gets off the ground. To me, this only makes logical sense as a stepping stone for our sport to develop horses and riders from Local to Regional to National competitors. The jump from Regional to International is a fairly absurd expectation, and it is my hope we will see scholarships and opportunities opening both Regionally and Nationally to support Trainers and Riders who have talent that deserve to be recognized, and that supports the “middle” of our sport. I am also most excited at the prospect of having an annual gathering of high quality horses and riders where what “Good” is can be seen in a broad spectrum- not just one or two horses at a symposium, but up to 18 horses at each level! This just resonates on so many levels- for judges training, for instructor training, for “just rider’s” : there is a real educational opportunity here that does not have to be every rider’s goal to RIDE in- it can be a goal to go and SCRIBE- be a runner- be an observer down in the warm up- to see what every Region is contributing, to see broad spectrum, high quality dressage- the second weekend of November in Lexington, KY is on my calendar and I plan to be there in SOME context- I hope to see many of you there, too!

For 13 years I have had this wonderful dog in my life- a female Great Pyrenees named Avalanche. She got her name from a student who picked her up from a sheep ranch in Wyoming for us, when Avalanche was 10 weeks old. She told us that as she drove up to the ranch imagining lots of small, white puppies and thinking “They will have to name her Snowball,” her car was swarmed by about 10 Pyrenees and she thought “More like an Avalanche!”

I grew up with Great Pyrenees, if you know any personally they are very un-dog like dogs. On the list of the 100 most  trainable dogs, they hold up the bottom at 99th place. They are a livestock dog, bred in France originally and used for guarding sheep. They are excellent at it- Avalanche took off after a coyote crossing our pasture when she was 3 months old and not any bigger than the coyote. He was trotting across the pasture at about 11 in the morning, and as Avy barked and gave chase he just glanced over his shoulder and kept jogging. She kicked into overdrive and the next thing that Coyote knew, he was tumbling down the hill ass over tea kettle with the ball of white fur ripping at him- he found his feet and took off, and Avy returned to us, proud of her first “bossy moment.”

I would liken the Pyrenees much more to cats than dogs. They are extremely independent, and their hearing comes and goes at will- their will. They love their people, however, and since our sojourn with sheep was short lived, Avalanche quickly became a part of our household- in and around the barn all day and with us at night. Her first heat took us by surprise, and a neighboring Lab “took advantage”, but the next best thing to a female Pyrenees is any sex Lab/Pyrenees cross, so we let her keep them. She whelped at the foot of our bed with barely a sound, and gifted us and 5 other families with the best dogs of our lives. She was only one year old, and we spayed her after that, but that pregnancy was a gift to Clayton and I we will always be grateful for.

All the way around, Avalanche was a no hassle dog. She liked getting petted in moderation, but she did not like being made much of. She was an extremely independent soul who saw Clayton and I as her difficult charges, as in her mind she was to watch us and we were constantly disappearing: to horseshows, clinics, sometimes for months on end to Florida or California. Avalanche could look at me with these beautiful, Marilyn Monroe eyes and just hammer me, or reward me, according to my performance. She was the most silently articulate dog I have ever had.

As Thanksgiving week started, Avalanche with one look let me know that her time was drawing to a close. It was hard for her to get up, and she gave me this baleful look that I at first thought was a “Why are you gone so much?” look, but then I realized she was just frustrated with her own body, and with it’s lack of response. As the week went on she walked less and slept more. Her appetite disappeared and she started spitting out the pain killing drugs I was giving her. I worried that perhaps I was not doing enough, and the day after Thanksgiving made an appointment at the vet to have her gone over again. Her appointment was at 12:45, and at 12:35, riding in my car with me, where she loved to be, Avy took her last breathe as a deep sigh and passed as I was stroking her ears. I know her sense of dignity and total desire to never be a hassle to Clayton or I kicked in enough to say ” I don’t need a vet, I just need time, and my time is up.”

It hurts so bad to let good friends go. You always wonder if you appreciated them enough, if you communicated it enough, if you DID enough. I am so grateful to have been spared having to hold the decision about extending or ending Avalanche’s life, I am so glad she looked after me and made that choice for me. As usual, she got it right.

Enjoy the day, and enjoy the ride- just that little bit extra, in memory of all good friends and family who have done the same for us.

After almost 20 years, USDF is bringing the idea of a National Adult Amateur and Open Championship to the floor of the Board of Governors at the USDF Convention this year at their December Convention. What this National Championship will do is create what it says- a National, head to head competition for the 1st and 2nd place winners of Adult Amateur and Open classes from Regional Championships at Training Level through Grand Prix. I have been a strong proponent of this idea for many years, as I look at our sport and wonder where the stepping stone is from Regionals to High Performance [the annual competition held at Gladstone, NJ  for FEI levels.]

I basically built the first half of my career on developing Junior and Young Rider’s to the high performance level, and after almost 20 years of that I chose to refocus my attention on Adult riders. Perhaps my own “ticking clock” has raised my empathy for Adult riders who want to ride well in this lifetime- many of them women who have had professional careers or families that they gave up their time for, and now they have 10-20 years to focus on them selves. As we all know, 10 years in the dressage arena goes by in a heart beat, and for way too many riders that means ten years at training level. Dressage takes time, granted- but not THAT much time!- and I enjoy helping these riders make progress and proceed up the dressage ladder. There are actually many other trainers like myself who enjoy teaching and training, but have not taken the time to pursue High Performance competition- it takes the right horse, that horse must stay sound [that is truly the hardest part!] and it takes large amounts of cash outlay and time. It is my hope that the National Championships can provide a venue to showcase the many Adult Amateur riders and their trainers who deserve recognition for their hard work and allow aspiring rider’s AND young trainers to collect in an environment where good work can be seen in action. I can not stress enough that to educate people about our sport does not mean just showing them the icing on the cake, but what the cake is made of! Why SHOULDN’T our country show riders what excellence at 3rd level looks like? There are a LOT more rider’s struggling with that than there are rider’s struggling with perfecting their piaffe!

The option of adding an Open Division competition was to ennable trainers to not only take their students, but also have the chance to showcase a  horse that they may be competing. Much like the 4,5, and 6 year old Championships have given rise to a popular venue for these FEI Young Horses; a National Championship can showcase some of our quality riders and trainers that are working below the High Performance level, but doing very good work nonetheless.

USDF has maintained a $2.00 fee in every “Q” division, that has been set aside, or earmarked, for eventually putting on a National Championship for a huge portion of it’s base- the Adult Amateur Rider.Junior Rider’s have this, Young Rider’s have this- 4,5,and 6 year old horses have this- Pony Rider’s have this- hello, is there a very large aspect of dressage riders missing from this list????

WHAT YOU CAN [and must!] DO

If you agree that this is an important idea that needs to become a reality, please contact your GMO President. Tell them you support the idea- and tell them to communicate that to your delegates- or get their names, and communicate it yourself! Post on your GMO web page- do what you can, and let’s see this become a reality!