Single-Rein Riding
The material in this section comes from the_click_that_teaches email discussion group.
Single-Rein Riding refers to a riding technique that creates beautiful balance and control. For a full discussion of Single-rein riding refer to the book "The Click That Teaches: Riding with the Clicker".
This first post was written by Katie Bartlett and is reprinted here with permission. She will be hosting a clicker clinic at her facility in April 2006. For more information check out the clinic schedule.
January 18, 2006
Katie Bartlett
Hi Linda,
I am a dressage rider too and it has taken me a while to figure out how to integrate Alex’s work into my own understanding of dressage, but here is my take on it.
First, Yes, you do have to do these exercises on a single rein. But that doesn’t mean you can only ride on a single rein. When you first try them, I would suggest that you be prepared to spend quite a bit of time on them as there are lots of details and layers and you won’t get that if you just get the basic compliance that the exercises are supposed to teach. But that could mean you play with them for 10 minutes and then do your regular two rein riding. You don’t have to abandon everything else you are doing.
Once you and your horse understand them, then I think you will find that you integrate them into your regular riding. Alex talks about how single rein riding is the step that riders and horses should learn before being ridden on two reins. It is not a replacement for riding on two reins, it is just an intermediate step that most people skip. If you already ride on two reins, then you just need to go back and see what single rein riding can give you that you might be missing.
I think that what it will give you is greater access to your horse’s body parts. You will learn how to connect the rein (and your body) to your horse’s feet, shoulders, hips, poll etc…You will develop a better feel for where your horse is out of alignment and how to correct it. And you will learn what it feels like to ride on a release and to ride a horse that is relaxed and soft and working in self carriage.
Once you have a good feel for the exercises, then you will find that you can access them even when you are on two reins, and if not, you will know how to go back to the single rein work, make some adjustments, pick up the second rein and ride off again. Once I was pretty good at the single rein work, I started using it as my warmup. So I would start out on a single rein and do a little check of my horse’s response to requests for body parts. If the right hip was a bit sticky, then I might work on that for a bit. Once my horse felt soft and connected, I would go to two reins and do something else. If at some point, I felt like I lost the right hip, I might go back to one rein and reconnect and then back to two. Once you become confident in the single rein work, you will find that you go back and forth from one rein to two as needed.
I should add that I think that once you have ridden on a single rein, you will never ride on two reins quite the same way again. And this is a good thing. There is a difference in how you connect to your horse that you can’t get if you never take that step of going to one rein for a while.
I’m not sure what to tell you about the idea of the soft, elastic connection. I think if you look at good upper level riders, the horses are working on a very light contact or release and that the riders have their hands pretty still. The idea of a soft elastic connection is more relevant for jumpers or green horses where the horses are still finding their balance or need to adjust their balance a lot to do their jobs.
I think you are just going to have to try it and see what you discover <grin>.
Katie Bartlett
www.equineclickertraining.com
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Alexandra Kurland
Single-Rein Riding, January 19, 2006
This is great!! This is exactly the kind of conversation I was hoping we would have on this list. Katie you are a gem! Two great posts - one on the "Why would you leave me?" game (wwylm), and the other on single-rein riding. That one in particular is such an important post. It is so helpful for people who are new to this concept to hear not just from me, but from others about their experiences with this type of training.
You summed up single-rein riding so well:
I think that what it will give you is greater access to your horse’s body parts. You will learn how to connect the rein (and your body) to your horse’s feet, shoulders, hips, poll etc…You will develop a better feel for where your horse is out of alignment and how to correct it. And you will learn what it feels like to ride on a release and to ride a horse that is relaxed and soft and working in self carriage.
Once you have a good feel for the exercises, then you will find that you can access them even when you are on two reins, and if not, you will know how to go back to the single rein work, make some adjustments, pick up the second rein and ride off again.
Exactly right.
I would add only that I view single-rein riding, not as a separate technique, but as part of a continuum. Unfortunately, it's a part most of us not only were never taught, but were never even told existed.
The continuum begins with just a halter and a lead rope. A lot of us when we were kids rode our horses around in just a halter and a lead rope. You may do it when you bring your horses in from their pasture. Who wants to walk back to the barn, when you can hop on and ride? So some of us learned early on that we could control our horses with a minimum of equipment. We could steer, and we could bend them to a stop. That's the key there. We could bend them to a stop. When all you have is one lead attached to your horse's head, your "steering wheel" and "brakes" don't work quite the same way they do when you have two reins. When all you have is one lead, you get a lot more bending, but it's the bending that connects you to your horse's feet and keeps you safe.
Riding in just a halter and a lead rope is a great confidence builder. It strips away all the things you think are keeping you in control, and it shows you what really matters. It is also tremendous for building an independent seat. Just remember that safety always comes first, so if you are going to try riding in a halter and a lead, set up the situation so it is a confidence-building experience, not a nightmare. (Confidence building: on a horse you are comfortable riding, in a ring he feels secure in. Nightmare: riding bareback in a herd that takes off suddenly for the barn before you have figured out how to ride with just a single rein. Oh, and make sure your horse is okay with a lead swinging over his head. You'll need that skill for steering left and right.)
The next step on the continuum is adding in a set of reins. These can still be attached to a halter, or your horse may be in a bridle with a snaffle bit. It doesn't make that much difference. You will still be using just one rein at a time. You'll use the inside rein pretty much the same way you did the single lead. The outside rein will be dangling. The difference is you won't have to swing the lead over your horse's head when you want to change sides.
The next step is riding on the triangle of the reins. That's the technique I use the most and that's in the book. That's where you lift the buckle up and slide down the inside rein. You end up on a triangle. The horse's mouth is the apex of the triangle. Your buckle hand is at one corner, and your inside hand is at the other. You'll see the triangle in action throughout the book. I want my horse to come alive with energy when I activate my buckle hand. As I lift the reins off my horse's neck with my buckle hand, I want to feel a response. I want to feel him adjust his head position to follow my hand, and I want to feel the change ripple back through his entire body, not just get stuck somewhere in front of his shoulders. I want to feel him bring his hips up underneath him so they feel as though they are under my buckle hand, connected to that hand. That's a process that happens over time.
A novice single-rein rider picks up the buckle, slides down the inside rein, and then becomes so focused on what is happening in that hand that all awareness evaporates out of her buckle hand. So it isn't just the horse who is learning to become more body aware and connected. This process also makes the rider much more body aware.
As that process evolves, and the aliveness in the buckle hand is there all the time, the rider then activates the outside rein. This isn't something new that is added. By the time you are ready to add the outside rein, your horse is already connected, energized, alive in that rein and you are simply receiving a connection which is already there. And that's when your horse truly feels like heaven to ride.
If all you have done is ride on two reins, you may be thinking, well why do I have to go through all those preliminary steps? If I'm going to end up on two reins, why can't I just stay on two reins? Well, you can. And certainly there are many superb riders who have never explored single-rein riding, but for me single-rein riding gave me a way to chunk down the complexities of their work. It made it understandable, and accessible. That's the key. That's the part that gives you goose bumps. You don't have to think: "well I could never get my horse to look that pretty. I can't afford expensive lessons, and my horse is just a backyard pony. We can't do that. We're just trail riders." Well, you can be "just" a trail rider and still have the pleasure of sitting on a horse that feels like heaven. And your horse may come in from pasture covered in mud with his mane plaited in burdocks, a far cry from the show ring, but scrap off the mud, put a saddle on him, and watch people's jaws drop. That's the fun of this work, seeing horses of all types looking so beautiful.
Katie described beautifully how the continuum works:
Once I was pretty good at the single rein work, I started using it as my warmup. So I would start out on a single rein and do a little check of my horse’s response to requests for body parts. If the right hip was a bit sticky, then I might work on that for a bit. Once my horse felt soft and connected, I would go to two reins and do something else. If at some point, I felt like I lost the right hip, I might go back to one rein and reconnect and then back to two. Once you become confident in the single rein work, you will find that you go back and forth from one rein to two as needed.
That's a great description of how I use it. You learn to slide back and forth along the continuum of a pure single rein effect, riding on the triangle, and riding on two reins. They are all part of a a larger picture. Which rein effect we are using at any given time will depend upon what is going on with your horse. If your horse is spooking at the snow sliding off the arena roof, you want to be on a pure inside rein. That's the safest reaction you can have. If you are working on connecting body parts and bringing him into "drill team balance", you'll be on the triangle. And when everything is connected, and he's balanced and engaged, you'll be on two reins working on performance-oriented exercises.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
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Katie Bartlett, January 19, 2006
Hi Linda,
I laughed when I read your answer because I just knew I would get myself in trouble responding to your comment about riding on a soft, elastic contact. I almost deleted the piece I added about green horses and jumpers because talking about contact can be like opening a can of worms.
But…since we started this, I will say that I had many of the same concerns as you about whether single rein riding would integrate well with what I had already learned about dressage and my dressage goals. I have found that the two complement each other nicely, but that has not been without some ups and downs on my part and I have had to reevaluate my definitions of contact, connection, and feel. Actually it would be fascinating if those of you out there who were just starting this journey took a moment and wrote down what you thought contact was and what it felt like. I think that if you went back and read it again after working through the exercises in Alex’s book, you might find that you had changed your ideas.
The first thing is that I learned is that the idea of a soft, elastic contact is a nice way to describe riding, but it doesn’t describe the way I ride and it doesn’t really describe the way lots of good riders ride. I also think that the idea of following your horse is something that novice riders learn so that they can get in synch with the motion of their horse’s head and neck and balance. However, I think that once one is beyond the novice stage, the first thing we are trying to teach the horse is to organize itself around our position (hands, seat..), so that we are not following the horse, but are leading the dance by a instant. If I am riding the canter, I am “following” the horse with my hands but that is because I know the rhythm of the canter and can release my hands and reins slightly forward in anticipation of the horse’s need to lengthen his neck and adjust his balance. I am not following him, I am allowing him. Now, one could argue that if my arms are soft, then I am moving with him and following the movement, and this is correct but I still would argue that I am giving him that tiny release and then allowing him to move my arms as he moves his head and neck. If he suddenly dives on his forehand and tries to pull the reins, I am going to stabilize my position and hold him until he reorganizes around my position again. I guess what I am getting at is that even when someone looks like they are following and moving in harmony, they are making lots of little adjustments in reins and position and regulating the horse, not just following him. If you buy that <maybe??>, then you will agree that the horse has to learn to reorganize himself around your hands and position and this is what single rein riding can teach you.
Notice that I keep saying you are using your hands and position, and not just your hands. Single rein riding is very focused on rein use and hand position, but if you ride with SRR for long enough, you will find that the horse has become very light on the reins, partly because the rein has meaning and he is soft and through, but also because he has learned to read your seat and position as you access the rein and the body parts that you connected to through the single rein riding are now also associated with seat and position cues.
I will mention that if you are going to work on SRR and take dressage lessons or compete in dressage, then you will need to keep track of a few pieces that can get temporarily lost in the learning process. If you stick with the SRR through riding on the triangle and the pickup and use of the outside rein as Alex teaches it, you will collect them all up again by the end of the process, but sometimes it can be disconcerting to find you have lost an important piece, so I do specifically address these issues as they come up.
For example, sometimes horses get a little stuck and think you just want them to hold their head and neck in one position, so I like to mix and match the single rein work with some more forward work and also head lowering. A dressage horse needs to allow you to adjust his head and neck and you don’t want him to think he needs to hold it in one position. So if I was working on a single rein exercise that promoted collection, I would spend some time moving forward in head lowering to make sure the horse could still reach out and move in a longer frame. I also found for myself that I went through a period where the single rein riding made me stiff. Previous to learning this work, I had always been a rider with “good hands” and I found that when I learned to stabilize my hand, I lost that. So for a while it was difficult for me to figure out how to stabilize without getting stiff. As I worked through the exercises, I got better about stabilizing without bracing and learning to release more. I think now that I had nice soft, following hands before but they were sort of busy hands and if you had asked me why I was using the rein in a particular way at a certain time, I couldn’t have told you. Now at least, I can tell you what I am doing!
I guess this is more in depth than we need right now and this might not be everyone’s experience, or take on it, but there it is….maybe there is something useful in there for you.
Good luck,
Katie Bartlett
www.equineclickertraining.com
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Single Rein Riding
Julie Varley wrote:
Feb. 8, 2006
Alex wrote:
"You want to ride, but now you will have to look at all the details,
all the exercises that are going to keep you safe in a new light.
They just aren't drills. They are the tools you'll use to safe on
Blue."
Hi All,
I just thought I'd comment on how the exercises in the riding book have saved me a time or two! My mare Allie has learned so much and become a steady, reliable riding horse. She is still however capable of a spook every now and then, especially when I ride outside in an unfenced area that borders woods with a huge field beyond that. I remember vividly one afternoon when Alex came to work with us and also do a photo session. Something startled Allie and she began to take off. Without giving it any thought, my hands automatically slid down the inside rein, her hips came around and she stopped facing in the opposite direction. I think she offered head down at that point, which I rewarded with a jackpot! Alex and I laughed about how all of the thousands of repetitions of sliding down the inside rein can be a real life saver. With enough practice, you develop a strong connection between the reins and the feet.
I've also experienced a contrasting situation before all of the thousands of repetitions of sliding down the inside rein. One beautiful spring day several years ago I went riding out with Sandy and Nikita. I should have done my homework and taken Allie for a few walks (leading her) so that she could have a refresher about the territory beyond her paddock. But Spring Fever had hit, and I decided to head out without doing any prep. Allie decided that we were too far away from the barn, and she started to dance and prance. I can remember thinking, "I should be taking her hip around," but I hesitated several moments too long, and Allie decided she was out of there. My girth was too lose and shortly after she bolted, I hit the ground.
Lessons learned: there is no time to be tentative, do your homework, and tighten your girth when you ride out! (right Dolores? :)
Julie
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Question:
"Everyone must have gone from C/T at every give, to
"the give is rewarded by release of pressure." How did you make this
change at first?"
Julie Varley responded:
Feb. 24, 2006
Hi Marjorie,
What I did was follow the principle, "Get a response, get it consistently, then improve upon it." So if you are getting a nice soft give each time you pick up the rein, you could begin to substitute a release for the click on every other give. After a little while you might then begin to c/t every third give and so on. The release is important for every single give whether we click or not. The click can "highlight" some of the gives in addition to the release.
It's good that you didn't pick up the outside rein to straighten him out- that would be considered "cheating". Riding him forward is a great way to straighten out. Another way to ask him to straighten his neck would be to take slack out of the inside rein and hold it against his neck, releasing when his neck does straighten (pg. 187). Putting in as many releases as possible really helps with lightness, and as Alex says, we can always pick up the rein again after a release (meaning that we humans have a tendency to want to hold on to the rein too much and we often miss opportunities to build in more releases).
That was very cool that he wanted to stay and play with you rather than go off running around the arena! Great job!
Julie V.
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More on the value of the single-rein exercises from the Riding Book.
Kathi H wrote
Feb. 26, 2006
I followed the Parelli pretty "religiously" through level 2- including chrokee bridle/ bareback pad riding/ and using only 2 carrot sticks and - I was willing to venture this far from"normal" because I had created a behind the bit sucked back unconfident horse-
I would just like to reitierate that having spent the better part of this winter walking around doing 3-flip-3's/isolated shoulder and hind end moves and lots of sideways/ backing etc either with bit and bridle or with string halter / hackamore- has been the magic that has been stated by many others in other posts-
I was very excited to start to do more 2 rein riding this fall and really thinking that my horse was "asking" for this support and security- I had a sesssion with a Parelli 3-star instructor and posed this question- and she said it takes "this much freestyle" (arms held apart full length width) to do this "this much finesse" (parelli world- when you get to use 2 reins) and here her thumb and forefinger
are about an inch apart- I was dejected/ a little unbelieving/ but took it home- and as I con't'd to play with 2 rein riding- what felt secure and supporting started to quickly digress to where we had come from- not light/ restrictive/ lost the hind end quality etc- me with see sawing hands (arghhhhhhhhhh) and I got the Click to Ride book just about this time- so I had some great tools to refocus our rides
with and the result is really what the book says......- so for what it is worth- I have "seen the light" and once you do- it just answers all those other questions-
Kathi H
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