The Feel of A Ride

I had a question presented to me the other night. Can we teach feel, can it be learned, or is it something that some people have naturally? It got me thinking…

I think that feel has different meaning to different people and depending on the riding discipline and level of a particular horse and rider combination. I agree that kids have a natural feel, but I think that it is not the same type of feel that we talk about in respect to the concepts of centered riding. Kids just have a knack for balance and I think their fearlessness and youthful natural is more of a contributor to their riding abilities that anything else. I remember riding one of our ponies triple bareback in the pasture when we were kids. I don’t think there was any real feel to it, we just rode and tried to keep each other on. To a young kid, that is riding…making the horse go, just go regardless of the direction or speed. I mean it is like anything else you learn as a kid; how to ride a bike, ice skate, or do gymnastics. How many of these things do we try to learn as adults and we end up never really being good at or sticking with it long enough to get that “natural feel” as we watch little kids do circles around us? I think it is easier to start to become what people consider a natural rider as a kid. That confidence that kids possess in themselves is something that as we get older we seem to lose sight of as riders as we begin to question and assess our riding especially once we start to learn to read horses. I know I fall into that category at times especially when I am working a horse that is giving off warning signs of a dangerous behavior. I alter the way I ride when a horse starts to show signs of rearing or bucking or whatever to make sure I’m not going to come out of the saddle. What does a little kid do? They ignore the behavior and just keep riding, or I think a lot of times they don’t even acknowledge those signs that we become sometimes too in tune to as we get older. That is one thing I think we can definitely learn from little kids, sometimes we need to stop focusing on a particular moment of riding and just ride and sometimes we can fix a bad habit by letting things just fall into place.

There are so many people that have always wanted to ride as a kid, and as adults are finally given the chance to learn. When they first begin, I think a lot of times they let their brain get too involved, because as adults we definitely try to guard ourselves from things that we want to do but are fearful or nervous of at the same time and that restricts their ability to get past their reservations. There are a lot of those beginner adult riders that progress and grow into great riders once they gain confidence and I do think a lot of them under good instruction can develop that same natural feel as much so as someone that has been riding all their lives. On the other end of the spectrum, look at the little kid that is nervous to ride. They clamp their legs and hold on a horse’s mouth and never relax. I have seen so many kids like this that lose interest in horses because they can’t relax enough to let the feel of the horse dictate their movements and enjoy the ride. Can a kid like this ever establish a natural feel or even a learned feel for that matter even with time if they are never able to let go of their fear? Or is that something we can even teach a kid or adult for that matter with that level of nervousness? Can we teach someone who is that fearful to override their insecurities to become an actual rider?

As a rider progress past the point of learning balance and how to stay on when the horse goes through their gaits, at that point I do think that it becomes a learned feel. A lot of times at this stage, both the rider and the horse are learning together. And it could be anything from how to do a collected stop to learning to ride on the trail to learning how to achieve reining spins. In a lot of these situations were the rider is trying to advance their skills and they are trying to teach their horse something new at the same time I think that natural feel is a non-determining factor. I remember when I got my hunter under saddle horse, Oscar. He was already an accomplished show horse that went around the ring for the most part pretty solidly. However, when I was starting to take lessons on him, my instructor had me get on a different mare that she had at the barn also and had me feel her trot and lope and worked me through different hand and leg positions. At that moment in time, I didn’t have the knowledge or necessarily the understanding of how my movements were affecting the stride, all I could feel was the difference between that mare and Oscar. As they taught me how each hand movement or leg position aided me in improving his movement, the pieces of the puzzle over time feel into place and slowly I was able to emulate that same type of movement with him also. So, there becomes two sides of the equation. The horse has to be able to understand what type of feel you are trying to create and the rider needs to be able to recognize when the horse has achieved their version of that same movement. How many riders have we taught over the years that have struggled with a particular movement and just can’t get it? In those situations, what would we do? We would have them get off their horse, and we would pull out JR or Oscar or Royboy or whoever and have them go thru the same motions as they were doing on their horse. The only difference was that these horses had already mastered what the person was trying to achieve so that riders movements were actually resulting in what they were trying to achieve with their own horse. They would have a total light bulb moment. Now, when they got back on to their horse, they didn’t instantly get the result they were going for, but they now had the feel they were look for and knew what place they were trying to get to. It is the same as riding a good horse and then getting the opportunity to ride a great one. It doesn’t matter what discipline or breed…a great horse is something that everyone can appreciate. And when you get a chance to ride that great one, your natural feel lets you experience the quality of that great horse and what the standard for that discipline is like.

On that same note, there have been numerous times that I can’t explain the feel to a rider. I will be helping someone and from the ground what I am saying should be yielding the desired results. So, in those cases, I have to get on the horse. I have to be able to feel what the horse is doing. I need to see for myself how the way I’m holding the reins or using my legs is affecting the horse. Sometimes, I have to make a subtle adjustment and that does the trick and then I can explain what I changed. Other times, the horse does what I want and I have to adjust the rider to get them to ask the horse the right way. I think at that point in a rider’s career, natural feel and learned feel start to melt together and you just feel and do what comes naturally. There are so many times I have been on a horse and someone asks me how I did what I did or how I know the horses shoulders are down or they aren’t engaging their hindquarters or the bit is restricting the horse. A lot of those times I don’t really know. I just do. I just felt it. My experience has just lead me to that conclusion.

Then we spin the wheel a little further and another question about what feel is comes up. What level of feel should we be trying to achieve? The Centered Riding principles are a great place to describe the different body parts and how we can use them to ride correctly. It is like what Mom has wrote about in her blog after her clinics, it is little suble changes that make a huge difference in how we sit and in return how the horse responds to a ¼ inch adjustment. I think every person no matter their level of riding or discipline can all achieve a better feel. How many people ride a single discipline their whole lives? How many of these people get on a horse of a different discipline and feel like they have never rode before? Did they lose their feel? Or have they adapted their feel to a certain style of riding? I have a friend that has only rode Saddlebreds come ride with me the other night. We swapped horses for a while and she rode one on my Pleasure mares for a while. She is in riding shape however, when we were done she laughed because the movement felt so foreign to her and she was sore the next day. She could tell and describe the differences in the stride between her normal mount and mine. So even though she didn’t ride Peaches well by Quarter Horse Western Pleasure standards, what does that say about learned and natural feel?

I also think that the way we ride sometimes inhibits our thoughts on feel. I think a lot of riders, myself included, don’t push ourselves beyond our comfort levels enough to develop our feel. I used to be an extremely good bareback rider. However; now, I wouldn’t ride either of my mares bareback. What does that say about my feel? Do I have a diminished sense of feel because I don’t feel secure without a saddle anymore and I would be all over the place if I were to try riding this way today? I know some amazing world class riders that aren’t comfortable without a saddle or for that matter a particular type of saddle between them and the horse. Should this be the ultimate accomplishment? For a rider to ride any horse bareback…to be able to feel the horse directly underneath of them? I remember seeing Lynn Palm perform on Rugged Lark after she won the Superhorse at Worlds. She rode him thru multiple advanced dressage maneuvers and over jumps without a saddle or bridle. Stacey Westfall’s freestyle reining patterns while bareback and bridle-less are almost just as well known. How many people can ride a World Champion reiner bareback while performing a 30 foot sliding stop or 5 spins at point earning speed? Now to me, that is feel. That is what I think every rider should strive for, to be that confident in themselves and their ability to achieve that level of feel.

All in all, I think feel has so many levels. I think the correct feel is different for every level of riding and for that matter each different discipline. I don’t think that there is one right feel. There are definitely different ways to get a better feel, like the Centered Riding or Natural Horsemanship techniques. So, after all of my ramblings…I think that is a good thing. That there is no one and only right feel. That way there is something for every rider regardless of their level or discipline a place to strive for. That is the good thing about learning from different horses. We develop our feel from each and every horse. I know I need to reflect on all of the horses that I have rode over the year and appreciate the time I had with them. Those horses have helped me to build the foundation of feel that I have now. They gave me the feel that I bring to the table on each and every horse I ride. They have let me enjoy the power of a ride…