In this episode of speaking the horse language we cover lunging. So now we're gonna start to lunge our horse. Let me just get her moving off of the grass first. There we go. So again, I'm facing her shoulder. So we're going to do breathing transitions, as you might have noticed, so when I agreed she should make a down transition.

And unfortunately, lunging in grass is a little bit difficult because she wants to eat everything. So I'll just get her moving a little bit. Good girl. Good girl. Not that good. So she's walking.

When I want her to make an up transition, I'm just gonna point with my finger. So there I needed to point and then give a little bit of encouragement. She's drifting a little bit inside me inside the circle. So I'm just going to use the rope and encourage her to go on a little bit of a bigger circle. Yeah. So she's far away from me.

I'm facing her shoulder. And now I'm going to ask for a down transition by breathing and an up transition. Zero effort on my part. All I had to do is point and now down transition Beautiful Good girl. Good girl Lily. And now the same thing for the canter.

Although this time I might need to encourage a little bit. So I'm going to point get her going and then point again and make a little hop. That's okay. Good girl. So here again, I'm just going to encourage her to continue going the way she was. Get her out on the bigger circle.

And then for the canter. I'm just gonna point girl so there she told me off a little bit and she Let's slow down. Good girl. And only because she was a little bit naughty, we're going to do it once more. I'm going to point Good girl. Beautiful, nice and controlled.

That's okay. she volunteered. There. She's very hyper. She's gonna slow her energy down a bit. And then I'm gonna invite her to me.

I'm gonna look. I love them. She came a little bit in my bubble. I'm just gonna ask her to go the other way. So this group that I have is pretty long so I'm just gonna gather myself again. So this is how easy it should be to lunch.

Yeah, it should be that I'm literally just standing there and then I'm gonna ask you to truck Good girl. I like to put praise my horses a lot with my voice and I'm very I make the tone of my voice Sound pleasing? Good girl. Good girl. So see how easy it is to lunge little Lily. I'm looking for her to be relaxed.

And then I'm going to try a little canter transition. girl. She's a bit speedy. Oh, and then I'll ask for the transition Good girl Oh girl sledding letting her energy come down. Good girl they're she sort of volunteered without So I just put her back. And then when she's walking, then I'll stop my stick and invite her in.

Good girl. My Space. Good girl. And then I praise. Good girl. So that is how it should look when you're lunging.

It should be lots of breathing facing the shoulder. You could make half halt, with your shoulders even in the lunging. But that is about how it should look like. So what I'm doing Yeah, without the horse, this is me, here the horse. So what I'm doing is I'm pointing when I want an up transition. And it's the same, like when I'm leading, maybe I'm pointing but with energy, looking towards the direction I want him, but my shoulders are still sort of facing her.

Yeah. So I'm allowing her to go that way. point in this direction. I want you to go. My whip. I don't use it.

Unless I need to. I'm not going to pick it up because that's putting pressure on her. So with Lily, I maybe didn't need to maybe I did when she was nibbling on grass. Yeah. But I'm going to give them the chance to do it correctly. First, and then I can be a little bit more dominant or show them how when I want Cantor, if I point and she still hasn't quite gotten it, I might make a little with my feet what I want her feet to do.

So it's the same with shot. I might try My feet a little bit now, because I'm teaching the horse to follow my feet. So when I'm leading Yeah, they're following my feet. I want you to trot. I want you to canter. Yeah.

And that's how we get it started. And then slowly, you can probably stop doing this motion with your feet and just do this, and then only do this, and they're not quite getting it. But you do that before you do this. So that's the up transitions for the down transitions. I might also, I'm facing the shoulders of the horse, I might with my shoulders half halt or ask them to slow or put a little bit of pressure on them with my shoulders. So she's going that way.

I'm sort of putting a little bit of pressure. The other direction. Yeah, I'm kind of getting in front of her and putting some pressure Getting in front of her putting some pressure. And notice what my body does when I breathe. It's my whole body breathing. It's not my face.

So with our face, yeah, a lot of people when I tell them breeze, they do this. The breeze with their face. It's not your face that I'm asking you to breathe. It's your body. Okay, so there's a difference between and it's my whole face, it's my whole body. So you really have to force your face in the beginning, you might feel a little bit silly, but you're gonna have to force yourself to really be dramatic about it.

Like a cartoon character, really get your shoulders and everything in it. So when I'm talking about energy, and that putting pressure on the horse, so what I mean is imagine My arms are my invisible barrier. Yeah, this is my energy barrier. So my energy is coming out my fingertips. infinity. Yeah, it's going forever and that direction.

So imagine I'm lunging a horse. Yeah. And this is my energy field, right here. So if I want her to go this way, I need to open that space with my shoulders, so she can go that way. Yeah. Whereas if I closed my energy barrier on her, do you see how she wants to go that way?

My barrier is putting a wolf infinity in that direction. What is the horse most likely going to do? Stop or turn around, go the other direction back up. They might get nervous. So I have to open that energy to allow them to go through. And that's why when I'm lunging I'm moving with them.

And then if I want them to slow down and stop with the breathing I'm putting that energy barrier, a little bit on them. So they understand that there's a wall there. We cannot see it is a invisible barrier, but the horse can feel it. It's energy. Yeah. So it goes forever.

They can feel it, even if you don't. And I put this wall and they go, and they stop. And it will be like, you know, like tire squealing they'll stop because they don't want to cross that energy barrier. Once you've perfected the art of lunging your horse, you can start lunging with obstacles. So here I'm asking Lily to make a little jump. Here Christian is lunging cue into a pond of water.

Not as easy as it looks. Good. Yeah. Yes. Good. Yeah, good.

Yeah. Okay yeah