In this episode of speaking the horse language, we'll play the leading game, follow my feet. So I'm going to show you the safe place on the horse. Yeah. So the shoulder, this big bone right here. This is your safe spot. So you know, the withers.

So whenever I'm playing with a horse, especially a horse that I don't know very well, or it's in training, this is where I want to be. And again, I can be very far away from her. But I'm still aligned with her shoulder. Yeah, so I can still be at the end of the rope. And she's over there. And I have some control.

And then again, I'm at the shoulder. So this is the safe spot. So when I'm at their shoulder, yeah, I'm gonna position the angle of my shoulders, especially when I'm lunging is going to tell her what I want from her. So when I'm leading a horse, and I'll show you the correct way to lead and stop, so we're going to do transitions staying The shoulder and it should be from the right side and the left side of the horse and we're gonna walk and stop and stop. And I'm gonna back and then I'm gonna walk. So step one, and you're gonna pivot.

Step two, you're going to decide you're going to look where it is you want to go or a specific object which you are aiming for. So step one, pivot, step two, decide. And then step three, lead with your energy. And then step four was wait for your horse to come with you. So a lot of people, the first mistake they make is they start walking. Yeah.

So they start walking, and then they want the horse to follow them. But what happens is you start dragging your horse. Yeah. So you get in front of them and you start dragging the horse. We don't want that for safety reasons. Again, the shoulders the safe spot.

So that is how you correctly ask for transitions while you're leading your horse. You face the shoulder when you want them to stop. But also the other thing was I was breathing. Yeah. It's my body. Yeah.

I'm stopping. I'm walking, but I'm walking again. My shoulders. I'm energetic. I'm walking. Yeah, when I took that step forward, you can feel the energy is a forward energy.

So she knew to come with me because I took that step. Switch sides. Now notice my whip is now in the right hand and I'm holding the ropes like this. So it should work exactly the same from this side. Yeah. So I'm just going to turn her a little bit.

And then again, I start walking. Here, I needed to encourage her a little bit with my whip. Again, I didn't even have any contact. It was just this and we back and then we stop. And that's how it should look. Pivot, decide, lean and wait, and then go.

So there when I asked her to walk, you noticed I was facing her. I'm still confident, but I didn't actually ask her to move. How did I ask her to move with my interview? GE, I pivoted my feet. Yeah, like in the military, you see in the movies, I with energy, yeah. And then I took a step.

And she followed. So that's energy. So you have to, when you turn, have that forward, energy coming from your chest outward. So it's like I'm going forward. See how she leaned with me there. So she's walking forward, and good girl.

So and that was all energy. That was just me. See, I'm stopping right now. There's a limit to where I'm going. I'm sort of waiting for her to catch up. But I'm pulling with my chest, and the energy goes that way.

And that's the direction that's why I always look where I'm going. A lot of people when they get distracted when their horses leaping around the spooking at something. They get very distracted and start looking at the horse. Yeah, but this is This is how I asked her to stop and stand still and be calm. Yeah. So if I want her to go there, and she's looking at something over there, I need to look where I want to go.

If she's speaking and being silly, you know, I can be far away from her. Right? I can put myself in a safer spot. But I'm still looking over there. And at some point, and at some point, your horse just has to get over it. They gotta get over themselves.

You need to keep doing what you're doing. If you start worrying about what they're worried about, you're actually going to justify what it is that they're worried about. So the first time that they look at something, they're actually asking you permission. Hey, leader. I see that thing over there. Is that a tiger?

That's that's there? Is that a tiger and you as pack leader. If you react with Oh my God, my horse is gonna spook at that thing. Every time it sees a tractor. It always looks at the tractor. Now, you've actually told your whole With your energy, because they don't hear the words.

They understand the energy. So if you go, oh my god, there's a tractor my horse, she always looks at the tractors every single time I don't understand why do you see what I'm doing with my energy? I'm actually giving my horse a reason. Because she asked the question, oh, there's a tractor. And then I responded with Oh my God, I think it's a tiger. What is she gonna do?

She's gonna get nervous, she's gonna start spooking, she's gonna spook into me, she's gonna freak out. Because I brought her to the tiger. And then I'm wondering why she's scared of the tiger. So with horses, it's all about energy. It's all about if I see the tractor, she looks at it, and she says, Is that a tiger? I need to just kind of, Oh, I see it.

It's not a tiger. We're going over there. And I need to just keep focusing on that and say, Ah, that's not a big deal, because I'm going over there. Oh, yeah, I've seen it. It's not a tiger. And then eventually, you know, your whole We'll start trusting your decision because they remember feelings, they remember emotions.

My horse is not going to remember the exact thing that I worked on with her yesterday, she's not going to remember, oh, we made 20 circles to the left and 20 circles. So right. And then we backed up a little bit. She's not gonna remember that, but she's gonna remember, Oh, she took me to that place over there. And there was this big scary thing. And I was fine.

And I was happy, and we had a good day. She's gonna remember her feelings when when she sees the tractor the first time. If you make it worse, she's going to relate the emotions later. So it will come back to her the second time she sees the tractor. Here you will see the fall of my feet game being played, even with an obstacle and between Lily and I, and you'll notice that it doesn't make a difference. And she still listens to the follow my feet game.

Here you can see Christian leading cue from a distance. And even at a distance Q is still responding and listening to him. Although cue is not quite looking at him, she's still standing there calmly while he changes to the other side. And then she will start and listen to him. The second he asks her to move her feet. There she goes.

Here Christian is going to play some more games follow my feet including charting cue and then asking her to halt and reverse. Here are want you to really watch Christian and Q and how he is communicating with her with his body. language when he's scratching her when he's breathing, which direction he's looking, and everything in between. really pay attention to the movement and the body language. In this next video, you will see breathing transitions within a gait. Notice how Christian asks q to speed up and slow down with body language.

Listen to me In this video, you'll see Christian leading cue from a distance. Here she starts to get a little bit of head of him. So he wiggles the rope to try and get her back into his shoulder position. Notice how he wiggles through a little bit stronger when she doesn't listen. And the second that she's back at his shoulder, he stops and Takes a Breath. He even allows her a moment to nibble on some grass before continuing.

And again, when she starts to walk a little bit faster than he does, he corrects her. He's constantly trying to maintain at her shoulder If he was beside her, and then here he gives her a reward Yeah. Good Yeah. Good. Yeah. Good.

Okay, yeah. Good yeah