A New Site

Finally the new site with all its ideas, attachments and leads is working.

At http://www.otherideas.typepad.com you find the representation of the 'Association of Interdisciplinary Studies'' ongoings, of which Study-Horsemanship, a research of the physiology of riding, now in its fifth year, is only one.

If you would like to read the continuation of Report 2006 please use the link http://www.otherideas.typepad.com/report_2006. In the introduction of this site you find links to all other Study-Horsemanship published information.

The Half-Halt

The interaction of extending strides and the half-halt, although, quite obvious, never occured to me.

Fabian, after an earlier concentration on L1 and the second gear, now is on a detour. Making him go forward with less effort, the extending of strides suggested itself and with it, without prior warning, he has begun to understand the outer ringfinger's impact on his hindlegs. It still vage, but it is there.

Meanwhile I am testing the effect of moving C8 up and back on the lower vertebra forward move from L1 on down. So it may have been these two things, the extending of strides and a changed mobilisation of my vertebra, which have brought on the half-halt.

As The Season Gets On

It always is fun to see the horses improve as the season gets on. To see them get straight and muscular, to see how, as their understanding improves, they get more serious and committed by the day. To watch them serve the rider with pride.

Sometimes I overtrain and, experiencing a set back, have to wait until they have overcome the difficulties I have created for them. Still I find the greatest difficulty in training horses to know if more or less work is appropiate in a given situation.

Fabian, after giving him a real work-out on the lunge the other evening, appearing to be frustrated and a bit cross, now does very well. Nidal on the other hand, after a similar work-out still is very cautious while getting straight. Leporello after doing very well under saddle yesterday, today was set back.

Message To All

Sorry, you can't reach me this week. It is the last of a server transfer problem. I hope to be on-line again the beginning of next week. Meanwhile I am working away at the new research: The rider's physiology and how to teach riding most effectively. You may all want to begin doing stretches and creating an awareness of the vertebra's uprightness and flexibility.

All is well. Hope to see you soon. Christine

Fabian Now Wants to Find Out

A few days have passed with other ideas, see http://www.otherideas.typepad.com. And, unexpectedly, my view reoccured that horses should be useful first and foremost for the transportation of men. To carry them from here to there, comfortably and pleasurably.

Not so Fabian. After many years of seemingly unsurmountable physical problems (his and mine) he now is commited to learning. He wants to be a horse of the Haute Ecole. And, to find out, he needs me to advise him accordingly. In addition he offers and desires a true, profound friendship, leaving me ashamed.

Forget about horses being animals. Once they have mastered the second gear they are marked by the marks of civilisation: manners, commitment, the desire to excel.

Will I be able to find out...

A few days later I find a weakness in this statement, a confusion, which the horses keep on clarifying. Fabian wants to work in the school: to overcome his warp, to figure out how to change from bending to the right to bending to the left, to change from trot to canter and back to the trot, to do the half-shoulder-in, to be even, to mobilize, to be comfortable, to go into the second gear. In the second gear he enjoys the outdoors...as did Leporello today.

C8 Again

There is an automation attached to the nerve section C8 (located in the bottom of the neck).

Concentrating on C8, I raise my vertebra from C2 and move my head and neck up and back. This move is easily done and also holds a sort of an automatism. It results in a pulling under of the sacrum. All the while I make sure that, in the process, L1 moves if at all back and not forward.

Next (and this is what I would like to report here) without any further input from my side my sternum rises and pushes my shoulders back. As I sit in a chair and watch these reactions, I can see what I feel. My hands move, visibly.

Here now is, what I ask myself. Does my shoulders' peculiar reaction have to do with autonomous muscles and how they function? Is this particular way of calling on C2 and C8 a clue to accessing autonomous muscle actions, to understand them and make them teachable?

It does not come as a surprise to me, that a control of human autonomous muscles and the control of the horse in a suspected original inner circuit of communication should originate from one spot: C8.

L1

While sitting in the train, going to Germany for meetings on a Study-Horsemanship 3D room here in La Boulaye, I red last year's Report 2005. Surprised I found out that Fabian, almost to the day, suffered the very same start-up complications, that I came up with the very same solution...

Quoting,

„... And yet, I was missing impulsion and a more decided mounting of the back. To get both I worked forward, at first in the rising trot, yet ending up experimenting with my own back and how to better accompany his. The trick was to lean back a bit and, with lumbar vertebrae slightly pushed back and a more pronounced pulling under of the sacrum, smoothly accompany the forward swing of his back. Elbows well connected to the body. He clearly enjoyed this changed approach and mobilised, timidly blowing off a few times....“.

So far last year's entry. I will bring more on this when I have a photo which illustrates what happens when you ride the horse from L1 only...

The reason I can leave the premises...