Roll & Yaw
Have
you ever been on a horse and felt like it's about to roll
over on it's back? Just drop the shoulder and wiggle
real good to itch it's top side in the sand? Not that
it does. It somehow manages to keep going but
meanwhile you and your saddle are sliding off the
side. You probably have to keep stepping in your
stirrup to get things back to rights but then before too
long it's happening again.
And then there are times you feel like the horse is
skidding around the corner sideways - not that it's properly
doing a lateral move or a side step or anything, it's just
kind of going along sideways like a dog running down the
street, and any minute now the back end will pass up the
front end. Again, another uncomfortable moment!
With airplanes, they describe this as 'roll' and
'yaw.' (And with horses, the 'pitch' relates to
self-carriage. A horse heavy on the front end is
pitched downward.)
Well, we haven't got ailerons or rudders on horses,
but there's something that can be done about this that
doesn't involve pulling on reins and such.
While this can be done regardless of what you're doing
with the horse, let's start with one of the easier things, a
20m circle at the walk:
- Begin walking on a 20m(ish) circle. Bigger if you need to.
-
Your first task is to be aware of what is happening.
After that you can decide what action to take. To become aware of what is happening and start sorting this
all out, ask yourself:
- is one side of the horse lower than the other?
- is it 'wanting' to roll over one
shoulder?
- is it 'wanting' to roll over in the middle of
its back?
- is it 'wanting' to roll over near the hind end?
- if one part is wanting to roll to one side,
there may be another part wanting to roll the other
way. whichever one is either easier or more
noticeable, chose to work with that first and then
come back to the other part.
- does the horse feel like it's traveling
sideways?
- even if it's got its poll, withers, and sacrum
on the circle, it may still feel like it's going
sideways.
- Now what to do about?
- If this is all you do, you've actually accomplished
a lot more than you may think. You've brought
awareness to yourself and your horse and *that alone*
will allow the self-corrective mechanisms to kick
in. Maybe not super-duper quick, but the
journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step,
and this was that step.
- There is also a technique you can use from
Ortho-bionomy which can help. This
accentuates the pattern that is there and involves
vectors.
- Another technique borrows from Feldenkrais and
asks the horse to be aware of a range of
options.
- A third technique involves a 'beacon' of sorts,
and visual (or auditory or kinesthetic)
double-exposure that compares and contrasts the
actual with the ideal.
Vectors in General
Those questions above bring into the conversation the concept of
vectors. Vectors are ways of describing speed and
direction together. Or, they're arrows of movement: Which way is something going?
Which way are the forces acting on it going? If you
pick up a ball and throw it, the ball is going in a
direction away from you. It's also got some up/down
direction and some forward direction which, when combined, produce
the direction it's going in. (and if you're really
clever, you can assign numbers to all of this!) (we're not
going to do that.)
In this situation, pretend 'O' is the horse's head and
you're looking at it coming towards you.
|
green
arrow |
the rolling sensation. |
theoretically, in a
balanced horse, there would be a little roll left,
then a little roll right, then a little roll left,
etc, as the sides of the horse undulate. |
at |
the
yawing sensation. |
theoretically, in a
balanced horse, there would be a little yaw left, then
a little yaw right, then a little yaw left, etc, as
the sides of the horse undulate. |
ac |
the
pitch up |
hopefully greater than... |
ar |
the
pitch down
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The only thing that's really important here
is to realize there's more than one 'push' involved.
Some pushes are to the inside, some to the outside, some
forward, some sideways.... because it's a horse, we've
also got a lot of stuff going on inside. There's all
kinds of pushes and pulls generated by muscles leveraging
bones and working against the ground. (which we'll
talk about a bit later!) Awareness
Accurate awareness can do incredible things!
Begin with this and you will be amazed at how much this
alone can accomplish.
It can be very hard not to jump into action or into
'fixing' mode. Resist this temptation! Trust
that your horse will move better once it understands how it
is moving already. Let you mental images convey this
information. It will work!
If you have to speed things up, there are a couple
things you can do to help the horse understand better.
An Ortho-bionomy Approach
Ortho-binoomy / Equine
Positional Release involves accentuating the pattern.
Yaw patterns are a lot like the ribbons in a candy
cane wrapped around the parts of the horse that are
influenced. RIBBON SERPENTINE
For instance, of I feel like the horse wants to roll
over the right shoulder, I will become aware of where that
influence comes from and where it wants to go. It may
be that there is a push from behind the left shoulder blade
at the withers, over the withers, onto the ground in front
of where the right leg tends to go.
The firs step is to become aware of this
'movement.' Give it a color, draw an arrow in your
mind's eye, feel how fast it goes from the start of the
movement until it hits the ground - maybe it changes speed
in there! find out as much as you can about this
movement.
Now make it more so. In your head! (Don't
throw your horse down.)
Maybe the 'arrow' is thicker in size, or it's deeper
in color, or it penetrates the ground a little
further. Maybe the roll is bigger.
Or maybe there is a high hip and it feels like the
horse is constantly hefting one side up and both feet are
under that side. A bit scary. I usually
become aware of a push coming up from the ground
through the side of the pelvis that is high, and sort of
grazing over the other side, which pushes that side down,
and then the foot from the side towards the
midline.
Sometimes the roll starts at the midline and pushes
down.
throw its
head to the outside, I become aware of where the horse wants
to throw it's head to and pretend it's over there, and maybe
just a little more over there for good measure. Or if
it's the withers that don't want to be on the circle, I
pretend they're a little bit further away even.
When you're starting out, you can still
accomplish quite a bit by limiting yourself to the three major points along the
spine of poll, withers, and sacroiliac. Be observant of how
they relate to
the line of travel on a circle and you will find it helps
quit a bit.
Usually the horse will respond positively in about a minute.
For instance, this horse is tracking left and and the
poll and tail on are on the circle, but the withers are
habitually right of the circle. The green X is 'where
the shoulder point belongs.' The red X is 'where the
shoulder point is.' The yellow X is at the end of a
'vector' found by connecting the two and going just a little
bit beyond the red X and is where I pretend it is. I
'hold this thought' for perhaps a minute and then let it
go. In
reality, these distances are in inches usually.
For instance, this horse is tracking left on the
circle and I have the sense that it is throwing it's
shoulder to the right instead of tracking forward with it,
towards the circle. The
green X is 'where the shoulder point belongs.' The red
X is 'where the shoulder point wants to be.' The
yellow X is at the end of a 'vector' found by connecting the
two and going just a little bit beyond the red X and is
where I pretend it is. I 'hold this thought' for
perhaps a minute and then let it go. In reality, these distances can
be in feet, as in a foot or two or even like thirty.
Doing this for the three major points along the
spine - poll, withers, sacroiliac, and how they relate to
the line of travel on a circle, simple as it is, helps
quit a bit.
If you try it, let me know how it goes! And if
you'd like some hands on, call me up for a
lesson.
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