So I finally get time to write about the clinic with Josh. Josh was James Roberts apprentice when he sadly passed on. After that he stayed at JRFS for a while before moving north to set up his own place. He has never obtained a driving licence as whenever he gets enough money together he spends it on a horsemanship course for himself. As a result he has ridden with many great horsemen. Dave Stewart, Russell Higgins, Buck Brannaman to name but a few.
As he can't drive I decided to go and collect him. 4 hours each way but it gave us time to catch up on news. It also let me see his yard. Very pleasant but best described as work in progress. However with his drive and vision I can see it being the perfect setup in the future.
So to the clinic itself.
There were 5 riders on the clinic and we decided to split it into three in the morning with Ritchie and I in the afternoon. This split was largely down to the fact that only Ritchie and I ride western with the emphasis on vaquero and we wanted a clinic on riding in the bosal. Josh is also keen on the vaquero style so he is a great instructor for us.
The ground work was very interesting. Josh had recently had Menolo Menedez staying with him for a couple of weeks. He learned a lot about reading the horse from the point of view of muscle tension and how getting a tense muscle to relax would not only allow the horse to move better but also change their mental and emotional state.
The main point with Filly that Josh immediately noticed was a small tense muscle in the neck. It just stood out a tiny bit. This was where she was holding mental tension which effected her whole movement. He also noticed that the hind quarters were a little tense. As he put it a relaxed muscle should flow like water as they move and you should see it shimmering. Her muscles were more static which showed the tension in them.
This was a nice and fortuitous connection to the Silke clinic where she has also worked on the idea of muscular relaxation.
Josh's way of remedying the problem was not with massage as Silke's was. It was achieved with the aid of bamboo poles.
Why bamboo ? It's light and comes in a variety of lengths. It's more precise than a flag on a fishing pole as there is less whip in the end. It's cheap :)
To make a bamboo pole do the following
Buy bamboo
Bury in muck heap for two days
Hang from rafter with a weight on the end to keep it straight while it dries
The muck heap idea is to gently steam the bamboo which lightens it and also makes it less likely to splinter if it gets wrapped around a horses legs by mistake.
Armed with the bamboo we could now just draw a horses attention to a particular area by pointing or touching a very specific spot. Over time with that awareness came relaxation. For example to get Filly's hind quarters to relax I could just hover the stick over them and if necessary touch her with the stick until I saw a nice ripple appear in the muscle. Then remove the stick. In a way it is like Silke's idea of massaging the muscle and doing micro releases of the massage as the muscle relaxes, but done at a distance.
Josh also made me use the 45 foot rope more for distance work. As he says with a 45 foot rope you have a whole tool kit in one bit of apparatus. I admit that I have been lax in my practice with it, but since the clinic it's fast becoming my favourite rope. No gloves of course to keep that soft feel ;)
As for the riding we did a lot of work on using the bosal more effectively, though Josh thought we were already pretty good with it. His way of running this section was just to watch us as we would normally ride and use patterns and then make suggestions as to how to improve. I like this idea as opposed to the instructor having a preconceived lesson plan. I find that style does not get carried through into riding after the clinic whereas Josh's style does.
Josh made me ride bridleless a fair bit. I was working on circles at walk and trot. I had many markers on the ground describing a precise circle to go around. After Filly was going well with the bosal we went bridleless and attempted the same pattern. Day 2 we started the ride bridleless on the pattern and put the bosal on later for even more precision work.
Josh also had Ritchie and I play games together. Games like having one of us start inside the marked circle and try to escape it whist the other rider had to position themselves to keep the first one inside the circle. This gave purpose to snappy turns and changes of gait. It was great fun to boot and I'm not going to divulge who won.
We also played a game of using the bamboo sticks to pick up the circle markers off the ground and pile them into a single pile. The winner was the one with most markers. Filly was very spooked when the first marker slid down the bamboo stick towards her as I scooped it up. Lots of friendly game later and she was fine but the time that took allowed Ritchie to amass a large stack of markers.
So very silly, fun games as is Josh's style but all had a purpose and made the learning fun for horse and rider.
Everyone had a great time. On the Saturday evening we went to a local village rock festival which added to the merriment.
We've already booked another clinic with Josh in November. After which I drive him to Heathrow airport as he is flying to New Zealand to spend a couple of months with Russell Higgins colt starting. Lucky sod !!
Here are some photos of the day taken by my friend and Aikido Sensei, David
Photos
As he can't drive I decided to go and collect him. 4 hours each way but it gave us time to catch up on news. It also let me see his yard. Very pleasant but best described as work in progress. However with his drive and vision I can see it being the perfect setup in the future.
So to the clinic itself.
There were 5 riders on the clinic and we decided to split it into three in the morning with Ritchie and I in the afternoon. This split was largely down to the fact that only Ritchie and I ride western with the emphasis on vaquero and we wanted a clinic on riding in the bosal. Josh is also keen on the vaquero style so he is a great instructor for us.
The ground work was very interesting. Josh had recently had Menolo Menedez staying with him for a couple of weeks. He learned a lot about reading the horse from the point of view of muscle tension and how getting a tense muscle to relax would not only allow the horse to move better but also change their mental and emotional state.
The main point with Filly that Josh immediately noticed was a small tense muscle in the neck. It just stood out a tiny bit. This was where she was holding mental tension which effected her whole movement. He also noticed that the hind quarters were a little tense. As he put it a relaxed muscle should flow like water as they move and you should see it shimmering. Her muscles were more static which showed the tension in them.
This was a nice and fortuitous connection to the Silke clinic where she has also worked on the idea of muscular relaxation.
Josh's way of remedying the problem was not with massage as Silke's was. It was achieved with the aid of bamboo poles.
Why bamboo ? It's light and comes in a variety of lengths. It's more precise than a flag on a fishing pole as there is less whip in the end. It's cheap :)
To make a bamboo pole do the following
Buy bamboo
Bury in muck heap for two days
Hang from rafter with a weight on the end to keep it straight while it dries
The muck heap idea is to gently steam the bamboo which lightens it and also makes it less likely to splinter if it gets wrapped around a horses legs by mistake.
Armed with the bamboo we could now just draw a horses attention to a particular area by pointing or touching a very specific spot. Over time with that awareness came relaxation. For example to get Filly's hind quarters to relax I could just hover the stick over them and if necessary touch her with the stick until I saw a nice ripple appear in the muscle. Then remove the stick. In a way it is like Silke's idea of massaging the muscle and doing micro releases of the massage as the muscle relaxes, but done at a distance.
Josh also made me use the 45 foot rope more for distance work. As he says with a 45 foot rope you have a whole tool kit in one bit of apparatus. I admit that I have been lax in my practice with it, but since the clinic it's fast becoming my favourite rope. No gloves of course to keep that soft feel ;)
As for the riding we did a lot of work on using the bosal more effectively, though Josh thought we were already pretty good with it. His way of running this section was just to watch us as we would normally ride and use patterns and then make suggestions as to how to improve. I like this idea as opposed to the instructor having a preconceived lesson plan. I find that style does not get carried through into riding after the clinic whereas Josh's style does.
Josh made me ride bridleless a fair bit. I was working on circles at walk and trot. I had many markers on the ground describing a precise circle to go around. After Filly was going well with the bosal we went bridleless and attempted the same pattern. Day 2 we started the ride bridleless on the pattern and put the bosal on later for even more precision work.
Josh also had Ritchie and I play games together. Games like having one of us start inside the marked circle and try to escape it whist the other rider had to position themselves to keep the first one inside the circle. This gave purpose to snappy turns and changes of gait. It was great fun to boot and I'm not going to divulge who won.
We also played a game of using the bamboo sticks to pick up the circle markers off the ground and pile them into a single pile. The winner was the one with most markers. Filly was very spooked when the first marker slid down the bamboo stick towards her as I scooped it up. Lots of friendly game later and she was fine but the time that took allowed Ritchie to amass a large stack of markers.
So very silly, fun games as is Josh's style but all had a purpose and made the learning fun for horse and rider.
Everyone had a great time. On the Saturday evening we went to a local village rock festival which added to the merriment.
We've already booked another clinic with Josh in November. After which I drive him to Heathrow airport as he is flying to New Zealand to spend a couple of months with Russell Higgins colt starting. Lucky sod !!
Here are some photos of the day taken by my friend and Aikido Sensei, David
Photos
