What are the 4 questions we should ask ourselves each time we work with our horses, and how can they help us become better horsemen and horsewomen? (And these questions are incredibly useful in everyday life as well.)

The 4 Important Questions - RES008

Welcome to Ride Every Stride with Van Hargis, a podcast about horsemanship . . . and more. Our goal is to educate, motivate, inspire, and entertain you through an exploration of everything horsemanship and the intersection of horsemanship and humanship. We want to give you practical tools that you can use in the arena or on the trail and teach you the principles of great horsemanship, while also inspiring you to apply those same principles to help your personal growth and success.

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In today's episode I want to pay tribute to some very influential men and mentors.
Allen Gammill my grandfather. He taught me several lessons in loyalty.
Boley Crawford  assistant football coach at East Texas State University(now Texas A&M Commerce) who gave me an option between class or practice
Dick Atwood owner of Atwood Hats
Randy Snodgrass  owner of ArenaWerks
These men left a lasting impression on me!

Dance With Who Brung Ya

In the most recent previous episodes we discussed The Path of Least Resistance, Forward Motion, The Control of Forward Motion and now it's time to discuss The Stopping Forward Motion.
Let's face it. There are tons of ways to stop a horse. Heck, there are even different kinds of stops. The thing I focus on first is a true understanding between horse and rider as to WHY your horse is moving.
Today we will focus on what I refer to as The 3 Steps To Stopping.
 First         Quit making him go. Remove your movement/rhythm
 Second    WHOA
 Third        Support with your reins
As my horse develops, I may actually train them to stop by also using The 3 Steps to Stopping individually. I'll explain.
Bottom line is that we must ask ourselves why our horse is going. Our horse must learn from all previous steps of The Basics that they are moving because we've established a working relationship and we are creating rhythm to get the horse to move. When this working relationship is established and practiced first then The 3 Steps to Stopping will be a success.

Nothing Beyond the Basics; Stopping of Forward Motion

Last episode we continued a new series titled Nothing Beyond the Basics and spoke about forward motion and the control of forward motion as we talked about establishing aworking relationship by working on speed control.
Today we will focus on the control of forward movement by focusing on directional control.
Directional Control- left and right and turns. Turns or change of directions using turns. Inside turns and outside turns. I personally prefer outside turns initially. Why? Preparing for what comes next and having faith that what in my opinion too many focus on; hooking on or joining up or whatever term you want to put on it. Not that it’s not important it’s just not on my priority list in front of preparing for where I’m going to be, in the saddle. Eye to eye transitions better prepare a horse for a rider to be behind them. As I work on these things and the other important priorities the horse soon craves the hooking on... it just happens anyway. It’s not something I have to work on. I have faith it will come. I know it will come.
Next episode we will discuss more about speed control and preparing the horse for further success

Nothing Beyond the Basics; Control of Forward Motion-Directional & Speed (Part 4)

Today we will focus on the control of forward movement.
Directional Control- left and right and turns. Turns or change of directions using turns. Inside turns and outside turns. I personally prefer outside turns initially. Why? Preparing for what comes next and having faith that what in my opinion too many focus on.
Hooking on or joining up, or whatever term you want to put on it - Not that it’s not important it’s just not on my priority list in front of preparing for where I’m going to be, in the saddle. Eye to eye transitions. Better prepare a horse for a rider to be behind them. As I work on these things and the other important priorities the horse soon craves the hooking on… it just happens anyway. It’s not something I have to work on. I have faith it will come. I know it will come.

Nothing Beyond the Basics; Control of Forward Motion-Directional & Speed (Part 3)

Today as we progress on the forward motion and obtaining it via the path of least resistance I'd like to address the use of the round pen for a moment. I'm certainly not gonna dog any other credible tools such as no pen at all or a square pen, rectangular pen, or any other shape. Yes, a tool can assist greatly if you know what project you're working on and the purpose. What tool one uses might, just might, depend on one's experience and the exact purpose being attempted. Here we will discuss a bit about a Facebook post I interacted in regarding a guy bashing round pens in favor of square pens.
Forward motion; for the sake of discussion we are going to be referring to horses that make up the vast majority of horse's world wide and not necessarily gaited horse's. Please note that I have absolutely nothing against gaited breeds at all. Just for the sake of simplicity I'll refer a lot to a walk, trot, canter, and perhaps a gallop. In the beginning, on any horse at any training or trained level I ask them to go forward by offering the path of least resistance and I couldn't care less what gait they choose as long as they are going forward. Of course I'd like them to ease off at a walk, but as long as they are going forward then I know all the other things I desire from them wil come. I just want forward motion when I ask for it.
Next episode we will discuss control of forward motion

The 4 Important Questions - RES008

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