language of the lunge

8/8/2019 Language of the Lunge

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48 HORSE SPORT / November 2004 www.horse-canada.com

One of the most common (and frus-

trating) problems that people encounter

when asking a horse to go out to work

on the lunge line is the horse that sim-

ply turns in to quit and wont go or

the horse that stays in a small circle too

close to people, seemingly unwilling

to go out on to the bigger circle.

However, from the perspective of the

horse, far more often than not, the

horse who doesnt lunge is doing

exactly what he or she believes they are

being asked to do. This happens

because a horse reads our impulsivemessage, or push to go, by evaluat-

ing exactly where our core (belly button)

is aiming.

Photo 1: Here Kathryn wouldlike Geordie, a mixed German

warmblood, to go out to lunge.

However, her core is aiming at his hip.

This aim of the core to the hip is a com-

mon problem. Because we know that

impulsion comes from the hindquarters,

we naturally want to aim our first push

into the back end of the horse.Photos 1 3: However, as Kathrynaims her core at his hip, she is sending

only his hip out on the circle, which

results in Geordie essentially turning his

hindend around his front end. By aim-

ing at his hip, Kathryn is telling Geordie

to do small turns on the forehand, piv-

oting around me. So this is not a horse

refusing to go out on to the bigger circle

this is a demonstration of very com-

mon pilot error.

Photo 4: Kathryn is now trying tosend Geordie out on the circle with her

core focused more on his shoulder. Her

starting position and use of her aids

here is almost perfect. First lets look at

what Geordie sees in Kathryn. Her core

to shoulder alignment makes it clear to

Geordie that she wants his shoulders

moving over. Her whip comes level to

his flanks, asking him to move forward,

while moving his shoulders out on a

bigger circle. It is perfect that Kathryn

training tips

Language of the lungeby Chris Irwin

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November 2004 / HORSE SPORT 4www.horse-canada.com

has a bend on the left side of her

body. This bend tells Geordie that there

is no impulsive energy aiming into his

neck or head, which would cause him

to feel bullied and result in him

counter flexing. This would also cause

his haunches to fall in against her. Her

left hand aimed directly at the corner of

his mouth is NOT telling his head to

leave (because impulsion does NOT

come from the head, and pushing the

head will send him out counter flexed to

the right on a circle he is supposed to

be turning into on the left). Kathryn is

using her hand only as a blocking

boundary, like a closed door into her

personal space, or like a traffic officer

telling the horse that the road turning

into Kathryn is closed. Kathryn is in the

perfect position to send Geordie outwith a push from behind with the whip,

while her core tells the shoulder to

move over, her hips are out of his face

and her left hand tells him not to turn in.

However, as we look at the lunge line

we see that there is slack from her left

hand to his halter. This slack, or lack of

blocking contact, could allow Geordie

to deliberately counterflex if he should

choose to leave her with his head flexed

out and his barrel bending in. While her

left hand aimed at his mouth is blockinghim from turning in to face her it pre-

vents contact on the lunge line that

would be needed to keep his head from

turning out of the circle as he departs.

Photo 5: As it turns out, Geordie isreading Kathryn and he is seeing that

while she is sending his flanks forward

with the whip, and shoulder out with her

core, she has taken a step backwards

while she is asking him to leave to

lunge. This is also a very common prob-

lem with people as soon as those big

(potentially dangerous) horses begin to

move, our self preservation instincts

kick in and we subconsciously tend to

back away from the horse as it starts to

move. After all, we do not want to get

stepped on! However, the problem

here is that we are NOT sending an

impulsive message to the horse when

we back up. Just the opposite, when we

back up we tend to draw the horse in

towards us. It is critical that we develop

the resolve to stand our ground, and

we must maintain our personal bound-

ary with our hand aimed at the mouth

(exactly where the bit goes) so that we

can effectively block the neck from turn-

ing in as the face of the horse may want

to face/confront or challenge the push.

Photo 6: Geordie saw that Kathrynretreated when she needed to stand her

ground and push. Therefore, he

stopped moving forward, lifted and

rounded his neck (pulling his neck

back in like a turtle sucking its head

back into its shell), and has simply

turned his head to the inside of

Kathryns blocking hand. Because

Kathryn backed up, she compromised

her personal space boundary and

Geordie has, like a master chess player,

used his neck to put her push in

check. This photo shows the common

problem of a horse getting inside the

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circle because the person backed up.

The further problem here is that as

Kathryn rushes in and tries to quickly

regain her position she is now on the

outside of Geordies neck and any fur-

ther approach by her to regain her lost

ground will only push his neck farther

away from her. This can quickly lead to

an anxious horse running away as he

or she suddenly finds a person who just

backed off is now suddenly coming at

their face!

Photo 7: Kathryn has started oversuccessfully with her blocking hand up

and her core aimed at Geordies shoul-

der. She did not back up, so he has

finally gone out on the lunge circle.

However, if we look at Geordies topline

we see he is very inverted. This high

headed carriage is very stressful for ahorse and spurs adrenaline flow

through his spinal column into his brain.

Now look closely at how Kathryn is

holding the whip; it too is inverted and

pointing up. This raised whip is dis-

tressing to most horses, as it resembles

the frame of an aggressive, high-head-

ed horse. If we keep the whip low and

only raise it to the point where it is level

to the ground (as seen in the previous

photos) then, we are level-headed to

the horse. We are indeed assertive inour push, but we are not overly

aggressive or bullish. The only time to

raise a whip above level is when we

have been threatened by a horse (kick-

ing or striking out) and we know for cer-

tain that we did not inadvertently cause

the threat through careless use of our

body language.

Photo 8:Although Kathryn was ableto get Geordie out on the lunge with

correct position, she has now allowed

her body to drift out in front of his girth

and her core is aimed way out in front of

Geordie. Her hand on the line is

attempting to lead Geordie on the cir-

cle and he is becoming visibly dis-

tressed (inverted with a tight tail) as he

sees so much of her impulsive energy

in front of him. Kathryn is now in his way

instead of back on his body where her

push belongs. This forward pressure in

front of the horse is the leading cause of

counter-flexed horses on the lunge cir-

cle. Unfortunately, an educated rider will

most often attempt to fix this problem

with side reins. Side reins do indeed

serve a purpose, which we will look at in

an upcoming column. However, for

now, it should be enough to say that a

horse will get very stiff and tight in its

movement and will most likely react

badly if our body language is pushing

his or her head out while we use side

reins or our hand to block the head from

being able to go out. This mixed mes-

sage on the lunge line of pushing the

head out with our body language while

using rigging to prevent the counter-

flex is the leading cause of many violent

and unruly gestures such as bucking,

rearing, striking and kicking out at the

person who is asking for forward motion

from the horse.

Photo 9: Although Kathryn has herwhip low, Geordie is now extremely

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inverted and visibly stressed as Kathryn

continues to lunge him with her core

ahead of his shoulder. I just cant

emphasize this enough, and neither

can horses: forward movement or

impulsion from our core must be

directed into the body of the horse and

NEVER should we be aiming at or in

front of the head of the horse!

Photo 10: Subtle shapes/gestureson our part can cause profound reac-

tions in most horses. Here we see that

Kathryns leading shoulder, (her right

shoulder attached to the hand holding

the lunge line) is slightly turned in

towards Geordies head. This is caus-

ing his body to be too straight, with his

head and back inverted and his nose

turned out of the circle as a sympto-

matic reflection of him seeing Kathrynshouldering in towards his head.

Photo 11: Kathryn has a low to levelwhip encouraging forward from

Geordies flanks while her core is push-

ing his shoulder out of the circle. Also,

with a slight bend on her right side (we

shape ourselves the same way we want

to shape the horse, we bend our body

from the inside of the circle towards the

outside), Kathryn shows Geordie that

she is not pushing his face and he can

therefore relax his neck and stretch intoher contact. Her shoulders are parallel

to Geordie without any push to his face

by her leading shoulder as we saw in

the previous photo. Kathryns shape

and appropriate use of her whip is

encouraging Geordie to move forward

and relax his spine as he starts to bend,

all on his own, in order to come into the

space Kathryn is opening with her

bend.

Photo 12: While Geordie is now car-rying his neck slightly above level, we

can see that he is visibly more relaxed

throughout his body, his balance is

coming nicely, and he is beginning to

show bend and flexion from the inside

to outside of the circle. Kathryn has her

whip up and on for push, but it is level

as to be non-threatening. Her contact

has taken the slack out of the lunge line

to block Geordie (in case he decides on

his own to counter-flex) but her contact

is light and neither Geordie or Kathryn

are pulling against each other. Again,

we see that the slight bend in Kathrynfrom the inside-out encourages

Geordie to bend his barrel out while

allowing his neck to flex in.

Photo 13: Just a few minutes afterGeordie was so obviously stressed on

the lunge line, we see Kathryn aligned

in the correct position with her core

towards his shoulder, carrying herself

with bend, with absolutely no impulsion

aimed ahead of his shoulder, using her

whip assertively but not as a threat. We

now see that Geordie is indeed calm

and beginning to stretch while moving

out on the circle in a very balanced

frame. Also, look at the quiet, relieved

look in his eye!

In closing, as always, I encourage

you to remember that the performance

potential of our horses is directly related

to how they feel about us and how

they feel about us is most often a reflec-

tion of how we approach them or carry

ourselves. If our horses are misbehav-

ing or have issues, either from the

ground or from the saddle, more often

than not, we are inadvertently causing

the very problems we seek to fix.

Until next month, happy trails!

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language of the lunge

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