By Neil Pye [interviewed by Sam Cunningham]
Global Ambassador & Instructor Emeritus
For the last issue, we sat down with Neil Pye and talked about impulsion being a destination in itself. For this edition, we wanted to chat more about understanding flexion from a big-picture point of view.
What I meant by “impulsion being a destination in itself” is not everyone wants to explore flexion and finesse, which is our fourth Savvy. But it can open a wonderful world to you. It’s understandable when you're in your early stages with horses; you just want to be safe and have fun. You don't think about flexion but are surprised by how much progress you make by following the program.
Many people starting with horses, don’t know rapport and respect exist.
You deal with rapport and respect with horses daily. It's not something you do once. You're always working on getting the horse to use the thinking side of his brain rather than the pre-animal side. This is how he starts to develop partnership thinking.
You’re working on your horse's mental collection by balancing rapport and respect. By getting your horse to think, he learns to respond, not react. Then with impulsion, when a horse can walk, trot and canter on a loose rein, and you can speed the horse up and slow down with body language, that's an emotional collection. That's critical.
You need the mental collection of rapport and respect. You need the emotional collection of impulsion because if your horse is not calm, smart, or brave and you try and add flexion, it’s dangerous.
The success of the Parelli Program over the last 40 years is because it takes a more logical approach to things like finesse, engagement, and power. When you flex a horse with two reins and build up his engagement, strength, and power, you will have a calm, smart, brave horse.
You will want built-in relaxation, acceptance, and willingness before adding power and engagement.
Some of our students forget what they have learned through On Line, Liberty, and Freestyle. They don’t mean to, but they get direct lined. They hear the word flexion and think Dressage. They believe two reins mean getting the horse’s head in and down.
Finesse is the result of every step before. It's a combination of rapport, respect, and impulsion. As a result of those things in Levels 1-4, flexion and finesse start to arrive.
It arrives because of self-carriage. It comes because the horse knows his responsibilities. The horse starts to present flexions and finesse because we know our responsibilities and stick to them.
For example, we know we've got to learn to act like partners, not predators. We're not like that in Level 1. We probably love horses, but we tend to be all about love, not much language or leadership.
Often, humans lack emotional stability. We get caught in a trap where we ask the horse to go but get scared and pull on their face, which can cause the horse to get very resentful.
So, a large part of what we do in On Line, Liberty, and Freestyle is to prepare the human so that we can use the thinking side of our brain. These Savvys help us develop independent feet and seats. You can't do finesse if you ride poorly because your bouncing hands and seat are connected directly to the horse’s mouth. You can't convey a refined conversation if you are not in control of yourself on a horse's back.
First, we've got to be a partner.
Second, we must develop an independent seat.
Third, we must look at life from the horse's point of view. It needs to become almost instinctual. It’s a line we have been saying for years, but if you truly put the horse’s needs first, progress will come. But that's hard to do under pressure, especially when you start thinking about your safety and ambitions.
The last of the human responsibilities is to use the natural power of focus. The Power of Focus is not the subject of focus or the category of focus. It's called power for a reason. If you are still looking down at the horse when he speeds up or does things, you don’t understand the power of focus.
This focus is critical when it comes to finesse. You must operate via a feel, through your body and the reins.
If you look down, you are inhibiting the feel through your body, senses, and reins. So, you've got to embrace the power focus. You better be looking up, feeling down.
We teach it's two reins for communication and one rein for control. You'll probably get direct line with two reins if you don’t understand that phrase in all its applications. Instead of using your body and all your phases to prepare the horse, you'll get tight and tense, look down, and pull on the reins. You just forget everything you've learned about in the program.
We learn in the early stages that communication is through body language. Through the program, it starts to become one of our habits. The last thing we want to do is throw that away, get direct line and pull on two reins.
Of course, you will not succeed at the finesse if you haven't taught your horse his responsibilities. If your horse acts like a pre-animal or gets emotional when you ask for faster gaits, he is not acting like a partner. If they can only do it at the slow gaits, you haven't done enough in the prior levels. You haven't dealt with his emotional collection yet.
Your horse needs to learn his responsibilities:
- You must teach him not to act like a pre-animal.
- They must understand they don't change their gait. That means you control the speed.
- Don’t change directions. That means you direct him where to go.
- It’s their job to look where they are going. How will your horse know where you want to go if you aren't using the power of focus?
For all that to happen, they have to be using his brain's thinking side.
A big part of Freestyle is the horse learning to get under our eyesight, shoulders, hips, and between the reins. This is the sweet spot. He's in a calm, quiet place. He must understand that before we go to finesse.
So, finesse is a refinement thing, not a gross motor skill. The gross motor skills you have to teach a horse to be successful at Finesse are born in Levels 1-3 in On Line, Liberty, and Freestyle.
What are common problems we humans have with this savvy?
As I mentioned, the biggest block can be getting direct line. The other one would be to understand the term feel. Horsemanship takes feel, but it takes a lot of experience to develop feel. That is finesse. It is about feel, focus, timing, savvy, and experience.
If you haven't developed a feel, you will struggle with finesse. It's very easy to go through Levels 1 and 2 and into a bit of Level 3 by doing a lot of Game One and Game Three. However, this isn’t effective without Game Two, which focuses on feel.
When we talk about finesse as the fourth Savvy, it is the culmination of everything before. The biggest mistake is not getting rapport, respect, and impulsion right. The horse gets emotional and fast, so we want to grab the rein. A lot of students will talk their instructors into starting them with flexion. Why? Because they want to hang onto something to control the horse and their emotions and fears, rather than use the reins for refinement.
A good instructor should encourage you to develop an independent seat and the power of focus. If you cut those corners and just work on finesse, we will get the same results traditional training has gotten over the last 100 years.
Prey animals are panic-a-holics and claustrophobic. We've all heard that many times. The whole purpose of On Line, Liberty, Freestyle is to develop the horse’s emotional fitness. We remove the claustrophobia and right-brain instinct to feel trapped and get them to understand compression.
When you refine your aids, they see your legs and reins with a strong focus. They feel these aids as compression and understand this is more sophisticated communication. You must ensure claustrophobia is removed and replaced with another compression. As a horseman, you must become a partner instead of a threat.
Level 1 concerns the ABCs, language learning, and spelling C.A.T or D.O.G. For Level 2, we ask for a deeper understanding of the Seven Games. In Level 3, you start to minimize claustrophobia and the prey animal instincts.
Then in Level 4, we refine our conversations. If you are not very refined with your On Line in the previous levels, you cannot build finesse in this level.
For example, if you are sticking your arm in the air and flailing your carrot stick, you aren't ready for refined communication. You've not refined your actions. You are still having to use the stick too much.
If your horse doesn't understand the Games, finesse will not work. Finesse is not a new subject. It's a coming together of all the other Savvys.
Flexion is a big subject and confusing for many horse owners. To simplify it, think of it as the final result of the prerequisites On Line, Liberty, and Freestyle. Another way to view flexion is as flexibility of thinking. You and your horse should be flexible and learn to adjust to fit the situation.
So, it's not only flexion of their head and neck or hocks and hind quarters. That's the technical part, and that's important, but equally, if not even more important, is the flexibility you've built in their minds and emotions. They see you as part of the solution, not the problem.
