To hold a Cat's Tail

I came across a saying attributed to Mark Twain. “If you hold a cat by the tail, you will learn things you can learn in no other way.” Being a cat owner, I found some humor in this statement. It also brought back some memories involving claws and wounded fingers. Mind you, I didn’t set out to hold the cat by the tail on purpose. When one is playing “Catch the Cat” and the cat makes dash from one hiding place to another, a grab is made and somehow the hand wraps around the tail. Let the learning commence.
Besides the literal meaning of Mark Twain’s saying, I also thought of how many times we can only learn by experience, by going out and doing, taking action. Sometimes we just need to plunge right into the task. Other times there is a way to learn parts of the task before we put it all together as a whole job. Much of the learning we do with our horses is like this.
For instance, learning to move with the horse in the trot, sitting or rising. I can describe what to do or how a person must move, but in the end, it is a matter of asking the horse to trot, then bounce around while trying to get our muscles to learn what they are supposed to do. We just have to “learn on the job” as it were.
An instance of learning a task a piece at a time is staying on top of the horse when they spook. How many spooks does it take to learn to ride one effectively? Is there a way to learn to ride the spook with out the “spook”? Or do we just get to “hold the cat by the tail” and learn the “hard way”?
We can learn to ride the spook. I don’t recommend you start by having a friend pop a balloon under your horse and seeing if you can ride the results. No doubt you would learn things by doing this, but they may be things that you really didn’t want to learn. It’s tackling the whole job at once.
Rather have a friend help you by leading or lunging your horse while you ride without reins, otherwise known as handlebars, and without stirrups. Have a friend or teacher lead you along, slowly at first, with your eyes closed so you can learn to feel the horse move. The end goal is to be able to have the horse lead anywhere, with unannounced changes of direction, while your eyes are closed. This helps you get a real feel for how the horse gets ready to move. When you recognize the how the horse gets ready to move you have that much more time to react. Do this in all directions, forward, backward and sideways. Especially sideways, as this is most commonly what the horse does when spooked. You can ask for a complete sideways movement or just a change of direction with a big step sideways from the forequarters. Start out with what is comfortable, such as a western saddle with a “handle “to grab. The goal being to be able to eventually do this on a bareback pad.
A way to accomplish a more effective seat on your own is to ride the horse in a confined area, example a round pen or small pasture area, without guiding the horse. Hold the reins but let the horse go where he wants. Also let the horse stop briefly when he wants to. Then send him forward again. You will learn the feel of the horse getting ready to stop. At the walk, there won’t be as much to feel of as in the trot, but it is a place to start gaining confidence in the exercise. When you ask for trot, you will definitely feel the horse get ready to turn or stop.
To learn the feel a bit quicker, you can close your eyes. This eliminates the visual distractions. If you can close your eyes, then the feel becomes even more pronounced. If you can’t quite close your eyes, that is ok.
When you have worked your way up to 20 minutes of trotting while just riding the horse where ever it chooses to go, you will be amazed at how well you feel your horse getting ready to change speed or direction. One of the main pieces is to just let the horse go where he wants to. No direction from you other than go forward. Just ride what the horse offers, giving no direction in where to turn or when to turn, just keep asking for forward. If the horse offers to go faster then you would like, then ask for the slow down by circling, though eventually, if you can let him go faster, the more you can learn. Slow down by making smaller and smaller circles until you reach the speed you like, then let the horse go in any direction again. You may find yourself doing this many times until the horse realizes he doesn’t need to go so fast. In the beginning, the horse will do a lot of stopping at the gate or a corner, just keep encouraging him forward with a slight help out of the corners if needed.
Our posture while we ride is important as well. We need to be in the most balanced position possible. One thing that happens when a spook occurs, is that our chain of muscles from our toes to our head, gets completely stiff. We become one solid piece with no give to the horse’s movement. We also tend to lean forward as we lose our balance, partly because we are usually grabbing for a handhold and partly because that’s how we catch our balance when we walk. This is a place where a friend can help you learn the difference between being stiff and letting our seat follow the horse. Have your friend slowly pull you off to the side as you sit in your saddle. Feel how your muscle chain tightens to resist the pull. If you stay stiff, the distance your shoulder travels before you “lose your balance” isn’t far. If you give at the waist, you can be bent quite far to the side before your balance is lost. Also compare the difference between “grabbing with your toes” and “grabbing with your heels”. We tend to “grab with our toes” to stay upright. This throws our feet backward and our torso forward, putting us way out of balance. “Grabbing with our heels” or putting weight into them, keeps our torso upright and our feet under us.
One thing I note is that we tend to go about the rest of our daily activities not thinking much about our posture or effective body use. The better we are at having effective posture during our daily activities, the better we will be in our horse activities. Learn to pay attention to how you drive, sit at the table or desk and even how you walk. Becoming aware of our body movement is a huge piece of effective riding.
Next time you see a cat, take a good look at it’s tail. Ask yourself, “Do I need to hold that tail to learn things I can learn no other way”? Or maybe there is another way to learn what we need to know. Sometimes we just need to plunge in and learn and other times we can learn gradually.