Annoyed with myself (riding)

[Joanne_Stockport]

Ask once with a squeeze, ask a second time with a nudge, tell a third time with your whip on your boot and then tell a fourth with your whip behind your leg - and be consistent, so that he is aware if he ignores your first ask it will escalate. And as above, ensure it is leg without hands or hands without leg, never both at the same time.

That is what I was doing but he has learned to ignore those.
I know at some point the problem was that between the squeeze and the nudge/kick I was waiting to long.

 

[FlyingCircus]

It's fair to say, the majority of the time, you have a slight loop in your rein so you're not catching him in the mouth. However, your hands aren't very still and this can annoy some horses.

Where you do catch him is every time you ask for canter, he bucks and you land hard on his back and catch him in the mouth at the same time.

approx 16 seconds in is an example of this. You also raise your hands before/just as you kick for canter, which is catching him in the mouth (17 seconds). At this point, you're also pretty tense and rather than sitting the trot before you ask for the canter, you're asking and trying to sit at the same time and this results in you bouncing around abit with your hands up (don't worry - happened to the best of us when we were learning!!).

Instead, try and think about rising trot then when you want to canter, sit the trot until you feel relaxed (bouncing around all tense will make your horse not want to canter). When you're relaxed at the sitting trot, then ask for canter. If you can't relax when sitting trot - focus on this before you do more work on the canter transition. Then, after you've going rising trot, sitting trot, canter...each time the amount of sitting trot will become less and less as you get better and less tense.

At 18 seconds, he starts to canter(sorta!) and you get a little left behind, catching him in the mouth momentarily, although you do quickly move your hands forward.

I can't really see the moments where you catch him (if you even do) when you're at the bottom end of the school away from the camera, but at 1.34 ish..you kinda tickle him with the whip. I think your problem may lie (as long as he's all checked out and not hurting anywhere etc) in the fact you're not actually USING your whip. You kinda tickle him and he goes "ehhh...naahh". When you're in the top corner here too, you tickle him with it again and he goes "grr stop!" and bucks (it appears you got him in the mouth a little here too).

Again at 1.47 ish..you kinda boop him on the bum with the whip...

2.03 ish you ask him to canter..sit for 2 strides (kinda..more tense bouncing) and raise your arms out wide (catching him when he moves his head)..this would again really be helped if you did a bunch of sitting trot work so you can make sure you're not at all tense. Tense = bouncey.

I'm sure you get the idea and I don't need to go through the second half of the video.

The main things I can see are:
When he bucks, you become unbalanced and catch him in the mouth at times (sure loads of us are guilty of this occasionally!!).
You're bouncing when you ask for canter (instead of sitting the trot) because you're tense
You open your hands up high and wide(r) when you ask for canter
You tickle him with the whip rather than really meaning it.

If I were you in order to stop these I'd:
Work on rising trot, then sitting trot, THEN ask for canter like I mentioned before. This will take away the tense bouncing that you have. TRUST me when I say that everyone I have known is tense and bouncy when asking for canter at some stage in their learning :')
Hold onto the mane/saddle when asking for canter to make sure your hands don't develop a mind of their own! (again, happens to the best of us, my elbows do unexplainable things at times too!)
SMACK him with the whip rather than tickling him if the tickling doesn't get you what you want. It sounds horrid, but one sharp (yes, sharp) smack is not horse abuse! It's telling him to listen and it will make him realise you mean business.

In doing these things, you should hopefully get rid of the bucking and that will mean you won't catch him in the mouth As it's only when you're unbalanced by him that this seems to happen. I wasn't saying you were doing it every other stride or something, haha!

I'd also be very wary of making him worse with use of the spurs. If you use them too much, he'll just get desensitised to them too and also have very sore sides!


(Pheeeeew, essay much!! Hope I don't come across as rude/horrid as I'm trying to help, but understand that I could come across as hugely critical - I'm defo not meaning to be )

 

[meesha]

I also think cantering out hacking will help loads, make sure you ask for canter rather than just letting him run into it. You should find it much easier as he will be more forward going.

 

[Joanne_Stockport]

It's fair to say, the majority of the time, you have a slight loop in your rein so you're not catching him in the mouth. However, your hands aren't very still and this can annoy some horses.

Where you do catch him is every time you ask for canter, he bucks and you land hard on his back and catch him in the mouth at the same time.

approx 16 seconds in is an example of this. You also raise your hands before/just as you kick for canter, which is catching him in the mouth (17 seconds). At this point, you're also pretty tense and rather than sitting the trot before you ask for the canter, you're asking and trying to sit at the same time and this results in you bouncing around abit with your hands up (don't worry - happened to the best of us when we were learning!!).

Instead, try and think about rising trot then when you want to canter, sit the trot until you feel relaxed (bouncing around all tense will make your horse not want to canter). When you're relaxed at the sitting trot, then ask for canter. If you can't relax when sitting trot - focus on this before you do more work on the canter transition. Then, after you've going rising trot, sitting trot, canter...each time the amount of sitting trot will become less and less as you get better and less tense.

At 18 seconds, he starts to canter(sorta!) and you get a little left behind, catching him in the mouth momentarily, although you do quickly move your hands forward.

I can't really see the moments where you catch him (if you even do) when you're at the bottom end of the school away from the camera, but at 1.34 ish..you kinda tickle him with the whip. I think your problem may lie (as long as he's all checked out and not hurting anywhere etc) in the fact you're not actually USING your whip. You kinda tickle him and he goes "ehhh...naahh". When you're in the top corner here too, you tickle him with it again and he goes "grr stop!" and bucks (it appears you got him in the mouth a little here too).

Again at 1.47 ish..you kinda boop him on the bum with the whip...

2.03 ish you ask him to canter..sit for 2 strides (kinda..more tense bouncing) and raise your arms out wide (catching him when he moves his head)..this would again really be helped if you did a bunch of sitting trot work so you can make sure you're not at all tense. Tense = bouncey.

I'm sure you get the idea and I don't need to go through the second half of the video.

I will check the video again tonight but yes the transition from trot to canter is what is giving me most problems. So you are correct that I am probably catch him a bit in the mouth even though I try to move my hands when I realise. I will try to work on getting my hands more still...maybe grab his mane a bit to stop my hands going up to much?? I do tense when I know I am going to ask for a canter...I'm not afraid or anything like that it's more I have to think to much of everything I need to do and that makes me tense. I am going to practice a lot of posting trot and sitting the trot for 2-3-4 strides until I can get it right. I am ok when I start with sitting trot but it's when I go from posting and sitting that I struggle !

The main things I can see are:
When he bucks, you become unbalanced and catch him in the mouth at times (sure loads of us are guilty of this occasionally!!).
You're bouncing when you ask for canter (instead of sitting the trot) because you're tense
You open your hands up high and wide(r) when you ask for canter
You tickle him with the whip rather than really meaning it.

If I were you in order to stop these I'd:
Work on rising trot, then sitting trot, THEN ask for canter like I mentioned before. This will take away the tense bouncing that you have. TRUST me when I say that everyone I have known is tense and bouncy when asking for canter at some stage in their learning :')
Hold onto the mane/saddle when asking for canter to make sure your hands don't develop a mind of their own! (again, happens to the best of us, my elbows do unexplainable things at times too!)
SMACK him with the whip rather than tickling him if the tickling doesn't get you what you want. It sounds horrid, but one sharp (yes, sharp) smack is not horse abuse! It's telling him to listen and it will make him realise you mean business.

In doing these things, you should hopefully get rid of the bucking and that will mean you won't catch him in the mouth As it's only when you're unbalanced by him that this seems to happen. I wasn't saying you were doing it every other stride or something, haha!

I'd also be very wary of making him worse with use of the spurs. If you use them too much, he'll just get desensitised to them too and also have very sore sides!

I will try what you suggest, trying to smack and not tickle with the whip but I expect a whole lot of bucking. From my point of view it's when I use the whip that the bucking starts..Once he has done it a few times and I push him though it he stops doing it and starts listening more. The bucking at the start of the video could be because I catch him in the mouth but he never really bucked often before and I was riding the same way. The difference now is that if he doesn't do what I ask, I try to push him to do it ..before I was let him get away with it ! I also used my crop a lot more and he doesn't appreciate that !

(Pheeeeew, essay much!! Hope I don't come across as rude/horrid as I'm trying to help, but understand that I could come across as hugely critical - I'm defo not meaning to be )

Thank you for the explanations and taking the time to reply, it does help to understand the main points I should be working on. I am very critical about myself and hope I could learn quicker...wished I started to ride when I was younger and not at 44..it's probably easier when you are younger !

I also think cantering out hacking will help loads, make sure you ask for canter rather than just letting him run into it. You should find it much easier as he will be more forward going.

Yes we did a lot of hacking (not so much now because of the weather). Hacking is better then schooling (on his own he can nap quite a bit), he normally goes straight into canter when I ask, it's schooling that is more difficult..he is not too keen on that !