The Leading John Lyons Certified Natural Horsemanship Trainer In San Diego
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By Beth Collins
If someone told you that there was one simple ground exercise that could teach
your horse: forward, back, collection, softness, stop, proper self carriage,
impulsion, rhythm, canter departs and more, would you be interested? If
someone told you that this exercise required no special equipment, had three
steps and developed muscles on your horse you could only find on an iron man,
would you be skeptical? Of course you would. How many of us have tack sheds
full of that one magic piece of equipment; closets full of once viewed training
tapes, stacks of stained and tattered horse magazines with dog eared training
articles slipping from their staples? Probably all of us…you know who you are.
Well, ladies and gentleman, it exists and it is called Hip-Shoulder-Shoulder. I give
full credit for the creation of this exercise to John Lyons, my teacher and
inspiration. If any of you horse folk out there feel you thought of this first and
have been doing it for years, I apologize for not throwing the kudos your way, and
applaud you for loving your horse enough to use this valuable tool.
The beauty of this is its' simplicity. By repeating the steps in its' basic form (that
is, with no thought beyond practicing each step for the sake of each step) you will
in a short time, have a horse that is stopping and backing better than you will
have ever experienced before. Take the next logical step in the exercise, and
focus on your problem area. Go forward, for instance, and you will see benefits
outside of your riding goals, like trailer loading issues, entering wash rack foibles,
and leading problems of all other sorts. Put a little more practice time in, and
suddenly your horse has a spectacular….uh….booty. Not to mention gaskin,
stomach and shoulder muscles. But here is the most amazing part of all! You
can use this exercise to actually calm your horse down, get him out of a sticky
situation, turn a wreck into a controlled and beneficial series of movements (aka
no one will know it’s a wreck). Imagine a ride, show or lesson experience where
you felt 100% in control 100% of the time! Ready to learn this now?
Lets start with general information. The name, Hip-Shoulder-Shoulder, well, that
refers to the horse. You will be using his jaw to influence these other parts. Now
remember when I told you there was no special equipment needed? Well, I lied,
but I am sure in your cobweb ridden tack sheds you will find all that you will need.
A nice full cheek snaffle, a cotton lead rope and a dressage whip ought to do the
trick. Fit the snaffle to the horses bridle, attach the lead rope on the left side of
the bit, hold the whip in your right hand, stand by your horse’s left shoulder,
facing your horse in kind of a longing position and lets begin.
The whip is your gas peddle. Use it only on your horse’s hip. Start with the least
amount of pressure from the whip needed to get your horse to walk forward
continuously with out constant reminders from you. For a few of you that may
mean lift it two centimeters off the ground, and your horse will be galloping
sideways. Once the horse is walking forward calmly with out dragging you or you
dragging him (remember this is not leading but driving from the hip and following)
you would then take the slack out of the rein/lead rope adding pressure to the left
side of your horses mouth, causing him to do one of several things: stop, pull on
you and keep walking back up quickly with his mouth open, open his mouth and
turn his head sideways while continuing to walk, or maybe run. The answers are
as varied as the horses we teach this to. Your focus will be on trying to get the
horse to stop his forward momentum and disengage his hip to the right by
stepping his hind foot closest to you across in front of his other hind foot and then
taking each of his shoulders back one step. Then you release the rein and
praise the horse lavishly. Got it?
I highly recommend you practicing without the horse first. Talk your way through
the steps envisioning what it is you are asking for from your horse physically.
Meaning what part moves where, when, and how. You will look silly, try to do this
in the privacy of your living room or out behind the barn in the wee hours. Once
you can get your hands and feet to work independently, while uttering the mantra,
“forward, good, slack out, hip over, foot in front of other foot, lines up feet behind
front feet, good, shoulder back one step, good, other shoulder back one step,
release the rope/rein…..good boy!”
Then try it out on a human friend, a good friend, a friend you have some horrid
little secret on. Don’t attach the bit to this friend. Simply have him or her hold the
rope in their hand at shoulder height, by bending their elbows so the wrist and
hand is at their shoulder. Proceed through the steps, while encouraging the
volunteer to act out several horse-like scenarios as mentioned previously. Once
you feel you can stay focused on the lesson even when your friend is not
following the steps as you are repeating them in your head and you have the
ability to deal with this by sticking to a certain part of the exercise until it falls into
place, you are ready to add the equine aspect to this. If you are confused at this
point after reading all of this, remember that feeling. Your horse will feel the same
way you do now. The lesson is always clearer to the teacher than to the student.
Wise words from Mr. Lyons. If you get frustrated and angry with your horse just
imagine me reaching through your computer screen and smacking you a good
one for not understanding me…..ludicrous, I know. You wouldn’t like to be a
student very long if your teachers abused and berated you for not understanding
their instruction, would you? Cut your horse the same slack, and remember “If he
knew it he would do it” John Lyons.
The following is the anatomy of Hip-Shoulder-Shoulder on an average horse.
One that is not afraid of a whip, does not pull excessively on his bit etc. It may
help to see its' evolution into the upper levels of the benefits from this exercise.
1) Horse moves off easily when whip is raised and walks calmly in a 20 meter
circle with you(that means your feet are walking too)
2) You stop your feet and take the slack out of the rope and the horse stops
its shoulders and hops its hind end around, then backs up stiffly with its head
straight out in front of it. You begin to practice at a trot.
3) As you practice you notice the horse no longer puts pressure on the rein
as he backs up and the hip flows smoothly to the side
4) Now not only is there no pressure on the back up but you notice that your
horses hindquarters are lowering during the back up and during the forward he
springs off of his hind end, instead of dragging himself forward with his shoulders.
5) Soon you notice that the horse is not putting any pressure on the bit as he
circles around with you and his head is staying slightly inside the circle as you trot
6) You can actually pick up the rein at a stand still and he will glide smoothly
backwards. Giving his jaw and lowering his hind quarters.
7) Once your horse has begun to back up instead of disengage on a regular
basis you will notice the jaw raising the poll as your horse backs up. Eventually
the poll will affect the withers lifting the horse over its quarters.
8) All the horse’s takeoffs are off of his haunches, and he travels in a
rhythmic, collected manner. No longer falling onto his forehand as he transitions
from stop to go. Or backing to go forward.
9) You are able to lengthen and shorten your horses stride within the
exercise. By asking for more foot speed your horse springs into a collected canter
in hand!
10) By shortening your horses stride you are ready to take your first steps of
piaffe…it just keeps getting better from here.
Copyright 2003 Beth Collins
