John Irish workshop

Things I learned at the John Irish clinic

John has really helped me ride square and stay in the middle of the horse - look where I'm going, drive with my legs, keep my hands still while driving the horse into the bit- not chasing the face around with my hands- drawing both reins in one hand straight to my bellybutton - sometimes my sternom.
We worked on keeping the Shoulders the up in a twelve foot circle and in a straight line.
Not to brace or lean back at the stop,
Have someone watch and tell you what he sees
Releasing after bridling up is like hitting the reset button
My horses are too backed off
I need to ride my horses more forward
I need to keep my horses shoulders up in the turn around - which later felt like more compression, more bridled up, straighter

I watched John help his wife Rose whose horse seemed to want to run pretty strong in the big fast circles- instead of just letting the horse run hard until he tired John had Rose bridle the horse up, (I mean really bridle the horse up) while keeping forward motion, then turn the horse loose. (hit the reset button) After an aplication or two of that the horse was more willing to slow down

After practicing the twelve foot circle with the shoulders up my horse that over bent in her right circle traveled straighter and guided better in the large fast.

I'm still working on getting more forward in my horses- it helped to use a leather curb strap and a bit with less port- I lowered it in the horses mouth and it helped her from lifting her chin a little when transitioning to being bridled up- I'm working on taking out the resistance and adding forward.

Also I leaned, in so many words, to pick a direction and go for it, even if its not exactly right- which is what I did after his last clinic last fall- I miss interpreted some of the things I thought I was seeing him do or immagined him teaching- It may have not been exactly what he had in mind but nevertheless it helped my horses.

Also today two days after the clinic I experimented with lots of rollbacks in the bigger faster circles, not real fast, - just used woa and rolled back the other way- after lots of bridling and forward and reset button- the combination of the two worked nicely to get the mare backed off - didnt pull on her at all. just said woa- the first two times it scared her to death and she tripped over the dirt and 'bout fell over- anyway the rollback drill worked- not something John taught or probobly would condone- but hey, I picked something and went with it, and it worked, at least for me, for now. We'll see.