Bending Line Draw

Ok! So recently at some of my clinics I've started teaching a concept that Linda taught me over the last year with her called Bending Line Draw. There has been a lot of curiosity from those who can't make it to a clinic, and have seen others posts on PC and FB as to what this is all about! So I will attempt to share via this medium and see if I can help to clarify ;).

So after spending the last year with Linda it became obviously apparent how important expression is to her and how passionate she is about helping to give students keys to breaking through to their horses minds to create that positive expression. One of the EASIEST places to loose expression is in the yo-yo towards us. In my opinion this is for two main reasons ....

First with more right brain horses we are asking them to come straight towards our bullhorn of energy, and then as we move up through the levels sometimes we are even asking them to come FASTER towards that bullhorn. This can be very intense, and we often loose expression because these more RB horses get unsure. Those of you who saw the last Savvy Club DVD where I talk about that a little with my RBE mare and how hard it has been for her to truly allow her butterflies to settle while being in the middle of my bullhorn.

On the reverse, our LB horses can VERY easily think that they are being given the opportunity to drive or dominate us when we ask them to come towards us on the yo-yo. Especially if we back up and ask for more energy! So here we loose expression because they are trying to dominate us.

In either case, your horse hasn't gone, "YAHOO, I get to come to my person!!" which is what we are looking for!

So, when it comes to adding more energy in our draw, Linda has started talking about doing it through a "bending line" instead of a straight line. Basically I back my horse up (to start with I train this at about 8 ft back). Then I pull the shoulder back that has the line in it, and my stick is then in the other hand and set up to use if I need it.

Next I use my stick to add energy. If I have a very LB horse, who is going to loose expression or lay their ears back in an effort to drive us, I back up and as I am backing essentially send that horses shoulder away from me (Driving zone 3). I keep backing away and keep driving the shoulder away until the expression changes. I am always thinking of my horse arcing towards the shoulder that has the rope in it ... but essentially yielding the shoulder out of our way AS they come to us. This prevents them from thinking that they are driving us! And we can then add energy and create positivity.

For more RB horses you can use the exact same technique. For these horses you use your stick towards zone 3, so that instead of saying to the unconfident horse that they have to come straight towards our bullhorn with energy, you can allow for them to arc. Here they are also softening zone 3 which releases tension for RB horses as well.

I thought I'd also take a moment to share some possibly pitfalls I've seen as I've been teaching this. First thing that can happen is when you go to draw your horse, and he has a negative expression and you apply pressure (zone 2 for LB and zone 3/4 for RB) .... a lot of horses will then go "oh, it's circle game." So to combat this, what you want to do is create it that zone 1 reconnects to your shoulder. So as your horse is thinking circle, you want to keep backing, and keep applying pressure to zone 4 in order to push the HQ out and get zone 1 to think about you again. You may have to bump zone 1 a little bit, but attempt to do this as little as possible! As you are really aiming to create this draw for liberty, so what you want to be able to do is put pressure on a horse to draw towards you, with a positive expression.

The other possible pitfall is that a horse will think you want a disengagement, and do what I call "square up." This often happens with LB horses, and basically they get in the habit of getting really straight and driving us in the yo-yo. So when you add pressure they will get really straight and want to come to you that way instead of in a Bending Line. To combat this, you need to continue to drive the shoulder away.

So what we want to see in the Bending Line draw is a couple of things. First we want the horse coming to us with a positive expression. Next we want the ability to put pressure on a horse and ask them to increase speed without thinking either that this is TOO much pressure (RB), or that this is an opportunity to drive us (LB).

Hope that this helps, and let me know if you have any questions ;)