That ONE takeaway that affects your riding today

Have you ever been to a clinic, either as participant or auditor, and come away with a whole bunch of ideas one of which keeps coming back to you time and again?

I audited a Walter Zettl clinic about seven years ago and at the time I noticed that on average every other direction to the rider was "Let go."  I got a lot of other things out of that clinic, but once I cracked the secret of "Let go" nothing else has had so much effect on my riding (and coaching - my poor students would probably admit to hearing "Let go" a lot!).  "Let go" isn't dropping the horse, or leaving him to his own devices for a set number of strides or seconds.  "Let go" doesn't mean loopy reins.  "Let go" applies to legs and seat and back and abdomen just as much as hands.  "Let go" means "Let the tension out of your muscles so that when you apply the aid the horse feels the difference and can respond because you've taken the block created by tension out of the lines of communication."  It is so simple an idea, and yet so easy to get wrong, while at the same time being so rewarding when gotten right.

The horses love it.  They don't understand that an ounce more pressure on top of the five pounds already there is actually an aid and not just a rider shift.  Take that five pounds back to zero for even a split second and all of a sudden the ounce of pressure gets a big response.  It's hard because humans are terrible judges of how much pressure we are using when concentrating hard on the whole and we think we let go when the horse knows we didn't.

Thank you Master Zettl!!