Horseback Riding Lessons

In the Parelli Method of Natural Horse Training, we don’t really give traditional horseback riding lessons or offer traditional horse training. Instead, we teach people to become partners with their horse and develop a relationship of trust and understanding.

Parelli Passenger Lessons – The Natural Approach to Horseback Riding Lessons

In the Levels Program, Parelli teaches riding lessons in the form of Passenger Lessons – teaching horseback riders to become good passengers. Here is a brief overview of what we suggest:

At Level 1, Passenger lessons are at just the walk and trot in a confined area. Staying in a round corral, no bigger than 50-feet in diameter, you learn to relinquish control to the horse and to flow with the go – going when he goes, turning when he turns, and slowing when he slows.

If the horse goes faster than what you feel comfortable with, bend him (lateral flexion) to a walk or stop and then release. Note: if you don't release after the bend he'll become more impulsive and not learn to maintain gait as his responsibility! (More info in the Level 1 Program).

In Level 2, you’ll advance to bigger areas at the trot, then proceed to canter in small areas (round corral), and then to canter in progressively bigger areas. The checklists in each lesson ensure you don't go there until you know you and your horse will succeed. Knowing what you can do, are brave enough to do, and what your horse is ready to do - that is called Savvy!

In Level 3, Passenger lessons are accomplished bareback.

Do What Your Horse Does

When you are doing a Passenger Lesson, if your horse braces (neck, ribs, etc.) you should brace too. Pat Parelli comments: “In lessons with International Study Center students, I saw that if the horse went fast and the student did, too, then the horse became calmer and slower. If the horse braced his body against the rider and the rider did exactly the same thing, matched it physically, the horse calmed down.”

With normal horseback riding lessons, if the horse gets braced and faster, we try to get more relaxed and slower. This actually feels like opposition and lack of rapport to the horse, and because he is emotional, it upsets him and makes it worse! Weird but true! Just when we think the life-saving thing to do is to hold back, the horse thinks the opposite! So, if we want to get on with the horse, to be in total harmony, we should do what he does.

Once we create harmony, rapport, synchronicity... only then can we lead it to where we want it to go. Pat comments again, “I have to admit I never had any idea of this before. I tried to control, I tried to restrict (out of fear) but all this did was upset my horse. Given the benefit of hindsight I realize that the real deal is to be so in rapport, so part of the horse that he thinks you are part of him, and not any way in opposition...this is when you have harmony. Having harmony means the horse will not think of you as a predator (a wolf in sheep's clothing), he'll think of you as someone just like him.”

The Walk

During horseback riding lessons, the walk is the easiest gait to sit on, and the hardest to do with fluidity! A lot of people push their pelvis forward with each stride when actually it's more of a shift of each hip as the horse moves each of his hips. This gives you a little more of a side-to-side motion rather than a back-and-forth one.

The Trot

The trot is one of the hardest horseback riding lessons for the human to learn, and the easiest for the horse! The trot is difficult to ride unless you can free

your hips up to do what your horse's hips are doing – moving independently of each other. Because our hips are usually stiff when riding, rising trot is often the easiest choice. You can practice sitting trot by trotting very slowly at first and coordinating your hip movement with your horse's hips. This makes an amazing difference!

The Canter

When cantering, most people tend to rock backwards with their shoulders, and scoot their seat forward, polishing the saddle as they go! Some riders have an awful time with horses that kick up or won't maintain the canter, or on the other extreme, get faster and faster and very emotional. To resolve these issues, do as your horse does: each canter stride is like a little "leap" so you have to do little leaps in your body! Try doing the same thing with your arms as your horse does with his front legs, matching each stride with exactly the same timing. While it might look a bit funny at first, your body will move in a dramatically different way that is now in harmony with your horse's movement as opposed to the first scenario I described, where the horse is leaping forward and you are scooting downwards into his back. By "leaping" or "reaching" up and forward with your horse at every stride, you become weightless and very comfortable to carry. So far, every horse on which Parelli students have tried this new technique has changed its way of moving (physically and emotionally) within minutes!

Over a relatively short time you can minimize your arm movements to where it's just your joints that move, everything from your ribs through your jaw, shoulders and arms. When this happens, you will know you've mastered one of the most important horseback riding lessons.

The Ribs - Zone 3

Many horseback riders complain that their horse is “stiff” and won’t “bend” around turns, but horses can't bend their ribs unless you are bending yours. Once again, if you think about how much curve you want in your horse's body and do the same in your body, your horse will find the freedom to be able to do it. Many riders sit stiff and keep their horses stiff because of it. Experiment with getting more "flexy" and fluid. Exaggerate to teach and learn, then refine as you progress.

Asymmetry

Have you experienced your saddle slipping to one side all the time? So you constantly have to stomp your foot in the other stirrup to straighten it? The side to which the saddle slips is the "hollow" side. This is caused by your horse carrying his ribs off center, toward the "full" side. An easy way to correct this is to sit in the center of the horse's rib cage, which may mean you are actually sitting crooked on your saddle. For example, if the rib cage is carried to the left, you would sit on the left side of your saddle's center. This would put you in the relative center of your horse's ribs. The worse the problem, the further you need to sit on that side.

Within minutes your horse will start to carry himself straighter and you'll be able to sit more toward the center again, but you'll probably have to repeat this each time you ride until you've installed a new habit for your horse. Some other symptoms you might recognize if your horse is carrying his ribs to the left: left leads are easy, right leads are difficult. Right circles are easy, left circles are difficult. Your horse will "drop" his shoulder on the left circles because he is counter bent and can't shape himself properly on the circle to stay balanced. Of course, if your horse carries his ribcage to the right, everything above will be the opposite.

Collection Versus Engagement

There's a lot of confusion here in this area. Horses can be mentally, emotionally and physically "collected" but that doesn't necessarily mean they are engaged. Engagement applies to when the hindquarters are carrying most of the weight and the hind legs are therefore positioned more under the body. There's upwards as well as forward movement, greater suspension and more power. In the Parelli method of natural horseback riding lessons, collection is achieved at Level 3. Engagement is covered in Levels 4, 5 and 6.

At each stage, your fluidity and balanced riding will increase as you learn to be the perfect passenger for your horse.