The Real Reason Your Half-Halt Isn't Working - JJ Tate

I typically kick the episodes off just by having the guest tell us who they are and what it is they do. My name is Jessica Joe Tate, but everybody calls me JJ and I am an international dressage writer and trainer and I also run an online Academy called Team Tate Academy where I share classical dressage principles in very easy to digest, bite size short videos. Once a week you get a new video. I’m riding with a microphone and I try to keep them short and concise so you can have a really easy quick study guide at home. I’ve been riding FEI for over 30 years and I grew up in Wisconsin so I’m a small town girl and now we run our farm in Landrum, SC.

I’ve competed internationally Grand Prix and working on bringing the next wave of talented young horses up the levels to do it again. Awesome. I actually subscribe to Team T Academy because I just find your videos to be so fun to watch. They don’t always feel like sometimes when you sign up for a dressage lesson, it can feel like a lot of information. And I feel like your videos just do such a good job at you’re just always breaking things down in ways that feel very digestible.

I love that. I love hearing that because I do think dressage can be overwhelming and confusing and yeah, there’s just so many aspects to it. And over, I love to teach, and I’ve had wonderful instructors and teachers and trainers in my life. And so I’ve got a lot of people to pull from different ways of that I learned it and different ways I’ve taught it. And so it’s really fun for me to do exactly that.

Break it down that it doesn’t seem so. Yeah. Serious or hard trying to keep the beautiful classical principles alive in a really modern day way that you can apply it to your horse at home, no matter what level, no matter what breed, no matter where you live. And that’s been really a joy to hear people say how much they’re getting out of video lesson. COVID was an awful thing but thank you COVID because I never ever would have gone on the Internet because I didn’t even know what Zoom was at that time.

I teach a lot of clinics in person and so I couldn’t leave the property and no one could come to the property. And so I was like, I don’t know what am I going to do? And a friend of mine was like, we should go. We should because I was actually like meeting with builders to actually build an actual brick and mortar Academy because, and I’m sure we’ll get into this more, Charles de Comfy has been my mentor and he grew up riding in the academies of Europe and grew up in Budapest, Hungary. And they had the sister school to the Spanish Riding school.

And so I always heard these stories about the Academy, how you need to learn theory and how you need to learn in groups and change horses all the time. And I had a wonderful growing up in Wisconsin where I basically got a little bit of that education. I got to ride a lot of different horses. And so I was thinking of actually like building an actual place where people could come. And then of course, everything just, you know, forget that.

And my friend, she was like, who helped me start it. She was like, we should go online. And I’m like, who learns? Who learns writing online? And she was like, no, trust me, I think we could do it in a way.

She goes, you have such a vast way of explaining things that people really get it. She goes, I think it’ll be really great. And so, and it’s neat because I grew up in Wisconsin and then I had my first barn and business in Wisconsin. Then I moved to Maryland and now we live in South Carolina and I’ve been in these locations for quite a long time, each place. And so I’ve established a wonderful group of dedicated clients who become family.

And so it was a really fun way to support them. Also because I’ve moved away from my people in Maryland too. And so it was a fun way for them to reconnect to my teachings, but I’m just passing down from my wonderful teachers as well. Yeah, it’s funny because I’m an event writer and so dressage is a part of that. But we always joke if we’d like to dressage, we just do dressage.

And I actually, I really do love the process of working through the movements and overcoming physical limitations or things that were thought of as physical limitations with the help of dressage. And. As a professional, finding the time to go myself and take a lesson can be really tricky. And I just find I get so much out of literally just sitting down, and for the next 20 or 30 minutes I’m going to watch one or two videos and really just take notes and process so that way I can take the bits and pieces that apply to whatever horse I think it needs to be applied to. Totally, and that’s the thing we always have a saying where teaching is repeating.

If you thought about how many times you tell your horse like hey, this is the half fault rebalance or that’s my leg move off or whatever. It’s just a constant game of and we begin again and we begin again. And so for us to be able to do that through actual like conscientious study, I think is something in this world that everything is going so fast and we don’t have time for anything. And, but just to sit down and take notes. And I’m a notorious note taker.

Like even clinics, I’m in my late 40s and I still like, I have a teacher come, I have a colleague come, I want to write stuff down because I’m like, I really like how she said that or I really like what I felt there. And so like these catch phrases that you can write down and be like, oh, that connected for me. That’s something that if you write it down, it floats back into your subconscious that even though when you’re writing, that could float back up and be like, Oh yeah, what did she say about that half fault? Or what did I see? And it’s funny because I say to my students too, I’m like, sometimes I would just drive in my car and listen to it.

You don’t even have to like watch it because it’s just what it means to you and your horse. And that might not look exactly like the video, but the words can be really powerful to let that settle in to your to your process of analyzing the horse where he’s weak. We’re as a rider, we’re weak or strong. And I always, I always tell my adventures too. I’m like, what improves jumping the most is the dressage and just building like a sound, happy, confident horse that uses their body the best way.

And I just absolutely love your sport. Like I’ve helped Allison Springer a lot of years and honestly, like Rolex, which is now not Rolex anymore, it was always the most amazing weekend of my year to go help her there. But then she would always be like, you got to stay. I would come and help her with the dressage and she’d be like, no, you can’t leave. You’re here.

You got to stay through Saturday. Exactly again. I don’t have time, but then I’m like, I have time. I want to see Arthur go. And then it was like exhilarating and amazing, but watching the best riders do it.

It’s poetry and motion. Balance the horses between the leg, it’s in front of the leg, it’s behind the half hall. 2 beings working completely together to have this amazing, harmonious, powerful achievement. Like then over the next fence and then the same gathering it together, making sure the horse is on the aid and like with your brain, it’s just, it’s like dressage on crack. My horse is not popping in front of my leg between both.

He might miss a one time Tempe, but you guys are going to have a run out. It’s a big thing. But I think that’s what’s so exciting about both sports, that that you can really put that horse in a perfect state of balance and then there’s really nothing you can’t do. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier, but like, we’re living in this era of what’s referred to as modern sport, but you use a lot of classical technique and training.

And how do you find it to manage keeping the classical principles at the core of your training while still competing at the top level of the modern sport? Yeah. Great question. And I’ve been so fortunate to have met Charles de Comfy when I was 11. It was totally luck that he came to my small town.

My trainer in a small town, Wisconsin, I don’t even know how she found this e-mail or phone number. We don’t even have emails in the 90s. She had to call him. She had to find his phone number and call him on the phone and he came to our small town. From that first meeting, I was like, he just took me away to a different time where you could learn in an Academy, writing and these classical principles that were handed down through time going back to 300 BC.

Like when you start to understand what a part of history you are, when you want to ride, when this isn’t just riding dressage. This is also, I hear so many classical principles in natural horsemanship and good jumping that it isn’t just like only dressage, but to be able to have the opportunity to have ridden with Charles so many years on so many different horses in these clinics. And then he sent me to Europe when I would graduated high school. He sent me over to Europe, to EULA Dollos, and I lived in Budapest. And then I’d experienced not the Academy because of course it’s gone now.

During the war, the Russians bombed it all, but the buildings were still there. It wasn’t an Academy anymore, but we still train there. And it’s like, magical to be a part of that. But this idea that Charles always keep these principles alive. And then I would ride in the clinic and my scores would always go up and he would always say like nothing incorrect can be elegant.

Like it has to be correct to be good. It has to be correct to be elegant. The thing about the classical principles as same as in like classic ballet, it’s all based on science and physics. And so it actually makes everything more correct and full, more full of integrity. I find my horses stay sounder, they stay happy, they’re light in the contact.

I don’t need to crank their mouth shut or get bigger bits. So for me, it’s the only way to train and my horses actually become more successful because of that. And so that’s what I really, one of my big dreams and goals of my life is to bring those that beautiful riding, that classical way into the top sport that you don’t have to do it with like ugly pressure and angst for the horses. And nobody needs to be like white sweated and like pressured and unhappy. And if you ask the horse, hey, do you want to be here?

They would say, yeah, I do because if this feels good, I understand what my job is and physically strong enough to do my job. And I’m trained to be confident in myself and in my rider and what they request from me. And that’s really what gives me purpose and to help other people find that through this beautiful way of writing and training, you will actually become like more successful if, and again, it’s not that you have to compete, but I find it fun because I’m competitive and I like it, but it also helps me make sure I’m on the right path, which I know sounds a little bit funny with, oh, is it competitive or classical? But for me, it lets me know my training’s on the right way just because it’s a test of my skills. Can I get the horse in such a good way, strong and alert to my aid that I could canter right there?

Or could I make a flying chain right there? And so for me, there’s only good riding and bad riding. And so it’s really fun for me actually to like test myself with my competition to be like, how easy are these tasks that I’m supposed to do at this level? Yeah. And sometimes I feel like just going to competition is relationship building.

Completely. And I find, yeah, like so many things when the energy is up, like things show up, like a lot of times I’ll be like, oh, he doesn’t do that at home. That’s because at home he’s comfortable and he’s not worried about his environment or whatever. And so that helps me know what I could look for at home. But I also have got a busy day and I’ve got a lot of horses and if I could clean all their stalls and groom them all and ride them all, like I would totally do that.

I love scooping grain. But now like I have to be in the ring, I have to be riding, I have to be teaching. So I lose that part. And sometimes just in the evenings before I head down to the house, I just hang out with them because love them and they are my best friends. But when I go to the horse show, I get to spend that time with them.

And so for me, I love that time away from my everyday program because I take two or three and I’m just with them. I got time to hand graze and groom them and just have the door open and be sitting there in my chair and having them eat my hat like whatever they’re trying. It’s just like fun to spend that day-to-day time because I now with my life the way it is, I don’t always get to groom them and spend that time. I for me find. Yeah, just like you’re saying when you approach it in the right way and not I must get the store and horse.

I need to demand that you are obedient. You do what I tell you when it’s actually like 2-2 beans going after the same goal, which is what I honestly witnessed that Rolex, you can’t be forcing that horse to do any of that, right? Because it’s not possible. They have to want to do it. They want to have to do it for you and you’ve got to be with them.

And there’s like this mutual trust that I find really inspiring. And so I like to that’s what I want to bring to the horse show of can I, with my dance partner, do the selected footwork that we’re supposed to do in a way that makes us both proud? Yeah, no, it’s funny. I I live in Aiken and we have the Bruces Field showcase of eventing in the like late winter early spring and I had an owner in here for the weekend and she was horsey but hadn’t really been around a lot of competition and she saw the horses before they went into the start box. And.

The horses are like jigging and they just like kind of can’t wait to. Get into the start. Box and and she goes, Oh my God, like the horse actually loves this. And it’s ‘cause sometimes I think we live in such a world where social media can shine a bad light and on the top of all horse sport. And when you actually get to see, I think eventing is such a good example because it really doesn’t matter how much force you use, you’re not going to get a horse over a solid obstacle if they.

Want to go completely exactly. And I think yeah, like for people to like people that large to be able to witness that I think the incredible generosity power horses have the grit and determination these para riders have is incredibly inspiring. But also yeah, like a venting horses like they love it. They love it. They can’t wait to do it.

Just turn me loose. I can’t wait. And that’s you would never, like you’re saying there would be no way you could force your way around any kind of course, if they didn’t also if they weren’t also hungry for it. And that’s for me. Like, I want my horses to, like, can’t wait to because it makes them feel proud.

And yeah, it’s hard work for sure. And it’s a taxing event for sure. But you’ve prepared. There’s trust, there’s power. And it’s two people on the same team going after whatever it is they’re going out.

That’s for me what it will always be about for sure. So one of the things that I really wanted to chat with you about was this idea of basics and having good strong basics. And I think we hear the term the basics kind of all the time, but I don’t know if everyone has the same definition of what the basics are. So how would you describe like the basics of dressage? Yeah, awesome question.

Yeah, I feel like at the end of the day, the most important thing we can do is put the horse in balance under our weight, which is foreign to the horse, and create a horse that’s straight and elastic, full use of all of its joints. And for me, this whole idea of making a horse powerful but liquid is really what’s most important to me. And two of the things I always first ask my horses are #1 are you waiting for me? Can I not bring your mouth back, but can I make your shoulders wait or could I put your shoulders back into your hips? Can I shift your weight off your little front legs onto your engine?

And then can you be a rear wheel drive instead of a front wheel drive? And that idea of health, I think a lot of like what makes working out for people, yoga, Pilates, whatever, weightlifting, it’s all about cemetery in your body, right? And I think that’s really an important aspect of all horse sports because we all want to avoid injuries. And of course in the eventing world, like you could have a little something, a little pull on a tendon or ligament after a hard run on like deep footing, mud running. But that’s why a lot of those horses then have a couple weeks off and recover from the big, from a big 45 whatever.

But really in dressage, like we don’t necessarily have those kinds of injuries. We have like overuse. We have a pulled suspensory because. The horse is not totally in alignment in spinal alignment and stacked up on all four corners. This idea for me is I want to make my horse balance that it is not stronger on one reign than the other.

Both of its canner leads match each other. So this idea of an the dexterity and how I can use the lateral work and the transitions to bring therapeutic ability and the dexterity and strength and that turns into helping my horse move more beautifully. And so I think a lot of times we can teach the horse to do the movements, but we also want to teach it to move better. And for me, that’s one of the big basic things. I want to help everyone out there that they can also take the responsibility and also train their horse because who’s ever in the saddle is that trainer.

And to have this idea of is it equal on both sides? Does it bend equally to both sides? Is the Cantor leads matching? And how easy can I help that horse rock back, use its body in the right way, and take the weight onto those hind legs? If you have a horse that comes to you that’s maybe a little asymmetrical or a little weaker in one lead or the other, like how do you balance getting them stronger without the drilling or the overuse?

Yeah, so Charles always taught us in a way that you can make bullet points, but if you’re in the Academy, I do my best to teach that way too. And again, like, I think it’s easy to get a little like obsessive compulsive about, Oh my God, he hangs on the left rein. My left lead Cantor is always terrible or he doesn’t want to pick up the right lead Cantor or whatever. But since for me become educated in the craft and know that most horses are that way, most horses want to drift a little bit to the right, which means to the left. They want to over bend their head a little left and fall out the make the circle a little bit bigger.

And then when we go to the right, they want to fall in onto that right leg and not really bend through that rib cage. And one of the fun things for me to do is to make a program for a horse that builds their body up in the right way. And so we talked about the three dials every day. And of course, a lot of them begin in kindergarten, right? And eventually a horse that goes to the International Grand Prix, they’re getting their master’s degree or doctorate.

All horses have to go through the same schooling. And so we talked about these three dials we want to adjust and that’s Frame length of stride and the ability to bend and go straight, right. So we can ride small strides, long strides, we can ride a long frame, short frame, and we can bend the horse and straighten the horse. And so every day we’ve got to tune these dials of deciding where is my horse’s trouble coming from? And many times we can pick, I like to think about all the circles and all your leg yields and your shoulder ends.

All of those things bring strength and skill. Charles always talked about the two s s strength and skill. Let’s take for instance, the shoulder in that’s going to really benefit the Hawks of the horse. The haunch isn’t is going to really help the stifles of the horse and the half pass is really going to get into the hips of the horse. And so we can break down.

It’s almost like a physical therapist being able to diagnose what sort of happening in the horse’s body, how the rider might be causing it or not preventing it. And then we have to mix it all together and be like, how can I teach the rider to teach the horse to use himself in a better way? You know what, Hein? Just like a vet, like, what leg is the weak corner? Because so many times we feel things in the rain, right, the left brain and so many times that’s like the end product.

That’s a symptom. And we got to break it down and be like, what was the cause? One of the hind legs is not wanting to do its job. And as a result of that, I’m feeling he is, he gives me a bunch of ick in my left brain. And so we got to think about, OK, I think it’s the right hind leg that doesn’t want to carry because the teeter totter, he’s fallen off the right hind leg and fallen into the left reign.

And so it’s fun within the umbrella of the classical principles prescribe what’s special about this horse, what makes him normal because all horses are born crooked and our job is to be able to make them straight and more powerful. And so it’s fun to decide what mixture of exercises does this horse need to build his body up in the right way? So when you’re like working with a horse and you’re sometimes dressage movements can be really tricky for horses when you’re first introducing them to leg yield with a young horse, you put your leg on and they’re like, oh, I go and you’re like, how do you keep the relaxation? Are you always trying to keep them relaxed? Or is there during this point they might lose some of that relaxation, but as long as they come back to it, Like how do you balance the sort of mental side with the physical side?

Yeah, super question. I think it’s super interesting to think about as any athlete, you have to come out of the comfort zone and into the growth zone. And I think it’s important to never go into that panic zone, right? And so every horse has a little different threshold and riders too. Horses all have a different line of, oh, this, I feel pretty good here.

This is easy for me. Oh, like you’re just saying that is one of the biggest exercises that a horse and a skill set that a horse needs to learn is to move away from pressure, right? That’s the whole point of the leg. Yield is a yield off of the leg. And the first thing a horse does is they learn my leg goes on, I’m supposed to go faster.

So then that’s then that’s Step 1. You should go forward from my leg. But at some point my leg might mean bend, yield, go sideways, collect, rein back, like all kinds of things. This leg is going to mean to you horse. And so I do always think that first thing they learn is go and then they’re like, wait, what?

Now I’m supposed to yield sideways from this. And I like to break it down. Sometimes I do turn on the forehand, Sometimes I do some groundwork and I use where my leg would be. I would use my hand and just teach them a little bit to put the pieces together because again, it’s about teaching the skill and then building the strength. For me, horses never retain the lesson.

If it’s done in power and stress and fear, it’ll just compound on itself and then you’re going to have more trouble. Or then sometimes they even learn helplessness that they’re like, I will tolerate this and get through it, but I’m not actually owning it in myself. And so we want to always create the situation where the horse seeks the yes. And so again, you’re looking for those small moments to understand what we’re meaning. And then there are sometimes where you have to push through the hard part and get to the other side.

I call that sometimes in an airplane you got to get through a little turbulence to get up through smooth flying space like cruising altitude. You just OK, we was a little shaky, a little uncomfortable and now there we are. We got up over the problem and the horse found the release on the other side. And I think experience is always the thing you get right after you needed it thing so often. It’s about one of the biggest questions all trainers ask riders that train their own horses is like, how do I know when to push farther than this?

And I think that just all comes down to have courage and ask the horse the hard questions and always have a plan. And that’s why we’ve created the system and the Academy, so people can feel supported through that process. And that’s where going back to that idea of the basics, you know, when you’re starting to do more complicated maneuvers and you run into trouble, you always want to be able to water that down, water it down again until you’re finally, I always call it like finding the least common denominator, divide it down again. Nope, even more. And now what is his understanding of that?

You know, so that’s part of the importance of those basics too. But I would also encourage people to be courageous and ask for that hard thing, but know that you have built it up step by step, and when you get to Step 7, you can always easily go back down to six because you took that time to build up it in the right way in the first place. So you teach clinics all over. Are there things that you see commonly that riders tend to struggle with their horses? Any type of horse, any type of rider, at any type of level that’s just commonly being brought up.

Yes, 100%. I would say. I think there’s an epidemic of too long a stirrup. Everybody wants to create this quote UN quote, like long leg. And so people are lengthening their stirrups way too far down.

And for me, when we do that and for the physics of the whole thing, when you then go to put your leg on number 1, you can’t ever take your leg off, right? The stirrup is too long, there’s not enough inner rotation of your thigh, and you lose a bit power of your seat. Because we always talk about the seat is not just your seat bones, it’s your kneecap up to the top of your head. And so it’s your torso, it’s your femurs, it’s all of that part that’s really your weight aid. So with this, I need a long leg.

I need a long leg. A lot of people have not enough tone through their quads and therefore they drive the horse from their foot or their spur or their calf. And the energy from that horse travels through their seat because there’s no real seat and it lands in their hand. And then there’s a little bit of a misunderstanding of the half halt and self carriage and what connection is. And so to truly be able to develop the correct seat does take a shorter stirrup so that you can have your toe pointing forward.

You have that ability to pull your heel away from that rotation of your femur inward, which gives you like the warm wet towel draping around the horse’s torso. And when I can leg my horse’s energy up into my seat, I regulate that energy that doesn’t just go like flying into my horse’s mouth. And so I can keep that horse in a much better balance because I’m riding his torso and not his mouth. And so that’s I shorten stirrups at probably every single clinic that I did because it’s understanding of we get a long leg by stretching the back of our calf, which means our toe needs to be up, which means our stirrup can’t be, it needs to be near our ankle bone, right. All the old books said and what we all learn in our first lessons, how do you adjust the syrup?

You make sure it hits your ankle bone and then you have to raise your toe. I don’t want anyone to jam their heels down, right? But the ankle and the hips, those are major absorption areas. And so they have to have a bend in them or we will absorb the horses motion and most likely be too much in their face. And of course, any holding or retroactivity on the bid blocks the hind legs from working.

And so we sometimes accidentally, inadvertently block the hind legs but kick the hind legs because now they’re not working. But we’re actually have stopped them from their full use because we’ve been accidentally holding on to the horse’s mouth too much because and I feel like a lot of it starts from the stirrups. And it’s cute because a lot of my event riders are like, I’m riding my dress out and I’m like, what is going on with your leg? No, put shorten those back up two holes and everyone’s Oh my God, thank God. But it’s been really fun.

But that’s where just sperm marks come from. All the things we don’t want many times come from not being able to get the right angle of the knee and the ankle and that internal rotation of the femur to be able to affect your feet in the stirrup. And as a rider, when I’m maybe the next time, you know, the listener or I go out in my dressage, what is the feeling underneath me that I’m feeling for? What does the proper even at the walk, what does the back feel like? How does the head like feel in my hands?

What is? What am I feeling for? Yeah, I would say first, like with the walk, it’s very important to me that my horses really walk fully through their bodies. We want to a little bit help that horse find their jungle cat. Like it needs to be like a tiger lurking through the forest because you want over track and swing of the hips and swing of the shoulders and you want to be able to let them do what they want and have a little freedom in their neck to shake it out or whatever.

And then as you start to put that horse to balance, I like the feeling that again, are you waiting for me is my first question. Can I yield you sideways? So I want to be able to make sure the horses, when I put my leg on, the horse doesn’t run away with the shoulders, right? Because if they run away with their torso runs through space, I’m going to probably pull on their face. And then that’s either going to shorten the neck or stop the hind legs and totally what I don’t want.

And so I want this feeling that I can make those shoulders wait for me with my half halted in my seat. And then I can individually each hind leg drive up so I can ride the horse’s torso back onto its hocks. But I can drive the horses Heinz fat lock up to the bit. So there’s like a hold the torso back in balance without pulling on the reins and asking those hind legs to come farther under the body and take more weight. I want that horse also when I start my trot, I always call it the three FS.

I want the horse to be free. Forward and flowing. Free. Free in his mind, uncluttered from me. I want him to feel free in his body, that he can swing through his joints and not feel constrained from me being on his back.

And then I want that forward idea. I want that horse to want to take me somewhere, right. Running forward is definitely not speed. And so I want that horse to feel happy and energetic and have that forward willpower to be like, yes, let’s show up for the day. You could even call it enthusiasm.

And then I want flow. I want to be able to change directions. I want to be able to change gait. And I want to have that horse have this beautiful connection to me as well as that balance that I can change from one bend to the other bend. I want that horse to feel confident and free, forward and flowing, because he’s truly with me.

And of course then with Cantor, I want a happy, joyful, bouncy Cantor. I want that horse to swing through the back and have a wonderful rhythm and breath in the Cantor. If I were riding in the actual dressage ring, I would want 4 strides between each of the letters, right? So it’s like a 3M stride. And so I want to be able to know where I am in space as far as does he have a little Pepe Le Pew canter or is it but my bum and it isn’t too big.

And so I want to find help that horse find where our home balance point is. And as soon as I have that established, I want to spend time elongating it and collecting it. I love that free forward flow really in all three of those gates. Yeah, it’s a good visual too, because I it just feels like water visually. Totally.

Yeah. You mentioned kind of wanting the shoulder to to come back to the haunches and I always say when I’m jumping, especially things like drops or ditches, things that might have spread or whatever but don’t really have vertical, I always want the Hawks that my visually I want the Hawks to reach the jump first. I love it. It’s. That same idea of it’s not that I I want the neck short and the head up, but I just want that body to to be so underneath me that it it can just spring up.

Completely, completely. And you know what’s so cool about jumping Andrew Sage is that there we all talk about the best fuel, right? Like the best fuel of the horses jump, the best fuel of the horses back. And for dressage, we talk about the best fuel of the hoof over the ground. And we all want that like rock back and best fuel and a nice harmonious arc.

No, and that doesn’t matter if you want a giant extended trot or a beautiful jump over that coffin. Like it has to be this like coil back and then from the hind legs send the body’s energy where you want it. I’ve got this interesting visual lately that I’ve been talking about like a yoke. If you were, if the horse is going to plow the field, you would put this his head and neck through this yoke and like you’re half halt needs to be able to like keep the yoke back or take the yoke and put it back into his hocks. And that allows the neck to stay long and in front of you.

And if you’re jumping, that allows the neck to help balance and dressage. It helps the neck not go behind the vertical and it helps the rider think I have to bring the body balance back to the hind legs, but I don’t need to bring his mouth back. And so this idea of can I make? This horse’s yoke come back onto the hind legs as I keep allowing the neck to be long and forward and have the horse still connected forward into my bed. Yeah.

That’s such a good visual. I was talking to someone not too long ago who does like bridleless work. And. So they use like the neck rope and that’s that same sort of visual. Exactly.

And we use a neck strap here too, where it’s just this idea. I love that neck strap too, to think about the low neck needs to like also push the wither up towards the rider’s hand. So I love that feeling of the neck rope. The horse’s mouth is made for eating and drinking, not control, not on the bid, not our balance, all those things. And I always love that challenging myself.

I’m like, how can I get that message through that? And I say this all the time, I’m like people do like dressage with no bridle, bareback and bridal list. If you are reliant on the reins to either put it on the bit or half halt it in your reign, what would you do if there was no rain? You know, so I always tell my riders like I want to be able to walk over there and cut that rain with the scissors and I don’t want anything to change. Not such a beautiful goal.

And that horse is really trained in trust and integrity when you can allow that freedom of in that in the reins. Love that. So if you could give every rider, and I know horses are also different, but if you could give every rider one daily practice for just developing better basics, what would that be? That’s a good question. I am a huge component of going over the riders checklist for themselves.

Like I think one of the biggest things is to know thy body because that is our way of language to the horse is different sensations, different pressures. So to know without a doubt like who you are in your own body, I think it’s powerful. And then just train your brain to go through like the rider checklist, right? If you can imagine, I need to get my heel away and my toe in and my internal rotation of my femur. Am I on my seat bones properly?

Do I have an arch in my back? Is my rib cage carried? Do I have my collarbones wide? Are my arms hanging softly by my body? Like what is the integrity of me in the saddle and who I?

Who am I out of the saddle? I’ve got a really tight right hip for this left shoulder was weird. Like work on that separately so that you can tune yourself to be the best language for your horse. And then as far as horses, like really work on the balance, right? Like work on those lots of transitions.

Really make sure that horse is really waiting for you and that you can really work on every day to make sure you have the ability to rebalance them. So many problems come in of insecurity, crookedness, running speed problems. You have that idea that is that horse with me like that cannot wait for me. We always think about the horse really evades in three different ways, right? Speed, inversion and crookedness.

And that’s all horses. All horses are born to do that. They can have a lot of evasions and pile them all on there, but they will always be within these three categories. Speed, inversion, crookedness. All horses are born crooked.

All horses want to invert whether they bite their chest or throw their head up and they’re going to want to either run away or be behind the leg. And so you can every day ask these questions to the horse. Are you going? Are you coming back? Are you going, are you coming back?

And that deals with the speed evasion. Then you can ask that horse, can you bend this way and can you go straight? And that’s that crookedness evasion. And so you can go through all of these things to be like, can I stretch you down? Can I bring you up?

That’s going to help that inversion evasion. And so working on that basic idea, I think is really powerful. And then it doesn’t feel like my horse Charlie always does this. It’s like when you come and audit the clinic of mine, I really try to do a good job of bringing in the auditors to be like, like this is the science of riding. This isn’t just your Charles would always call them like your little brownie.

It’s not just your little brownie. It’s all brownies who are also Gray and black and Arabian and thoroughbred and whatever. And they’re all as the species of horse. They’re all quite similar. And that’s why there’s a science of riding.

And being able to bring each of those horses to a better balance is the most important piece. Yeah, it was the funny little side thing, but I had a client. You, I think you were here. Maybe it was the beginning of this year, maybe it was last year, but you came to I. Think it was March.

It feels like forever ago, but I had a client that went and audited and for a month leading up to this clinic, she had a horse who was a bit crooked going One Direction. I’m like, you got to shoulder in, you got to shoulder in, you got to straighten the horse out. And she’s she’s just not ready yet. She goes to your clinic and she comes back to the next lesson and she’s OK. Yeah, I guess we really need to shoulder in because I don’t think she’s very straight.

I have so many professionals that have me come in and I help them with their horses and then help their students and we’ll go to dinner and they’ll be like, I swear I tell her that every day and I’m like, I don’t doubt that. I don’t doubt it, but it’s just fun to have. Again, just like backup and support of we’re all saying the same things and really again like all good riding is, it’s the same. It’s what you want in the cross country. This alert and bound is all it’s exaggerated on a high level of energy and speed, but it’s all that that next best balance is what we’re all seeking.

Yeah. And sometimes I think especially going in auditing clinics and all of that, like when you actually take your own horse out of the equation and you can actually see other people and what they’re struggling with and then. Again. Yeah, it just brings it to a different light where you go. Oh.

OK, that’s why I need to do this thing. It’s not just because my. Teacher. It’s really funny too because my husband does a lot of long lining. He travels around, does a lot of clinics long lining, and it’s amazing for the riders to watch their horse do it separately from them.

He gets so much of the same feedback where they’re like, yeah, my trainer is always telling me about this right shoulder. But now that I see it, I get it when you see someone else have similar things as you, which is what’s fun about the Academy too. Sometimes I show what it what’s the idea, what it should look like. And then I show what might be happening with your horse at home. And then people are like gotten a lot of feedback.

I love it when you do it like wrong quote, UN quote, like wrong. Because I saw myself there and I saw the difference and it was really helpful and inspiring for people to be like, oh, I just need to zip up my core and get my elbows down or whatever it is. It’s fun to have it outside yourself because sometimes that’s easier to make your own in a weird way, so. What’s your relationship like with taking lessons and going to clinics and because you already have your own set of kind of ways you do things, what is your sort of relationship like with that? Yeah, As a professional, I think that’s important to keep getting feedback because of exactly what you’re talking about.

As much as we’re established and we know what works and we know what we like and we know what we don’t like, that can also be that I’ve always done it this way. That can be limiting for our continued growth. And so I do think it is important though, to find a coach who respects you for you and honors what. And I always say if you want to add into what you know, not replace it. So and everyone even not professionals, but who are good riders and do know something about their horse.

It’s like having someone like honor that they they do have a good way to do it, but we could also add this piece in. So I have a little bit of a mix. One of my best friends is Allie Brock. So we’re also like super great friends and kind of colleagues and she’s my coach. And so that’s been really fun.

But I also have two bio mechanic coaches that I use just to make sure I’m riding in the best way possible because I know when I hold my reins, I’ve got my thumbs on my reins and my chest is open and my upper arm is down and I’m sitting properly through my femurs. My horses do exactly what my other coaches are like. He needs to be more uphill or like more collection or whatever they want. My bio mechanic coaches, we like deep dive into what exactly do I need to do and then when I do it better, he does it better. And so there I mix those two things like I don’t only get riding lessons.

I ride also quite a bit online because not everyone is able to come to my farm. Just like I teach on the Academy through Zoom, I teach all over the world, Israel and Norway and all over the place. I also take advantage of that too. And it was funny to be the receiver of the lesson. I was like, oh, this is really cool that I can’t believe you can actually see all of it.

And so, yeah, I arrived with Susana Vandeetz, who lives in Israel, and I teach another student in Israel, too. So that goes both ways. But it also started with Charles, where he couldn’t travel anymore because he’d gotten older. And so I was like, I still need to like hear him in my ear for me too, because we’re so busy and there’s so much weight on our shoulders about everything from we need a new tractor. So can you help me ride my horse, get my horse on the trailer?

We’re in charge of everything all day long. And so it’s easy to lose ourselves in the why. And I will always challenge every trainer I know and myself to be like, keep connected to that why. And you love to learn to ride better because you love riding. That’s why you do this.

So for me, if I get a Zoom lesson every other week, that helps ground me and helps me stay focused on me because it’s easy to get pulled in all these different directions. So I have these grounding. We also have clinics in person. But for me personally, it’s also cool to be in my own arena in the morning where no one else is around. I just got it’s a regular day and can I find the same focus as I do when I’m at a clinic and it’s a special event?

So that’s a nice practice for me too. This has been such a great conversation. How do people find you? It’s been great to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me on.

And people can find us at teamtedacademy.com and check out our online lessons and online videos. We’ve got a strong, wonderful group of supportive people. I go live in a Zoom twice a month for everyone to talk through some of their questions in person with them. It’s just a fun, connected group of people and it’s been so rewarding and just wonderful. They can also join our private group, Teen Tate TV on Facebook and follow us on Instagram at Teen Tate Academy.

And yeah, we’ve got a lot of interesting upcoming events and I travel around a lot and teaching clinics. Awesome. Thank you so much.