What a joy to watch❤❤ every rider should understand this

This, along with Will's videos of "Schooling the young horse" Parts 1 and 2, has been THE most important video I have seen, the most important input I have received in all of my riding career, which has been of 4 decades. All along, I have been trying to figure out what was really and truly meant by this collection of caustic phrases used by trainers such as "on the bit" and I have been going crazy with all of the contradicting information, contradictory instructions, their inability to explain what they were forcing me to force my horse into and why. It never made sense, it lead me into a deep chasm of frustration and confusion, forever trying to find the trick that will cause my sweet little mare to surrender to the "frame" and find her sense of comfort in it, but all I could sense was that she was unhappy, uncomfortable and that none of it made sense physically, psychologically or even morally. I was, more than anything, intellectually frustrated and it was even beginning to weigh on my relationships with my trainers who were forever telling me to take even shorter reins and even shorter reins... I watched video after video of trainer after trainer and the same effect continued. I ride cross-country most of the time, so I ended up just going on long rides and not worrying about technique any longer... But even that felt wrong, in fact, everything was beginning to feel wrong - and my motivation was chuting downhill in a frightening fashion. When I found art2ride, it was the name of Nuno Oliveira that first gave it credit, but then as I watched, it began to make sense on a more essential level. I watched the videos over and over and over until I felt that I really got the logic, the system and that the sense of it all shifted into my brain and my muscles. I would watch the video at home, then get in the car, drive to the stables, stop the car and watch it again before I fetched the horse. And now it is just working it is quite simply working working for me but, way more importantly, working for Aquamarine, who seems to have got the hang of this system in three days... and feels really grateful. It being winter, and the indoor ring being over-crowded, I just walk out into the meadows, establish a 20 m circle and work this way for 10 or 15 minutes, then walk further out and repeat... The whole thing barely takes an hour, she works less and achieves more... And this has even solved my former difficulty of what to do with her between two stretches of "work" when out on the tracks - it has taught us that relaxed, floppy, yet connected walk which is so sparing and which is the loveliest way for us to cover some ground between two "anchor points"... The whole thing has crystallized, it all makes sense, and capped with the "biomechanics of engagement" all I feel now is "why doesn't everyone know this, watch this, spread the word???" Thank you all, and have a great time teaching people, have a great time altogether! (And - I am super grateful to myself for listening to my intuition and not giving up until I found the resource where it all began to make sense.)

Excellent video. I am sure that my horse may be suffering from this. It is good to get information and a strategy to help her.

Thank you for posting these videos! So so helpful!

Great, informative video. Thanks!!

Absolutely love Karen, she is a phenomenal saddle fitter and I have applied Art 2 Ride more to my riding program and the horses have never gone better , been sounder or been happier. So grateful for these videos which I have shared with students many times.

Good video

Excellent video, that’s how you train a horse. Actually this “mind the top line” approach is what’s what has been spreading fast been for the last 4 or 5 years; it’s all around. But this biometric analysis is excellent and it will cement my riding aims. I’ve got my answer for this but why would you think that “biometrical” it’s hard to develop a very slow canter and eventually a double pirouette? Why is it hard for the horse? Anyhow, I really loved seeing this video.

This video is very interesting and has some valuable information. However, I am a little confused! It is very clear from the radiographs taken by the veterinary surgeons, that the dorsal spinal processes increase the space between them when the horse engages his core, or in other words tilts his pelvis into positive flexion. It is also made quite clear by Karen, as she so beautifully demonstrates, that it is the tilting of her pelvis that changes the postion of her back into one that allows for more flexion in the body and more length in her stride. She does not demonstrate that this change in movement occurs from her stretching her head and neck towards the ground. However, if one imitates her demonstration and indeed attempts to stretch head and neck towards the ground as I did, you soon discover that this does not change pelvis or back postion. In fact, it makes the work far more complexe and difficult. So my question is this: Why is the beginning of this educational video dedicated to the correct idea of pelvic flexion to improve locomotion, whilst the end of it seems to promote incorrect and in fact damaging work in the long and low posture?

I have to say this video has been very helpful and seems to be based in good science. But I find it very hard to accept that contact is needed to develop good muscle tone and correct form. Horses exist naturally without someone holding their heads in a position to "create connection" yet not every horse lives with kissing spine and weak toplines. In fact it's the wild horses that are encouraged to continually walk in a relaxed fashion, grazing as they go in the pursuit of food and water, that have the best looking forms I've seen. Not to mention plenty of horses have been developed without riding with much contact ever that have fantastic muscle tone and fitness. It doesn't make sense that the horse's natural biomechanics somehow necessitate interference of a rider. Sure, riding is unnatural and we need to teach the horse to take weight, but connecting through the mouth doesn't seem like a necessary step.

But how do you get the horse to lower his head and round if he naturally wants to go around with head, high and back hollowed? What are the training cues and mechanisms?

The issue i have with this is that you are NOT (emphasis) looking at Engagement of the musculature of the back with the horse raising the thorax and engaging the hind. In the end what you are showing is that you have more movement in the spine through the ligament. Movement in the spine is not necessarily a good thing as we know from spinal disease in humanes and dogs. In contrast we should strife for stability in the spine through more musculature in the back. The real test would be to track 3d movement of the processi spinosi with different Kinds of movement. Forward downward - neck and thorax carried - Engagement of hindquarter with hankenbeugung. What i would believe we would Likely See is that with more stability of the spine (less movement of the processi through the ligament and more musculature ) we have a more HealthKit back in the Long run

Hi Marla, We removed this video from our platform several years ago. Please take this video down from this channel. We have evolved in our understanding of good posture and biomechanics and DO NOT endorse the "nose in the dirt" type approach promoted by art2ride and believe it to be harmful as do our educational panel of experts.

I don’t actually understand because some of the good examples - the horses are actually hollow.