Soft Hands!

Soft hands… You may hear this a lot but has anyone ever explained to you what it means? Or more importantly, has anyone ever mentioned this to you at all? I wanted to share a little bit about what I’ve noticed as I’ve been teaching a wider variety of students with varying experience levels.

We should strive to have soft hands at all times. I work on an “as soft as possible, as strong as necessary” mentality. We never want to be strong in our hands, and we should do everything we can to prevent that from happening. It is sometimes absolutely necessary to be stronger in our hands, especially when working with and training horses to understand what rein pressure, half halts, and other similar things mean, but once you have a well trained horse underneath you, the need for strong hands should eventually be very infrequent.

It is incredibly frustrating for me when I see students just pulling on the horse’s mouth, whether that’s to get the horse to turn, to get the horse to stop, or any reason really. I’ve had students start with me who were taught to pull this way. I often wonder if they’ve ever considered what that might feel like for the horse. We shouldn’t be steering with our hands, we should be steering with our body. If a student has been taught to steer with their hands it is so hard to break them of that habit, and truthfully it can be terrifying from a student’s perspective because it is so different than what they may be used to doing. In some cases, we’ve had to stop our progression to trot and canter and re-evaluate their ability to steer to get them on the right track with using their bodies instead of pulling. I have actually had a lesson horse get incredibly angry and upset with me because my students were pulling on his mouth. That showed me that I really needed to be more conscious of this problem and alter my teaching tactics to start getting to the bottom of this more quickly.

Recently, I started working in a new activity to my unmounted lessons where I have the student hold the bit in their fist while I do some of the things with the reins that they might tend to do to the horse. I have them focus on how it feels, and I also have them make note of how different bits feel as well. I’ve seen far too many people using bits that they don’t understand that are very harmful to the horse in the wrong hands, but that is an entirely different topic that I might cover in another post. I’ve found that this exercise is so helpful for some of my students who struggle the most with not pulling. I can actually see the light bulb go off in their head when they realize “oh my gosh I’m actually hurting the horse” and I see an instant change in their riding. Of course, it still takes a lot of practice, but I wish more trainers would take the time to show this to their students. We’d have many more happy horses if they did!

The other challenge I’ve run into, for those who do not pull, is the challenge of the straight and stiff arms. It seems to me that someone somewhere for these students made them believe that “soft” hands are hands that are stiff, rigid, and immobile. I imagine – or rather, I hope – that this was an unintentional consequence of having a student grab mane or hold onto a grab strap so they are not stabilizing themselves on the horse’s mouth. This is such a hard habit to break. If you knew the number of times I’ve shouted “BEND YOUR ELBOWS” at some of my students you’d be a bit shocked. Once they finally understand how to bend their elbows and have mobile/fluid hands the horse’s demeanor and their riding changes drastically. In a recent lesson, I actually walked up to my student, held her hand as she held the reins, and moved her hand in the way that it would be moving when she is riding at a walk so she could feel the sensation of a connected and soft hand. I then sent her back out to ride at a walk and the difference was so drastic the horse relaxed and connected with her almost instantly. It was incredible to see that change happen so quickly and it was one of my favorite moments in lessons so far this year.

We as trainers need to take the time to demonstrate and explain these things, regardless of the rider’s age, size, and experience level. I don’t care if they only want to wander around and trail ride, they must understand how their hands and their body affect the horse on a physical and mental level. If we don’t take the time to explain this, you end up with a rider with 10 years of experience who goes to a new trainer and has to re-learn the basics, which is frustrating for them and their new trainer in many ways. I’m hoping this inspires other trainers to add some of these unmounted activities, and helps inspire people to add in other training methods to help students understand these concepts so that they’re not angering their horses or becoming frustrated as they move on and move up in the sport. We should be teaching them to feel the horse and be connected with their horses rather than having the mentality that they will achieve their goals through rigid force.