Straightness Training for Horses: movement science approach

Is your horse “crooked”?
Classical training “straightness” is the opposite of a modern movement science approach. We all share the same goals... but with VERY different ways of getting there.
This video shows a fun, simple way to help the horse find All The Movements in an authentic way, without ANY struggle to “get that one hind to step under!” or to bend the horse that resists.
Thanks to Dalia / @mini11e
and drone pilot Peter Bill: vimeo.com/peterbill
===== RESEARCH
A study I referred to:
journals.plos.org/plosone/art...
“With the increasing availability of equipment capable of accurate quantification of equine gait [8], the measurement of even subtle asymmetries has become possible. However, this poses new problems for the interpretation of the data since asymmetry and lameness are not interchangeable terms [9]. No living being is perfectly symmetrical; locomotor asymmetries may be the result of non-pathological conditions such as cerebral laterality, which is manifested as a motor dominance of the left/right side of the body ”
“In the present study, a remarkably high number of horses (72.5%) in training, judged as being free from lameness by their owner, show motion asymmetries. This raises the question whether these asymmetries are caused by pain and/or pathology or could simply be a biological variation.”
“One of the most important questions to be addressed before biomechanical objective asymmetry scores can be translated into pathology, is to which extent pain, dysfunction or orthopedic abnormality and motion asymmetry are synonymous conditions.”
“The high inter-stride variability seen in horses presenting mild movement asymmetries may contribute to the well documented low inter-rater agreement among veterinarians evaluating subtle lameness and may also explain how expectation bias can influence visual assessment when expecting either lame or sound strides after a diagnostic block or treatment. ”
(note: the more important finding in the current literature is actually the LACK of good studies showing asymmetry as a direct injury risk and -- especially -- that “correcting” it will reduce risk. We think of crookedness as a *symptom*, not a cause, so fixing it with specific classical straightening exercises is not the healthiest path. Instead, we look at the underlying reason the horse is crooked, but NOT in the tissues. We look to the nervous system. Fortunately, there are fun and interesting ways -- without ANY resistance from the horse -- to help their nervous system explore and re-establish a larger movement toolkit.
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Love you all!
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My online course:
www.pantherflow.com/
My Instagram:
/ pantherflows
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[@SigneofHorses]

Preferred side where the horse is more dexterous is what we usually call the ‘good side’ . I have found the ‘bad side’ usually begin the strong side, where the raw power is. For example Blizz would alway offer his ‘weaker’ left canter when sudden speed was in order. Even make a leadchange midcanter when he needed extra speed or go uphill. Situations mostly called for when we were hacking out. In the arena these qualities were pretty much useless. Having a supple bend and an articulated hindoes stepping far under was not what this side was for. Whereas going round the other way it would come naturally. I consider is as being right handed. The left hand is not useless, but there for strength and support. If we need to open a door with a key, which hand is carrying The groceries? Or which hand will open the heavy or stick door? If we kick a ball into a goal, precision is needed and we use our right leg, but our left is supporting our weight even when we are teetering unbalanced. Of course tegvsame thing applies when you are lefthanded. We can train our ‘weaker’ hand and leg to become more dexterous if we want to, but is there a need? For me there was as a righhanded kid in a lefthanded household :)
Anyway.. if your still reading this long comment, back to horses. We mostly seem to need straightness when we ride in arenas, going in circles. And we also tend to make our horses more crooked riding in arenas. As both horse and human feel more comfortable going the right way round and feel resistance and struggle going the wrong way round. I feel we need to embrace the qualities of both sides and train lightheartedly towards more ambidexterity by letting go of the shape of the arena. This is neurologically very very hard to do for us humans as the arena has rules we learn at a young age. Stay on the fence, make round circles and straight lines. Humbug I say.. go play, direct let you horse make patterns and go where he wants to go, make use of those. I love ‘drifting’ with by horse. You known like they do with cars? Just moving the hind or front end in directions on a loose rein whilst going forward is proprioception at its best if you ask me. Brisingr will willingly offer the ‘correct’ lead in canter, because I’ve never struggled in pushing him in the right one. I just ask a canter and go in the right direction for that canter. And now when I go in a certain way he offers the canter that suits that.
I have stolen that from watching the stallions play and race about in the arena, the are hardly ever on the wrong lead. (The highblood dressagetype horse has more struggles btw with knowing where his legs should go Ive noticed)
I have only just started Brisingr but feel happy training this way. I have never understood the difference between renvers and travers.. it’s irrelevant when you train in the middle of a field. I love having so much knowledge I got to experiment on with Blizz who got a lot of -R next to +R (we didn’t had those names for it) With Brisingr the experiment is to find more intrinsic ways to make him just as strong and fit as my old boy. Thank you for this video Kathy.

[@KathySierraVideo]

I love all of this, and agree. Especially the whole… “… irrelevant when training in the field…”. A lot of “formal” exercises were designed to help enable *other* movements, and a more authentic approach is to … just…do…the…actual movements, rather than FIRST trying to train something that is (in theory) supposed to support it. If lateral movements were meant to help with agility (which ofc I agree that agile is the goal), then we want to train for real agility itself. And it’s soooooo much fun, as you know. Your young guy really seems to be blossoming! I’m inspired by what you’re doing as I am just at the start of my journey with young Nimo…

[@LadyBlacksheep]

I LOVE that you keep making these videos! Thank you for all the amazing content Kathy

[@KathySierraVideo]

Yay! 🤗 I’m *mostly* back on IG, though not caught up yet… but getting there 🥵

[@paulienkleinbog1609]

This is an awesome video! Makes soo much sense! Just love it.

[@carmanconrad8684]

Great stuff. Must have taken you some time to figure these things out. Really enjoy your approach!

[@Rosebud65]

MY brain has a reduced toolkit. I can’t imagine having the feel or intelligence to figure this out.