Now I am standing here in a very particular way. Everyone think now, concentrate please on your own body. You are standing there with your hands in your pockets. Which muscles do you need? Let's start with the foot, it's taking the more strain. The other foot is quite relaxed, but this one, I need and so I have precisely the necessary tension.
Now, everyone on your own, just go through your own body. One leg, you quite clearly notice, indeed, and one leg you don't. You can relax it. What hip muscles do you need? Just concentrate and feel it on your own. What back muscles do I need? Make yourself conscious of everything, what you need where and then say, okay, muscle there, stop working, I don't need you at this particular moment and I am relaxing you now and I am quite loose. The arm, I don't need. I need that, for example, when I want to talk, here, I am relaxed. Take a moment and go through your body.
Now, I look at the horse, stand big, right in front of him and in my stance say to him, please stand still. The raised hands steps in before in lead him on, means stand still, finish. It's a signal humans might understand and now several things happen on it once. Lower the hand, move your gaze away from the horse, pull back your hips with your body, quite simply signal the horse, you can come. Regardless of how I turn, my hand must always remain between my body and the horse because it represents the connection to him and by means of this connection, I can then direct, control and guide the horse accordingly.
Curious as it might sound this hasn't effect on the horse. When I lead him like this then the horse senses just one moment of hesitation that I don't know my way, that I am asking do I go there, do I go there, do I do this, that's when you lose the horse. Just one second's confusion is enough to let my horse feel insecure. As you can see, it's not good when I have this look, this uncertainty. When I seem to ask, well, what's happening now? If the information you transmit is decisive, it's quite clear, I am going my way, I am there. I simply go my way and give the horse the chance to really follow me.
The hand is of vital importance in this case. The hand leads the horse. The hand leads the horse, so it is always ahead of the body. I can now change the hand, I can take the horse with this hand and the hand remains ahead of the movement of the body. Now I can take in this hand again so that the horse quite clearly knows what I want from him. If I should like to stop my horse now for the first time, I don't need to do it so strongly and then perhaps, I will need to do it a bit more strongly. There comes a moment where I go over and do precisely that. So now I have done the following. If you look at my hips, I am standing here like that, exactly, that's your reaction too. That's your reaction, that's precisely what it's about.
