Getting Forward Impulsion
By
Darcie Litwicki
im·pul·sion
1. The act of impelling or the condition of being impelled.
2. An impelling force; a thrust.
3. Motion produced by an impelling force; momentum.
4. A wish or urge from within; an impulse.
“Why won’t my horse go?” It seems that I hear this question a lot when working with people and their
horses. Since my goal with writing these articles is to focus on common occurrences in my daily work, this
must be a good topic. One of the first things that we need to realize when trying to figure out that our horse
won’t move out readily is that it is up to us to ask the horse to do so in a way that he understands. Once we
understand that the key to our horse’s problem lies in finding our own mistakes we will be on the path to
fixing the problem which is almost always us. Owning the fact that we create a great deal of the problems
our horse shows is the best way to open ourselves up to learning how to fix the problem. Plus, balky horses
are no fun to ride and we can’t ever get that ultimate collection with a rounded frame and deep steps under
from the hindquarters without it. In this article I will share some insights to creating better impulsion (see
definition above) but it will be up to you to put it into action and pursue knowledge beyond what this one
article can explain. Let’s get started!
Impulsion is the act of going forward willingly. Impulsion is the opposite of balking which means to stop,
slow, or resist forward movement. When a horse balks he may be telling us a variety of things such as: he
is scared, unsure, in pain, or lacking clear communication from his rider. If a horse is balking due to being
scared please refer to my article titled, Ride By Scary Surprises which can be down-loaded for free from my
web-site at www.changedhorse.com. If it is from pain please work to figure out the source. For this article
I would like to focus on communication. There are three main factors to take into consideration when
communicating with our horse. I will devote the following three paragraphs to discussing these factors
which are body language, personality, and clear consistent use of aids.
The first thing we need to do is understand what our horse is telling us through their body language.
Horses are always giving us information. Whenever I am training a horse, I spend some time observing
them while they are turned out. I watch their body movements, eye expressions, tail, and face movements
which include their ears and mouth. By paying special attention to all these body movements and what
they mean by observing the actions that follow the movements, I can get an idea of how each horse
communicates which helps me develop a plan. A horses face, eye, and ear shape and set tell us a lot about
an individual horse too. Some would say that a horse is a horse but after working with so many horses, I
know that each is an individual. Once you have an idea of how a horse is communicating by observation
you can start to understand what you need to tell them through your actions, cues, and aids. When riding it
is harder to see all the expressions you can observe when on the ground so you have to start learning to feel
your horse and read what he is telling you. For example, take note when you feel or hear his tail swishing.
Is it just a fly or is it much more intense indicating that he is feeling resistant, unsure, or even angry? In
any case, you should not ignore the tail swishing and should work to get the tail to relax by trying to figure
out what you are doing to cause the tail swishing. Many times our aids are too strong or we are asking our
horse to do something that he does not understand or is not physically comfortable about. Again,
observation is the best way to learn about your horse.
Next, we need to figure out the personality of our horse. In my experience, research, and learning there are
four main personality types. These are; fearful, social, challenging, and aloof (stand offish). I’ll explain
each in a nutshell but further study may be required. If you have a fearful horse, it means that he tends to
react to things in a fearful manner and needs a steady routine each day and a confident handler that he can
depend on. Fearful horses will perform well when given the support they need to gain confidence. A horse
that is social enjoys people and other horses while being more accepting of new situations and often curious
about their world. Social horses can sometimes become easily distracted by their environment so it is
important to keep them focused on their handler. A challenging horse is often confident and bold with a
strong will. This type of horse needs a firm (not harsh) and confident leader who can establish boundaries
in a clear consistent manner. Finally, the aloof horse tends to not care too much one way or another about
people or other horses. This personality type prefers some private space and is generally tolerant of
handling, but may tune out a rider’s requests more frequently than other personality types especially if
requests are inconsistent or aids are confusing. A person must work to keep this type of horse engaged.
Horses can exhibit their personality traits ranging from mild within the trait to very strong within the trait.
It is not uncommon for a horse to show just one main type of personality trait but many have a secondary
trait that is the lesser of the two. It is rare for a horse to exhibit all four types. Knowing what your horse’s
personality is will help you figure out how to best work with your horse or for that matter whether or not
your horse is the best fit for you.
The last piece of communication we want to think about but certainly not the least, is how we are asking
our horse to move out. Now that we have taken time to learn about how our horse communicates and what
our horse’s personality is all about, we need to figure out what aids we can apply to clearly establish what
we want our horse to do. One of the biggest problems I see is that people are inconsistent. One time they
may ask their horse to go from a walk to a trot by kicking, another time they kiss, bump, and squeeze or go
straight to the riding crop first. Think about your own life at work or school. What if your boss or teacher
told you to do a project a certain way one day and the next day when you had a question about it, they told
you some other way to do it and then when you finally turned it in, you got criticized for not getting it right.
You tried to do it the way you thought it should be done based on what you were told even though it was
confusing. How would you feel? My guess it that you would be frustrated, confused, resentful, and might
feel like resisting making the changes needed to make the project come out right. Apply this to your horse.
If every time you ask him to go forward, make a transition, or whatever, you don’t have a plan as to how
you will ask, he will feel much the same as in the scenario just described.
Now let’s make a plan to get that horse moving forward with good impulsion. Keep in mind that doing
something right the first time is much easier than trying to correct a problem that is already established.
You will need to work a bit more at this if you are already having a problem with impulsion. It will be
important to stick with it, be consistent, and work with patience. We will focus on an under saddle
impulsion problem for this lesson. If you have problems on the ground, please refer to my article on, Go
Forward, which can also be downloaded from my web-site. Most of the time if your horse is not
responding well to you on the ground, it carries over to riding so take time to check this part out and work
on it too. For this lesson, work in a safe enclosure such as an arena. You will need your horse saddled and
bridled, plus have a riding crop. Please make sure your horse is not afraid of the crop and take time to
desensitize him if he is before doing this lesson. This lesson will cover using voice, leg, seat, and crop aids.
Impulsion/Driving Aids Lesson One:
1. Sit on your horse holding the riding crop with your inside hand (hold the crop in whichever hand
2.
3.
4.
is on the inside side of the arena – for example, if you are riding to the left, hold your crop in your
right hand and visa versa).
Make sure that you are positioned well in the center of your saddle…not leaning forward but
maintaining a straight line from your ear lobe to shoulder to hip to heel with your heel down. Do
not have tension in your legs or heavy weight in your stirrups. Breathe and relax letting your seat
drop deeply into the saddle but keeping your legs loose and relaxed.
Keep light contact on your reins but do not restrict your horse’s forward movement.
Make a kissing sound to your horse and lightly give a light push with your seat as if trying to
move the back of the saddle towards the front of the saddle. Don’t lean or move out of the center
of the saddle though. Give your horse no more than a second to respond by walking forward.
5. If you get no response, or a half hearted or delayed response, give a light but firm squeeze with
both legs at the same time. Less is more here. We don’t want the horse to learn to respond to
heavy aids. We want him to move out from light aids. Again…no more than a second to respond.
6. If you get no response, or a half hearted or delayed response from your light leg squeeze, use the
crop right behind your leg along with a kick to send him forward. Don’t use the crop if you think
your horse will buck just stick with a kick. However this lesson will be more effective if you use
the crop behind your leg along with the kick.
7. Allow your horse to walk forward and praise him. Make sure to only apply the aid needed to get a
100% response (99.9% will not be good enough). If your horse goes forward with just a kiss, do
not apply leg aids or crop/kick aids.
8. Retest numerous times working for a 100% response each time.
9. Be consistent and apply the cues one at a time expecting an immediate response. Think:
Kiss=Asking my horse to respond; Light Leg Squeeze=Telling my horse to respond;
Kick/Crop=Demanding my horse to respond.
10. Do not mix up the order of the cues as they are set up from lightest to firmest, be careful with how
firmly you use the crop because each horse will have a tolerance level unique to him. Some
horses my go forward with just laying the crop behind your leg against his barrel while others may
require several firm taps. Do what is needed to get the response but no more than that or you will
build resentment in your horse.
11. After numerous retests, you horse will begin to go forward without the crop/kick, then without the
leg squeeze, and then ultimately with just the kiss and light seat push and maybe even with just the
kiss or light seat push. In most cases, I can stop carrying the crop all together once the horse
really gets this!
12. Apply this same technique to make transitions from walk to trot and to canter.
13. ABOVE ALL ELSE BE CONSISTENT, READ YOUR HORSE, AND TAKE INTO
CONSIDERATION HIS PERSONALITY.
Some horses get this lesson quickly while others will take more time. It depends on how ingrained
their balky behavior has become. Once you have established the aids consistently which is up to you
to do, then you can test your horse further by keeping your leg off of him and see how long it takes for
him to slow down. You may be surprised at how much energy it was taking for you to keep him at a
certain speed. If we constantly bump, kick, or squeeze our horses to keep them moving, we are
building resistance to the aids which also leads to resentment from the horse. As soon as the horse
begins to slow down with your legs off of him, apply the cues in the correct order again but do not be
tempted to keep him going by falling back into old behaviors…this will cause confusion. For example,
bumping continually all the way around the arena is a common problem I see in riders which causes
the horse to tense up, balk, or completely disregard the bumps. Stick with the system described above
and before long your horse will learn to maintain the speed you set on his own until you ask him to
change it. Be fair and don’t ask him to trot or canter for really long stretches unless he is well
conditioned to do so. Reward and praise your horse often for correct responses. I like to pet my horses
and allow them to take short rest breaks where I just allow them to stand quietly and relax. The breaks
are only several seconds long but it allows them to think about the lesson, catch their breath, and relax.
This makes them much happier and easier to work with in the long run. Being allowed to stand still is a
huge reward for most horses. Next month I will share the next lesson regarding impulsion and
collection which go hand in hand. No impulsion, no collection! Enjoy your horse!
Darcie Litwicki is a CHA Certified Riding Instructor (Western and English- flat work), horse trainer,
clinician, and certified K-8 Teacher located in Vail, Arizona. She has a life-time of horse experience,
competed for three years in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association and in 2005 completed a one
year horse training apprenticeship with Steve Sikora who is a John Lyon’s Certified Select Trainer.
Darcie is available for private training, working with problem horses, teaching private or small group
lessons, performing clinics and/or demonstrations. Feel free to contact her with riding or training
questions or to schedule lessons, clinics, or demonstrations at (520) 370-8093; [email protected]; or by
web-site at: www.changedhorse.com