Walknuk

Walknuk Lessons in riding and horsemanship for all ages. At this location since 1992. Fifty years experience. Lessons and training based on Classical Principles.

10/04/2023

FB has made it nearly impossible for me to update this page efficiently. And then FB is spamming my feed with irrelevant garbage. I will be closing this page soon.

09/11/2023
I hope this concept sounds familiar: I say this all the time. 🙂
09/29/2022

I hope this concept sounds familiar: I say this all the time. 🙂

There is no short cut!
09/28/2022

There is no short cut!

This
09/07/2022

This

08/16/2022
07/23/2022
07/19/2022

Do you know what heat stroke is and how to recognize it? Here are some indications as well as safe ways to treat it. What is heat stroke and how do you recognize it? Heat stroke occurs when you horse’s natural cooling mechanisms fail to keep his body temperature at a normal level. If left...

Having little of this can create challenges.
07/07/2022

Having little of this can create challenges.

If you have a question or want to contact us you can at [email protected]



"That is basic riding.” Agreed.
06/11/2022

"That is basic riding.” Agreed.

More Basics, from one of the greatest Masters of all-time, Harry Boldt:

“When the horse is totally on the forehand you need to bring him up. When his back is not soft enough you need to keep him round. When the back is hanging, and the horse is not working with the back, the horse needs to reach down and be soft. You can see the result. At the end bring him in balance and you score a nine. That is basic riding.”

https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2021/03/tips-from-the-top-with-harry-boldt/

https://thehorseportal.ca/2022/05/what-is-in-a-whinny/
06/01/2022

https://thehorseportal.ca/2022/05/what-is-in-a-whinny/

What is in a Whinny? May 30, 2022Categories: Research When horses talk, we listen but how good are we at deciphering what they have to say? According to a recently published study (Nov 2021) by Dr. Katrina Merkies, researcher and associate professor at the University of Guelph, and her master studen...

05/27/2022

Learning to ride is far more than simply a set of physical skills. It is learning to communicate with an alien intelligence: learning a new language. I say this often. So it pleases me to find a passage about language and communication that embodies the principles a good rider applies to their conversation with the horse: the maxims listed below are very pertinent to riding effectively and well.
..Being a competent language user means understanding the pragmatics of usage: how the means, form, and context of what you say also affect the meaning of what you say. Paul Grice, a twentieth-century philosopher, famously described various "conversational maxims," known to us implicitly, that regulate language use. Their use marks you as a cooperative speaker; even their express violation is often meaningful. They include the charming maxim of relation (be relevant), the maxim of manner (be brief and clear), and maxims of quality (tell the truth) and quantity (say only as much as you need to).
- Alexandra Horowitz in Inside of a Dog (2009).

This.
05/23/2022

This.

Nuno Oliveira, Portuguese Riding Master told us: “Normally speaking, a horse should be trained to remain well balanced first, concentrating on rounding his paces, and augmenting his hind legs’ action to compliment the forelegs’ paces. Any extension should not be achieved through the reins’ force, but rather by lowering and empowering the haunches. This is what the French called ‘The Ramener’ -putting the horse gently on the bit to correspond with the degree and length of pace.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2021/10/putting-the-horse-on-the-bit-gently/

05/18/2022

Ernst Hoyos talks to Lisa Wilcox about the half halt:
“The connection to the bit through the outside rein has to stay steady, clear – any kind of wriggling with the wrist is going to break that connection. You keep the wrist quiet, keep your thumb up, your hand and fist, vertical. Make the half halt further back – your elbow is at your side, just above your hip. You have to remember that your stomach muscles are tense and holding. What you do is come through with the elbow, and when you come through with the elbow, you are already just above your seat. That carries the half halt to your seat. Think about the half halt starting that far back.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2022/05/making-dressage-champions-lisa-wilcox-and-ernst-hoyos-at-work-at-the-gestut-vorwerk

04/14/2022

Christoph Hess talks about one of the essential basics:
“Give the horse the feeling of freedom when you sit on it, always the feeling that it can move forward. Most riders all over the world use their hands to try and control their horse, the neck starts to shorten and then it all starts to go wrong.”
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2020/07/christoph-hess-talks-about-the-basics/

Sometimes the hardest part.
03/22/2022

Sometimes the hardest part.

Stalled Progress

When we start something new, horseback riding being a good example, we start from so low a place that almost any improvement seems significant.

Watch a lesson. Inevitably, someone will have been given some instruction, and within minutes, that person will ask, “Is this better?”

We all do that, but what it shows is that humans are hungry for progress, and frustrated when they don’t feel as though they are getting “better.”

In reality, though, it takes a long time with hundreds---some claim thousands—of hours of practice to become adept at something as complex as riding a horse, and on that road there will be times that it seems that zero improvement is happening.

I believe that it has been called by sports author George Leonard “long plateaus of seeming non-improvement.” For those who need the constant stroking of being assured that, “yes, you are getting better” on a lesson by lesson basis, this is when many of them jump ship. They can’t stand the frustration of not “improving” even when they ARE improving, but at too imperceptible a rate as to be reassuring.

So they go off to hunt for some next fix of “Oh, this is SO MUCH BETTER,” in some other pursuit, when if they’d had the true grit to stick it out, they could have been successful as riders.

There was a famous German dressage trainer giving a clinic some years ago in Massachusetts, and when this topic came up, she summed it up like this.

“I have seen them come. And I have seen them go. So many more go than stay."

03/19/2022

"Remember, the conversation between you and your horse must never be dull or inert. It should be, "Ask, receive, give. Ask, receive, give." Ask with your body and legs; receive through your body into your hands; give primarily with the hands, but also with your body and legs, so that you can ask all over again, receive again and give again. The give is your thanks. If you don't give, you must ask harder the next time, and even harder after that, until you end up with a dead or resistant horse." - Sally Swift

03/10/2022

10 March 2014 ¡
Tamarack camp instructors, Denny, Daryl, and Sue, have had lots of drilling on basics, so that they are pretty comfortable drilling others on the importance of basics.

Big things, done reasonably well, are a collection of smaller components, done reasonably well.

If the little pieces are flawed, it`s unlikely that the whole, comprised of the parts, won`t be flawed as well. Simple, but not easy, the saying goes.

-Denny Emerson

Address

161 Moote Road
Dunnville, ON
N1A2W1

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Walknuk

At this location since 1992. Fifty years of horsemanship experience. Lessons and training based on Classical principles.

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