not to start teaching how to train the aids to the horse. Our agreement was that your imaginary horse that you ride along with me was already well trained and a willing partner. Unfortunately I must at this point deliver the bad news to you. While you are riding this willing partner, you are also training him. It is true that the horse cannot differentiate between a trainer training him or a trainee learning to ride on him. The reason I am bringing it up now is that we are getting into the more practical application of the aids. You will spend a great deal of your time in the saddle talking to your horse, and I would like for him to stay well trained.
     All this theory is necessary to know in order to not just ride by the seat of your breeches, but it has little practical value unless you climb into the saddle and apply it. I think it would be of great help to you to ride your horse, or somebody else’s horse if yours is not far enough along, and concentrate on developing a feeling for correctness of the horse’s movement. Talk to your best friend among the riders and trade “eyes on the ground” time to ensure that what you feel is also what is actually happening. Lessons with a knowledgeable instructor are the best solution, since she will probably be a little firmer with you and she can be helpful should other problems occur. The reason I bring this up, is that I think it is a great idea to help your riding along by “feelalizing. “ Our days are so hectic and often we do not make it out to the barn for days, yet we can improve our riding by cross training and training through visualizing or as I like to call it for riding, “feelalizing.“
     The problem with this type of training is that you cannot learn something new but only improve what you already know. In other words, if you are a training level rider, you will through feelalizing become better at training level, but you will not become a third level rider. Such a mental exercise is called dreaming. The system of training by imagining riding the exercise instead of actually doing it, works very well if you can already perform all aspects of the exercise. It also requires hard work and concentration. Needless to say it will not improve your stamina or strength. In the saddle it will allow you to pay more attention to problems other than the actual riding since your feelalizing has prepared your subconscious mind to deal with most of that. Also, your reaction to your horse will become much quicker and more accurate.
     This is just a very short article about how to effectively communicate with your horse while you are riding it, and I would like for you to one more time sit back and try to summarize what you have read. In case that leaves you with a question, this is the time to read it again and then you may find the answer. If not, ask somebody knowledgeable to help you satisfy your question. It may even prompt you to research this topic in depth, and that alone would make writing this article a success.
     This is what I learned or confirmed in my mind about the aids while riding my imaginary horse as I wrote this article. There is a proven and accepted way to communicate with our horses and in order to work well together both horse and rider must understand the system. In the process of learning the theory and the application of this language, horse and rider move from coarse to fine, and there is no limit as to how refined it can become other than the end of the partnership. Precision and timing of the