The Outside Rein Incongruity

I understand (in theory) what my outside rein is supposed to do.  The horse’s neck should fill the outside rein.  The outside rein controls the amount of collection.  The outside rein cues the downward transition.  The outside rein *is* the connection.  The problem?  If the horse is not accepting or taking the outside rein connection, you have no outside rein!

 

So, I’m continuing to ask and teach the Psycho Mare to accept and seek an outside rein connection.  I’ve been moving her shoulders around, but I didn’t realize how much more I could be moving them!  Then, I started moving her shoulders at the canter!  It never occurred to me to change the bend at the canter and switch up the “outside” rein.  I’m not quite getting it right, yet, but I’m getting the feel.  I now know what it *should* feel like, so I can keep asking until it *does* feel like that.  I now have an exercise that reveals all of my short-comings and exposes all of my horse’s weaknesses in one fell swoop.  And it forces us both to work on them!  Updates to come, I'm sure!