What Does Your Longeing Look Like?

The first time my mentor asked me if I knew how to longe, I was indignant. Of COURSE I know how to longe. I was prepared to show him my skills, and to say that he was unimpressed with my demo would be the understatement of the century. “Oh, so you know how to run a horse around at the end of a rope.” Ooof.

To be fair, nobody had taught me anything else. My understanding of the art of longing was nil. I had no idea that there was anything beyond taking an edge off or giving the horses some work when it wasn’t possible to ride.

It wasn’t until Peter that I learned how much you could actually do on the longe, and now it’s an integral part of my program.

In my opinion, there should be a throughline in everything we do, beginning with leading, through stationary and moving groundwork to longing and riding. Therefore, the groundwork should support the longing which should support the riding. It’s a lovely opportunity to observe the horse and educate their mind and body.  Longing allows you to do all of this without the burden of the horse carrying the rider.

I have seen very few examples of productive longing outside of what Peter taught me. Why is this? I believe it’s an undervalued skill or exercise in our industry. It takes time to learn, time to do effectively, and requires a whole separate skill set than most riders have been motivated to learn. 

Additionally, it requires an agenda motivated by mastery and development, rather than performance. This could quickly turn into a rant about the industry as a whole, so I will attempt to contain myself. Process orientation vs product orientation is a significant distinction in our industry, and those motivated mostly by the end product will have a hard time seeing the value in taking the time it takes to learn this step.

For me as an educator, correct longing is also an essential skill for teaching. All of our beginner students start on the longe, and without correct longing this approach would likely result in significant detrimental effects on the horses. Going round and round in an unbalanced way creates undesirable habitual movement patterns and compensatory postures that would lead inevitably to repetitive use injuries.

Lastly, this is a skill best taught individually. It takes time, and finesse, and often equestrian business models don’t support individualized instruction.

One of the things Peter said to me way back when, was that correct longing would not look like one circle in the footing, but would leave tracks all over the arena. What does your longing look like?