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In the senior lifesaving classes the girls actually did much better on a 
whole. They knew they could not out muscle a person to rescue them. They 
worked harder on technique and form. I came close to drowning (not 
really but they though I was) a lot of guys who approached me to pull me 
out of the water on the open water rescue test - thinking they could use 
their muscle. Wrong. I never came close to drowning a girl - although I 
fought as hard in the test against the girls as I did against the boys. 
The guys usually got the point and starting taking form and technique 
much more seriously.

A horse needs the training to use it's body efficiently just as a human 
does. The human rider needs to know how to get the horse to use himself 
efficiently. That's part of horsemanship. A horse once trained picks up 
new things and adapts to new conditions a lot more quickly than a horse 
with little training.

Most of my conditioning and hacking around is in the sand. I can use the 
crushed lime stone roads around me to get some concussion and to train 
them what "rebound is." There is no rebound in the sand. However, I 
cannot train in the mud. In the sand my horses have learned that they 
can really plant their hind foot hard. It moves a little but it sinks 
and the horse can push off as hard as he likes without any slippage. On 
hard pack he knows there will be rebound and he doesn't drive near as 
hard - he has learned to use the rebound.

The first time we hit really bad mud he didn't know what to do. He tried 
to pound the ground like he would on sand. The only thing that did was 
to hyper extend  his hind leg. In mud there is not rebound either. We 
spent the first 20 miles on that particular ride figuring it out. He was 
so sore from hyper extension after 20 miles I pulled him.

The next year at the same ride - it rained again. But we spent the days 
prior to the ride figuring out the mud. Once he figured out what to do - 
he handled it just like he had grown up in it. We ended up 11th and 
first HW that ride. Next year same ride - again rain and mud. We ended 
up 9th that year. His ability to learn paid off. His previous training 
was instrumental in him developing the ability to adapt quickly.

> Clearly, Truman is not suggesting here that the girls were able to swim
> further will little expense of energy because they had less mass.
>
> And the principle is the same, more efficient swimming is a function of
> the timing of the movement of independent limbs, all of which contribute
> to forward movement...or not...depending on when and how they are used.
>
> kat
> Orange County, Calif.
>
> p.s.  It is not comfortable for either rider or horse to ask for one
> canter lead from the same trot diagonal so you either need to change
> diagonals, sit the trot, or stand before asking for the canter depart,
> any one of these things can be done in the space of half a trot stride.
>
>  


--

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our 
humanity."

- Albert Einstein




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