(“I’m ready. Say when.” )

Remember buying a bottle of liquid soap suds when you were a kid? Plastic bottle? Little double ended wand that came right inside? Mainly it was an outdoors, summertime thing. Dip the wand, put your lips together, and . . . . actually, there were choices . . . .

If you wanted, you didn’t have to blow at all, just dip and swing your arm rapidly through the air, leaving a trail of small bubbles floating behind it. If you weren’t very adept, you’d dip and then blow too hard. The soap film on the oval wand would immediately break, and you would be bubbleless and have to try again. And again. Some blowers would be content to make a casual effort, and the bubble which resulted would be, well, sufficient—maybe even satisfactory.

A true student of the wand, however, recognized the importance of technique. If you dipped slowly and liberally and blew out carefully/ softly, the bubble you created would grow bigger, BIGGER, and sometimes stupendously HUGE. Then with ever-so-soft a breath, you could detach it from its plastic ring and send it wafting skyward towards the clouds. It was bubble heaven.

Just as an expert bubble blower could feel when her creation was at the max and begging for release, so can you tune your canter aids in to make the smoothest, most ideal depart. The trick, as with your bubble, is to recognize what the horse is saying to you. Every bubble and every depart offer that instant when success is inevitable. Too crude an aid, not enough preparation, not enough feedback from the horse to let you modify your timing or pressure, and even if a canter happens, the depart won’t be fluid, connected, and through. If you attend to the details so your horse tells you, “I’m ready. Say when,” you can be tactful, decisive, and non-disruptive, resulting in the kind of depart both you and your horse can be happy with.