A fresh look at longeing

These are my definitions and I'm not claiming to be a professional, if you're interested there are some great articles out there. I've been primarily inspired by Parelli Natural Horsemanship as well as others, such as John Lyons and Clinton Anderson.

Regular Longeing - an exercise most people use when they think there horse is too fresh to be ridden yet, they run the horse around in circles to tire him out. These mindless circles exercise the horse physically but not mentally and they condition the horse physically such that you need to longe longer and longer each time before they get tired.

Lateral Longeing - uses your body position and body language to direct the horse in specific directions at certain speeds, and to change these with minimal suggestion pressure from you. This exercises the horse physically, as well as mentally. It brings the horse's to focus on to you and opens the lines of communication between the two of you.

*The key difference is that at the end of regular longeing the horse is tired and looking for the easy way out, while after lateral longeing the horse is focused and paying attention to you, ready for more.

The following is a good article, for those of you interested in reading more about this. "The Use and Mis-Use of Round Corrals"