You want a soft feel, a beautiful headset, poetic reining maneuvers. That soft feel, that beautiful headset, is the result of trust between horse and rider. If you have exceedingly high expectations, an impatient demeanor, rude hands, or an angry heart, you won't get that trust. You can force a horse to give, but it won't be real, it won't last. It takes time and repetition to gain that trust with a horse. And if you lose it, it takes even longer to get it back.
Soft feel starts with trust and one rein. It starts with circles, then straight lines. Each reining maneuver, or cow work maneuver, starts with one rein. When you get to asking for a soft feel with two reins, you will need to be soft and consistent through transitions of speed, both upwards and downwards. Each step on the journey requires trust, and patience. When a horse learns his reining maneuvers with a soft feel, it goes slow and accurate at first. Later, speed things up. That's the easy part. The hard part is being patient thought the long, slow process of building the foundation so that when you add speed, there is no resistance, no fear in the horse.
It goes easier on a rider if we will pre-decide that our end goal will be beautiful performance, and if we will keep that image of our horse and ourselves in our mind as we grind through our daily practice, and as we fail, try, fail, try, succeed in our lessons. This can be a little hard for new riders, because the horsemanship journey may seem overwhelming at first; that goal seems so far away.
How to succeed: Show up to lessons, even if you didn't ride the week before the lesson, even if it's foggy, or hot, even if you're not feeling it, even if you're not perfect. I promise I will lend a friendly ear, and bring the patience I have for horses to your learning journey. I promise to give training value. You will move forward with your horse on my watch.