Leaning Back?

I was wondering If anybody began teaching there youngsters to whoa under saddle by leaning back? Me and a few friends were watching a video recording a local trainer made. My friend Is trying to look for a trainer to help her with her 4yr.old green broke gelding. I was told about said trainer and she sent us some dvd's of her training sessions. We noticed one thing, now we were told she does any western event, but shows reining her self. So maybe its just some kind of riding reiners do?? Anyways, she sent us riding day 3 on a 2yr.old appy filly. When she was asking her to whoa she leaned back? I've never seen this before, I know the sit deep, slight lean to stop them. That's not what I mean she really "leaned" back, I thought for sure she would flip off the back. Has anybody heard of this before, we left her 2 messages on her cell asking her about it but she hasn't called yet. I'm just curious, If she's going to help my friend, Is this really how she should learn how to train her gelding? I've never seen anybody do It in the show ring either?

I myself start them out with the one-rein stop then I use my seat. I'm not lost In the reining world, the whole point is to use your reins with little fuss from the horse. Ok.. so since when does a "reiner" (lol), not use the reins, instead she about lays down on the horses back. Not only that, how affective could that be when the horse has only had 3 days of riding time? Maybe I'm looking at this wrong, but I was curious, when you ride western have you ever used leaning back as a method of stopping? If so, does your horse respond well to it? This is really bugging me because I don't understand, maybe that how she sits deep? By leaning way back, I'm not getting any reply from her so I thought I'd ask some other western riders.

Ummmmm that's really weird?? For a halt, the correct aids are to brace your back, sit in deep, apply leg and yield slightly with the hand. I don't know what ideology this leaning back really far comes from...

I shift the weight in my seat back and push my legs a little bit forward to ask for a halt. I do this so that is doesnt get confused later on by asking for a halt and using lateral flexion. Once they get used to the weight in seat shift back they will automatically come to a halt. You don't have to lean or look like you are laying back just shift the weight in your seat.

I would say that trainer is teaching the horse from the get go how to stop at speed. IE during reining includes fast stops. They do lean back and brace feet forward for that.

Normally when riding western the whoa cue isn't going to be that exaggerated.

I rode with a reining trainer for years and yes this is quite common. The reason they do this is that when eventually the horse is trained and asked to do a sliding stop the back end of the horse drops drastically and if the rider is not leaning back 9 times out of 10 they are thrown forward and that is not the goal.

If you are just training your horse for pleaure I won't go to that extreme.

Hmm... thanks everyone. She could have been just training the filly for reining I suppose. It just looked weird as I've never seen some one do it before lol. But I think its a bit extreme your right cdntink for just a regular pleasure rider to use that method. I've always just shifted my weight I don't lean back so I didn't know how to look at that. Thanks for clearing it up. Other than that she's a pretty good trainer, so hopefully when she calls me she can clarify that its just something she does with reining horses.

One thing she could be doing is exagerating to teach. As you said this horse has only 3 days and does not know much. This is a method we use on our horses, or horses in training; exagerate to teach and refine as the horse understands. Yes, we started out, over exagerating the lean back to let the horse understand the weight shift. As time progresses, now you only need to roll your lower back and our horses respond to the shift in your seat. And although it is called reining, in my opinion the ultimate reining horse would need no reins at all. They completely respond to your legs and seat.

If you shift your weight by leaning back then it incourages a slow in the movement and then if you use your hands to gently tug and bring your horse to a stop at a young age it will make stopping them easier in the future because your horse will respond better to a weight shift so he will have a more sensitive mouth so you don't need to yank on your reins.

^^Great responses, I was going to post what was already said.

I don't know how far this person leaned back, but when I teach my horses to do sliding stops I will sit deep in my saddle, put my feet forward and lean back it puts your weight on your horses hindquarters and it helps get them to "sit" into their stop.