I had tried a little bit of lungeing with William last year along with all our other ground work before saddling him (he's a 9yr old OTTB, and I had no idea of his post track training) and he had no clue what I was asking him to do. I won't go into all the sorted details of our swamp issues, but what area we had to train we lost and  had no where to work/train, so I gave the lungeing a break and focused my attentions elsewhere. Now we have our nice round pen, so I thought I would give it a go again. We have made great progress. He travels both directions without freaking out and trying to run away from me, and he's figured out that the side reins are kind of cool. I start him at the walk, that is fine, I ask him to trot, that is fine, I can even ask for canter (that gets a bit wild and crazy, so we are sticking mostly to walk/trot), but here's where we have trouble............downward transitions from canter to trot, trot to walk, and walk to halt. I am trying to teach him voice commands for these things, but what I end up resorting to is running my hand up the lunge line, rotating my body toward him and giving a big jerk on the line and repeating the command. Of course, it's the big jerk that he responds to and I praise him for responding, but I hate having to jerk on him like that, and inevitably he tosses his head and gets all wide-eyed at me. How can I get these downward transitions without being a "jerk" (LOL, sorry that was cheesy!) :)~

 My instructor tells me to give 3 yanks on the line and say Halt or whatever the transition is, to correspond with the last yank. They're not yanks back toward your body, but more like a series of big waves (in fact, "yank" is my word, not hers, she calls them waves).

Are you keeping your hands and body in the same posiition you would when riding? Hands like holding an ice cream cone, thumbs on top, and your body well balanced and centered? Taking a big step or two in front of their shoulder is a good interim training method, too. Make sure that you're not behind his midsection when you ask for the downward. I've noticed that my horse is very alert to my actual position relative to her, and if I'm more behind her than ahead, she thinks I'm trying to push her ahead.

 With Jackson (who also had NO idea what lunging was...) I started out with someone walking along side him on the outside of the circle.  When I would ask for a halt, she (my mom!) would stop, cueing him to stop as well.  Since she could keep up with him at a walk and trot, we were able to get him to do all these transitions really well.  He's pretty smart, so he was able to figure out how the upward and downward transition to cantering went.  I also point my whip down when I'm asking for a downward transition, and point it behind me when I ask for a halt.  This makes it so there is very little pressure behind him, and he is willing to stop.

Your body position is what tells the horse what he should be doing. If you are at his flank, he should be moving forward. If you are at his shoulder he should be slowing. Step toward his shoulder and with a slow drawn out voice say, w a l k. Keep your voice low and slow. Same with trot, t r o t. When asking for upward transition step toward his flank and in a higher pitched, quick voice say, "trot", canter, whatever it is you want. You don't want to yank on him, just apply pressure when asking for the downward and release it when going into the upward.

does he respect your space at all? if he does have you tried turing you body to be infornt of his and possibly taking a few steps into his space to say you mean business! also the yanking this is a great way, along with lots of direstion changes to keep his mind thinking and interested

Thank you guys for the tips, and I am anxious to employ them this week. We gave it a break because the mud got a bit overwhelming. I'm just a mud wuss! He does respect my space when I am close to him (we have done quite a bit of ground work and he is very respectful), but the dynamics change when I lunge. It's the weirdest thing, Jackson1 may be able to relate, the first time I attempted to lunge him I became the boogie man! He ran like he was trying to get away from me and when I stepped more toward his shoulder to slow him down he shifted into an even more frantic speed like I was trying to kill him. Needless to say, we have come a long way and he doesn't try to get away from me anymore, but he does still speed up when I take a step toward his shoulder. Instead of me stepping ahead of his motion being a cue to slow down, it's like I'm chasing him. I'm not sure what that means in horsey language except that he is evading the cue. He's so funny though, I can put him somewhere in the round pen (essentially ground tied) while I adjust ground poles or whatever, and as long as I am not asking him to move he will stand right where I put him and let me walk all over the place and right back up to him to get him and get back to work. There is just something about lungeing that has been hard for him to understand, like I said, it was like I became his worst enemy when I got on the end of a 25ft line and asked him to work. But again, he has made great progress with patience and persistence. He will now calmly go forward and make great upward transitions and not rush, we just got stuck there.

You have to remember one thing. Lunging is hard on the horses joints, so make sure you make the circles as big as possible. I've seen horses "misbehave" on the lungle line not being able to do some transitions, but that was only because it was PHYSICALLY hard on them, especially an OTTB. Race horses often find themselfs walking/trotting on the hot walker for long periods of time. And their bodies just end up being hurt from walking in the circle all the time.

Thanks, Equestrian1990, I do need to remember that! I have noticed that he has a long stride, and with things like trot poles he needs them spaced further than other horses to pace over them, so that would tell me he can't do well on a smaller circle. The round pen is 60ft+ in diameter (a very generous 20 meters) and I try to walk a circle myself with the line so that he is on the rail of that generous 20 meters, but that may still be a bit tight for him, huh!? Good thought!

It sounds like Jackson and William had the same lunging "training"! hahaha Yeah, I've experienced being the sudden boogie man at the end of the line!  The first time I tried to lunge Jackson was in a big pasture, becuase I figured all horses knew how to lunge.... I was a stupid 14 year old and suddenly found myself being dragged through the mud, and the suddenly horseless as Jackson took off for the woods.  It was an interesting day.  Another thing you could try is just using voice commands on a lead line.  Walk and trot around in-hand, and when ever you say woah, stop and give William a treat or a pat on the neck.  Pretty soon he's going to figure out that woah is FUN!

I'm probably too late to be of any use but:

You could try ( and see if it helps ) just staying in his triangle frame ~ keep your direction arm constant as you are not changing his direction ~ but change the elevation of your driving hand (the hand with your training aid or tail end of lunge line).  Keeping your driving hand low for walk, and a little higher for trot and higher yet for canter.  Keeping your voice commands loud and precise.  And of course let your driving hand rest for whoa.

I'm not sure if I put that into words adequately....

 

Thanks to all of you, and haylori you weren't too late! I tried a little bit of everything, one at a time, of course, and found our solution! I wasn't using my body angle enough, because as soon as I turned my hips and shoulders to point ahead of his shoulder and took a step to the side (ahead of his motion, but not toward him) he slowed! No rushing, he didn't think I was chasing him! We did several upward and downward transitions both directions and for the first time, after I put the sidereins on him, I saw him do the most beautiful extended trot where he was really coming from behind and using his back (of course I wasn't on him and that's probably why it was so beautiful)! He just looked so balanced and had such cadence! It is so much fun to see the things that I only read about and are told in theory what to look for. When I rode after our lungeing session, he really reached for the bit and brought up his back, and I had a hard time sitting his trot because it had so much more power, and I didn't want to ruin it with my seat or my hands so I was so careful, but it was such a great day.......one of those "OH, Wow!" days! Thanks again, guys!