Two at a time

A post from facebook that was well received, so I'm reposting it here.  

I've been trying some new stuff with a couple horses I have in for training I thought I would share. They live together, and the owners have a really difficult time catching them when they are out in the pasture together. I did a little experiment, and realized that if I put them in separate pens, but still with multiple other horses and just over the fence from each other, so they could still feed off each other, within a day or two I could have them catching quite easily. But put them back together, and they would regress quite a bit, even as the rest of their work with me improved, and after they had been very easy to catch in with other horses. So I decided to try working them together, first in the round pen, at liberty. I spent time setting up a search, in which I was in the pen with the flag, with both of them loose, asking them to be on opposite sides of the pen and focused on me. This was fun, because it didn't take long before the appy mare (who is the more confident of the two and has had more work with me than the grey gelding) figured out exactly what I wanted, and was helping the gelding figure it out. Once they were confident with this, I spent time working each of them at liberty as if the other wasn't there, asking the one not being worked to hang out, stay attentive, and ignore the other horse, and ignore all of my movement while guiding the other horse. Then, I spent some time doing all of this again out in the bigger arena. I've seen HUGE improvements in their catching! The first couple days after this, I went in to the paddock with the flag, and set up a search, which only took them minutes to figure out (and they separated, and looked to me). I worked them at liberty in the paddock before catching, just the same as I'd done elsewhere. At this point, they are just plain easy to catch, and at the most I have to ask for their attention with a little cluck. I'm still revisiting working them together in the round pen from time to time, as the grey gelding can still get a flustered and I have seen a lot of benefit to his confidence, both in himself and being comfortable while I work the other horse, that not everything is about him, and in his ability to prioritize me over his mare friend. The softness that is coming into both of them during this work and other work has been great! Plus...it's just way less of a pain to catch them, which was really the point of the whole experiment.

Quiet vs. Still: Thinking about Equitation and Communication

 

For a while now I’ve been thinking and talking about the difference between being quiet and being still.  It’s a distinction I think is really important when working with horses, in so many ways.  I think the difference between using stillness or quietness is a fundamental representation of the sort of horsemanship we practice.

            For me, it all starts with thinking about the difference between the two words and their meanings.  Stillness evokes the idea of nothingness for me.  I think of something that is motionless.  To be still is more about lacking something than doing something.  When you are still, you are actively not doing something.  Quietness, on the other hand, still has something happening.  It might be very little of something, or almost nothing at all, but it is still there to be heard, felt or seen.  Just…quietly.  There’s no excitement or commotion, but it’s still there. 

            In horsemanship, I often hear these concepts used interchangeably.  I’ll use an example most horse people will be familiar with: “quiet hands” or “still hands.”  Anyone who has taken a riding lesson of almost any type or discipline has probably heard one or both of these phrases.  I started thinking about what this really meant, to quiet our hands or to still our hands.  In recent years I’ve started playing with how I can better communicate with a horse through my body to the lines/reins, to them.  For example, I thought about activating a rein (under saddle) or the line (from the ground) and asking for a change in something, whether in speed, gait, direction or carriage.  What did that look like and feel like to the horse?  I realized that while I would change position, and sometimes even motion, I often didn’t truly change the life in me, or if I did, I would find dead spots.  For instance, if I opened the line to ask the horse to trot off in a circle around me, maybe my hand went out and changed position, maybe my walk changed, or the size of my own circle, or any number of the changes you can make to communicate an increase of speed to the horse.  But I noticed my hand..literally my hand…stayed the same.  It was like a block in the energy flow.  And what a poor place to block the energy flow, being the closest thing to the horse and, when working with a rein or a line, the point of contact between me and the rope. 

            So I have been playing with allowing that life to flow through me and to the horse in a more fluid way.  To think about going with the horse, whether in hand, at liberty or under saddle, rather than just letting the horse take me.  I’ve thought of how this changes my breathing, my core, my thoughts and even how centered I need to be to not allow spots to show up that will block my ask.  I started watching how my students did this and where they struggled, and what I had to change in how I asked them, as well.

            That’s when I started really thinking about stillness and quietness.  I realized that so many of us are focused on position, and rightfully so, that position becomes static in our horsemanship.  It becomes this place we are supposed to be while we do everything else.  We must find our position and stay there, while we do everything else.  When it comes to hands, there is a place to put them when asking certain things, and that’s that, no matter what happens.  Keep your hands still and in place, and that will make them quiet. 

            But that doesn’t make your hands quiet.  Leaving them in place and static is in itself a block, or a built in brace.  Why?  Because the horse is in motion.  We are asking the horse to be alive, to be fluid, to be responsive and above all to move.  So if our hands stay still, while we are asking them to move, that block of energy flow in the ask is always going to be there.

            Yet, that doesn’t mean we should be flopping all over the place! In the case of hands, there certainly is no benefit to waving your hands around, or letting your hands creep up to your chest or down to your knees.  There is of course an area where your hands should be when doing different things, and it’s for good reason, as that’s where it is both comfortable and practical to communicate with your horse.  But what it does mean is that there should be life in your hands.  For instance, if your horse is trotting, with each step your horse moves not only forward (though that’s important!), but also up and down and around.  In the trot’s case, in an even, diagonal up and down two beat motion.  So your hands need to have that forward, even, diagonal up and down two beat motions in them.  Your hands must trot just the same as the horse, so you are not blocking the life.  You might not be able to see this motion with your eyes (you probably shouldn’t, or your hands will be far to busy), but you have to feel that life in your hands.  Your hands should be quiet, but not still.

            Just the same in your body.  So much of common equitation practice is about a still position that is so static on the horse.  There is no consideration for the fact that the horse is moving, and with each movement is changing location and covering both ground and space.  Good position should be a part of that change.  Equitation should allow you to quietly go both with your horse, and direct your horse, in a position that is both least disrupting to what the horse is doing and the most convenient to communicate a request for a change in that doing.  If you are totally still while your horse is going forward, you are being left behind. The only reason you end up further ahead in ground and space is because the horse is forced to lug you along.  This is not partnership, this is a burden.  Positive equitation should have life in it that is quiet and effective, but not still.

            I don’t think this distinction between the terms quiet and still is limited to our aids and position.  It goes even deeper into the foundation of our horsemanship.  It seems to me that when we are taught to be still in our hands, in our position, in our riding and in our training, we are building an inherent brace into our horses by always being this burden.  We are always being still and expecting the horse to create movement within this box of stillness.  The horse should move but within the confines of our position, which is blocking their body in one way or another to produce the desired look, rather than facilitating a desired performance.

            By riding with this static nature, and building a brace into the horse’s body with our own body, it is inevitable that we are building a brace into their mind.  How troubling it must be to be being asked for movement, mostly forward movement, from a rider who is so still and lifeless.  How can a horse maintain a free and forward mind when all they feel on or with them is the opposite?  It is only natural that the result will either be poor behavior out of confusion resulting from this seriously mixed message, or a shut down of their mind.  Both are coping mechanisms, and often when the poor behavior begins, people become even more devoted to strict position and these mechanics of blocking, and as the mixed messages become stronger, the horse slips into the latter coping mechanism, and shuts down their mind.

            So now you have a horse with a still mind, which is a very different mind than a quiet mind.  A quiet mind is not motionless.  There is life to it, it is directable and accessible.  There isn’t excess noise to a quiet mind; it is simply available and ready to receive requests.  A quiet mind can pick up a thought or let go of one without being troubled, because there is nothing standing in its way.  A still mind is motionless.  It is a mind that fixates on one thing or another, that cannot multitask because it becomes locked on to only one thought at a time, and then has difficult moving on because it is so still. 

            Therein lies the philosophical difference between quiet and still hands, bodies, positions, horses and horsemanship.  Being still puts the person in position and requires the horse to adapt to the confines of this position, no matter what.  A still rider doesn’t go with the horse, and doesn’t ask for the horse to go with them.  A still rider is just there, and the horse is just there, too.  The result might be a very consistent frame, accompanied by a very hard mind.  I think this is what we are used to seeing from horses and from riders.  A rider holding still, so that they can hold the horse still, and the result is stillness in both of their minds, instead of quiet willingness.  It seems to me this sets everyone up for failure, and eliminates any hope of true partnership, real fluidity, or successful self-carriage (from the horse, or the rider!). 

            We must be thoughtful in our asking, for while of course there is an inherent discrepancy in power between the horse in the human, as we control every aspect of their lives, this discrepancy does not have to eliminate the conversation between us.  So I’m always thinking about my ask and my presence.  I’m thinking about the places where I’m blocking my horse and myself from success with a brace that isn’t an active doing, but instead a lack of doing.  I’m looking carefully at places where the feel between the horse and me can be fluid enough that we can go together, because both of us are quiet enough to hear what the other says

Creativity & a Commitment to Change

As promised..the beginning of a series of blog posts about some things I’m thinking about after a month in Arizona with Harry...


Auditing and participating in Harry Whitney’s March clinics got me thinking about a lot of things, but one thing that stands out in my mind is what a huge commitment this sort of horsemanship is for a person. It’s not just that it is technically difficult to learn the subtleties of timing your communication with a horse, reading their thoughts, and then just being a good rider or managing not to slap yourself in the face with your lead rope or flag, though all of this is certainly difficult. It is also that it requires a long and thoughtful look at yourself, and what sort of human baggage is getting in the way of your horsemanship. It requires you to let go of so many things people hold on to so tightly, and while it is mostly important to let go of these things when working with the horse (at least if bettering your horsemanship is the goal), it seems that most of us have to work on these things when away from the horses, so that by the time you involve another being, some things are a big more second nature and become a default response when under pressure, not something you have to think about doing and then actually do it. All while a horse is towering over you or trembling underneath you!

I saw a woman who came to Harry’s clinic, not knowing anything about him and what to expect, and over the course of the week she had to reevaluate her entire self. Not just her horsemanship, which sure got turned around, but also her entire person, and everything about how she operates in the world! This is the sort of woman who when she decides to do something, she does it. When she learned Parelli’s 7 steps, she and her horse did those to perfection. When she decided to teach her horse to canter at liberty in a circle around them, they drilled on it until they could do it with their eyes closed. If you give this woman a job, whether a hobby like her horses, or her upper level management position she had climbed to in her career, she would get the job done. But, despite this, or maybe because of this, her horse was cranky and insecure, had ill feelings about almost everything she asked, even when he performed, and would occasionally run away with her. She had done all this drilling to try and create the best relationship she knew how with her horse, and that didn’t seem to work.

Over the course of her week with Harry, this woman started noticing things about her horse, sure. I could talk about how her horse felt boxed in to the tricks and drills they performed, how he was down right nasty about going forward, and how yes, he did run away with his rider from time to time. I could also talk about how while everything certainly wasn’t worked out by the end of the week, the two of them had some really nice moments in the arena, and her goal of feeling like she could ride without spurs and on a loose rein were definitely accomplished. But what I found most amazing was what she did in the evenings in the bunkhouse.

After discovering the tension in her horse, this woman went home at night and started thinking. Could this tension have something to do with the high-powered career she had just retired from, and had been the background noise for all of the work she had done with this horse? Could her determination to succeed and perform have come off as pushy, intense and even unfair to her horse? Why was it that she seemed to talk louder and more high pitched the more nervous she got, and it was so hard for her to breathe and relax her body when she was riding?

And then she realized it. This whole time, maybe her whole life, she hadn’t been taking deep breaths! Of course she was breathing, she’d made it this far in life without dying, but she wasn’t really inhaling. One morning she got up and told me that she while lying in bed that night trying to fill her whole body with air, and she had gotten so dizzy she had almost fallen out of bed! So maybe she was only using her chest to breathe? Sounded right to me.

So all week, she just tried to re-teach herself to breathe. Now doing this might sound easy, but shallow breathing isn’t just a physical habit. It comes from an emotional place of tension and letting go of an emotional state that you have functioned in for an entire lifetime isn’t so simple! Definitely not a one-week endeavor, but how wonderful to be able to watch it begin for this woman. So many times I’ve heard Harry say that a horse can’t hardly help doing physically what his mind is thinking. Even when a piece of equipment or a person won’t allow it to come to fruition, you still see their muscles arched towards their thought, their eyeballs focused where they are thinking, and so on. As Harry says, if their mind and their body are in different places, there’s trouble in the household! But, it really isn’t that much different for us people, now is it? This woman truly thought she was a happy, content human being. And on so many levels, she is! But obviously there are things that produce tension within her, or a full breath of air wouldn’t be so foreign it was dizzying!

Now this all on it’s own is pretty thought provoking to me. Yet, what really blew me away was her willingness to work on it all. I’m positive she didn’t really get everything that was said during the clinic, how could anyone? And she certainly won’t just go home and be a relaxed, deep breathing go with the flow gal that has perfect clarity with her horses. But, she was really truly willing to work on herself and try and make a change. She recognized that the horsemanship could be a vehicle for self-improvement, not simply horse-improvement. She was willing to admit a lot of mistakes with her horses, and a lot of trouble in herself that wasn’t rooted at all in her horses, but her horses were dealing with nonetheless. And most of all, she was willing to work towards changing this stuff! That is a tough order.

I know for me, one of the reasons I love working with horses and love my job, is that it forces me to really look at myself and work towards becoming a better person. I can usually tell really quickly when my Type A personality is raring it’s ugly head, because a horse doesn’t respond well to an agenda. I know when I’ve let external pressures like an owner’s deadline or someone else’s competitive words get to me because I feel progress slip away with the horse. If I really get in my own way, I hit the ground. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often, but if it does I know my hard headed self probably needed the reminder and I thank the horse for their honesty.
It’s hard to change, though, and it seems like the willingness to change is the hardest part for a lot of people. Change is scary, and taking responsibility for certain things is even scarier. I find it really incredible that people like the woman I discussed above would come to a clinic prepared for the typical agenda filled horsemanship week and leave working on herself on such a deep and profound level. What bravery!

I’m not sure how to wrap up this subject, other than to say that I thought it was a thought worth sharing. Usually when I’m really having trouble with a horse and I don’t have Harry around to steer me in the right direction (which is most of the time), if I can take a step back and evaluate what is happening inside me, I can find something to change, whether physically or philosophically, enough to make a change in the horse. After all, I’m asking the horse to make some pretty profound changes, so it’s only fair! And it certainly leads to some of my most creative moments, with the most personal growth as a horse person. I visit with a lot of my clients about what’s driving the real problems with their horses, and usually we find patterns in their life as a whole. How they get along with their spouses, families, dogs, cats and houseplants! So I guess this is just something to think about as we all press on to be better horse people!

Book Release!

As many of you know, author Tom Moates is generous enough to document his personal journey learning from horseman Harry Whitney. His first two books, A Horse's Thought and Between the Reins, are absolutely must reads for any horse lover, rider, watcher or trainer! His books are accessible and pleasant to read, while still providing life lessons both in and outside of the arena. They will surely give you something to think about, and everyone I've recommended them to has ripped through them like they were going out of style!

Well, today is the the day. Tom's third book on the subject, Further Along the Trail, is out and shipping! I'm sure this will be another must read, and I am very excited to get my hands on it. Rumor has it, I may even make an appearance in this one...

Below is the cover shot and the press blurb. I recommend you read them in order, to get the most out of Tom's generosity in sharing his fun but sometimes a bit nerve wracking journey towards better horsemanship! www.TomMoates.com is the ONLY place to get the new book at this point!

Further Along the Trail

A Continuing Journey into Honest Horsemanship

Equestrian author and journalist, Tom Moates, returns with more lively and thought provoking adventures in his ongoing odyssey to improve his horsemanship with the patient teaching of his mentor and friend, celebrated horsemanship clinician, Harry Whitney. This anticipated follow-up to Between the Reins digs deeper into understanding Whitney’s great skill at seeing things from the horse’s point of view through Moates’s own trials. Familiar characters return to the page along side new folks and horses, as Moates reveals the latest lessons he has gleaned from clinics across North America, horses at home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and other equine experiences encountered Further Along the Trail.

BL Kiss Bailey: For Sale!

This filly is AWESOME! Here's the ad I've posted about her. But additionally, she is bright, well bred and COWY! Ranch raised filly, lived out in the hills. I'm the only one to handle her (halter break and start) until last week when Marty took her over to start on cows. She's got about 30 days on her and is amazing. Please spread the word!!! This is a reputable breeder and I have others available, though she's the furthest along in her studies :-) I've got plenty of other photos, email me if you are interested!

BL Kiss Bailey, 2009 AQHA filly, Zippo Pine Bar on papers!
Bred and raised by Butler Livestock. Ranch raised in the hills. Halter broke and started under saddle by professional trainer, never had a bad experience. Very gentle horse, quiet mind and willing. Has been ponied in the hills, and ridden both in and out of the arena. Soft in the face, does nicely in a snaffle bit. Easy to catch, trim and worm. Great feet, excellent conformation. She is now nicely green broke and learning about cows and work the stock yards, but will not be ridden hard as she is young and has a lot of growing to do so don't worry about her body being overworked. She has a ton of cow sense (loves the cows!), is smart and willing, and easy to train. Nice stop and handle, ridden on a loose rein in a snaffle bit. Should mature to 15 hands or so, as the siblings have, though they mature late with their foundation breeding. $2500, for sale by breeder. May consider offers but serious inquiries only. Other started, unstarted and halter broke colts for sale, all foundation bred.
Halter broke and started by Alex Mufson at Three Rivers Horse Training. www.threerivershorsetraining.com
406 579 4791

News & Updates

Here is my most recent e-newsletter, for those of you who are not on my email list. If you would like to be added to my email list, please write me at alex@threerivershorsetraining.com.

Hi Everyone!

I hope everyone has been enjoying the mild winter as much as we have been here! It has been a while since I checked in with my mailing list so I thought I would drop a line with some upcoming events and news.

Training

Training spots for spring are filling up quickly, so I recommend claiming a spot if you are interested. April and May are nearly booked but I am keeping a waiting list and will do my best to accommodate everyone. I still have plenty of room for June and July, but I do anticipate those months filling up 30-60 days in advance as that is peak training season, so please take that into consideration as you are planning for training. As always, I leave room in my schedule for lessons and evaluations, and am happy to support you in whatever way I can as you get back in the saddle after a long winter off.

Travels

I am excited to share that I will be spending the month of March in Salome, Arizona with horseman Harry Whitney. For those of you who don't know Harry, he is a remarkable horseman who I consider one of my greatest influences. He will be holding clinics at his ranch in Salome for much of March, and I believe he still has some openings, both for riders and auditors. If any of you need a break from the Montana winter, it would be great to see you down there in the sunshine! I will be bringing a load of horses, and may be able to arrange for you to borrow a horse if you would like to ride down there but would rather fly than drive. Visit his website, www.harrywhitney.com, for more information.

Horses for Sale

As most of you know I don't sell a ton of horses, and will only represent horses that I have extensive knowledge of their behavior and training. At the moment, I am representing two really nice horses for sale. Both of these horses are 2009 AQHA fillies, bred and offered for sale by reputable breeder, Butler Livestock. These mares are foundation bred with exceptional minds. For those of you who are around enough to know some of the resident 3R horses, these mares were bred by the same breeder as Marty's go to horse, Potatoes. Both of these mares were untouched until I got them in January. I have done all of the halter breaking, gentling and starting. They both have a light start on them. One is a buckskin and the other is a palomino. I will be taking the buckskin with me to Arizona and the palomino will be spending March learning to track cows with Marty at the local stockyards. Both are available for purchase at any point, but their price will be adjusted according to their training. I am actually starting another horse from the same breeder for myself, that is how much I like his genetics. These horses are slow to mature as foundation horses are, but will mature to around 15-15.2, with solid bone and excellent conformation. They will make great pleasure, work or competition horses. Contact me if you are interested!

Upcoming Events

Updated events and dates are always posted on my website, www.threerivershorsetraining.com, and the Three Rivers Horse Training facebook page!

March 1-31: Join me in Salome, AZ to learn from horseman Harry Whitney! www.harrywhitney.com.

April 21: MSU Equine Conference. This is always a great event with tons of information! I don't have any other details at the moment, but keep your ears open!

April 22: Ennis lesson day at WC Stables & Arena (to be confirmed, may also be April 14 or 15).

April 28-29: Lesson weekend in Billings, MT. Please contact the organizer, Chris Anderson at electra11@wildblue.net or 406 698 1976 or 406 248 7766.

May (TBA): Ennis lesson day at WC Stables & Arena

June 8-10: Ennis Clinic, WC Stables & Arena. Contact Paige Morris at handhewn@3rivers.net to reserve a spot. More information available on my website www.threerivershorsetraining.com.

June/July (TBA): I will be hosting Ross Jacobs, a great horseman from Australia, at my place for a 3 day clinic. Stay tuned for more details! In the mean time, visit his informative website, www.goodhorsemanship.com.au.

August 4-7: Harry Whitney will be in Stevensville, MT! Visit his website for more details. www.harrywhitney.com. I will be attending much of the clinic.

August 5: Missoula, MT Fairgrounds. I will be judging the All Breeds Open Show. Stop by and say hello!

September 8-9: I will be hosting a Masterson Method Integrated Equine Bodywork Basics clinic! Visit www.mastersonmethod.com for more information.

Other News

Tom Moates, well known equine author, is releasing his third book chronicling his journey learning from horseman Harry Whitney. His third book, Further Along the Trail, is now available for pre-order!! This and all of his other books are must-reads. Rumor has it, I may be making an appearance in this new book, too! Visit his website, www.tommoates.com, to pre-order! I will also have some available for purchase at all of my events this summer.

Blog
I am working hard to keep my blog at least close to up to date. Please visit it any time at www.threerivershorsetraining.blogspot.com. I'm also happy to receive questions, comments or topics that you would like to hear me think about on my blog!

Clinics
If you are interested in organizing a clinic or lesson day in your area, please contact me! I'm always adding new locations and am certainly willing to travel to accommodate new groups. Please feel free to forward this newsletter widely.

Thanks for your continued support, and I look forward to seeing you all this season!
Alex


Alex Mufson
Three Rivers Horse Training, LLC
www.threerivershorsetraining.com
406.579.4791

How loud?

I received this thoughtful response to the last blog from Paige Morris. Thanks Paige! I thought everyone would benefit from reading her thoughts, and I addressed her questions below.

From Paige:

This is something soooo many people need to focus on (in themselves and with their horses). The exact opposite of this is why Clinton Anderson, Pat Parelli, etc are successful. Humans always look for the instant gratification. They don't have time in their hectic lives to slow down enough for themselves so why would they want to do it for their horse. The quick result getting gimmicks blow right over this honest open relationship you can have with your horse. Yes, it might get you more interested in playing with your horse because you instantly see them "reacting" to you and you take that as a good thing. What you are talking about here though about slowing down and being clearer in what you are presenting I don't think a lot of people really understand until they start having wrecks and their horses start "behaving badly". People also need to be told it is okay to go slow... be more thorough. Be more honest. The horse seems to come along faster anyway! With more understanding, confidence, and willingness. (Listen to me talk out my butt!) I love what you said, "Having the horse search for the answer instead of being given it so that they can take ownership of it might require us to actually take ownership of what we are asking, when, how, and why. " Horses can be trained a hundred thousand different ways but when they are given the chance to actually feel apart of the experience that's when you get the "good" stuff.

Now this did raise a question for me. I’ve heard from other sources about “turning up the volume” (instantly makes me think of going faster and I get into mechanical mode) and then turning it back down. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I can't really remember (sorry for my terrible memory) the exact reason why but from what I remember it was about increasing the pressure, making the horse trot, lope, then bringing the life back down and working on quiet stuff. So the horse can learn to deal with intensity and then find it's way back down. Does that make sense? I'm not quite sure if this was an exercise for them to find balance within themselves; kind of like a child will get ramped up then a parent would have to calm them down to find it's comfortable calm space (this sounds really corrective). See here again I am not really sure what that is trying to get across. I just remember hearing about bringing the life up and then bringing it back down.

So is there a time and a place that is good to bring it up? What just popped into my head was with a dulled out horse to get a point across would be good (as long as you are clear). But I guess you are not talking about staying slow forever. Just to stop and pay attention... Okay so never mind. Just free flowing with my thoughts this morning.

Your words "glimpse of a thought" instantly makes me think of Buck/Ray's "slightest try". That is one of the differences I saw the other day when I watched you. "Slightest try" makes me think physical. Looking for that body to say something in some way that shows it is trying something different. Which when you are learning I think is awesome to start looking for those things but hearing it said as "a glimpse of a thought" really puts it in the framework of looking for the mental. A thought change. So it pulls me out of looking at just the horse with blinders on and makes me step back (not literally) and look at the picture of the horse as a whole and wonder the why, how and when.

I think this overall is a great food for thought for people look for a better way. You are right on!

On this note, while reading, a quote that I have on my fridge came to mind:

"There is more to life than increasing it's speed." Mahatma Gandhi

---Paige

From Alex:

Paige, thanks for your response! There is a lot of great stuff in there!

To address your question about turning up and down the volume. I think this is a really important thing to think about. I think this can mean a lot of different things depending on where you are coming from. I would say the more widely accepted understanding of this idea is that increasing pressure means to get tougher and more aggressive to get a response and make something happen. How I would interpret what you said about increasing the pressure and then bringing the life back down so that the horse can learn to deal with the intensity is a sort of flooding activity. Sure, a horse needs to be able to handle lots of energy and stuff going on, but they shouldn’t just be learning to deal with it, which to me means blocking it out. Instead, they should understand when an increase in energy has meaning (and so this increase in volume should be only as much as it takes to get a change), and when it is not about them but is just because I’m sloppy or careless, or because life happened. For instance, me tripping or gesturing with my hands should not mean that they have to fly away from me. They can acknowledge it but don’t have to have a reaction or response (unless it is to avoid stepping on my clumsy self that has tripped on a rock). So, I might have to get busy with my hand gestures or my body and follow through by rubbing on them to prove that it didn’t mean anything, or at least nothing to worry about. However, if I ask for some movement away from me with a quiet feel, and I get absolutely no response from a horse that should know what that means, well then I’ll turn up that volume--with my hands, noise, rope, flag, whatever-- until their thought turns loose and they get ready to go back.

I see turning up the volume as a way of meeting a horse where they are at that moment. If a horse has learned to block out a human, the volume may need to be turned up to provoke a search that will lead to a change in thought. I sure don’t want to avoid that sticky spot, because that spot might unlock a whole new level of try in that horse. To me, the difference between increasing volume until the horse learns to deal with it, and increasing the volume to inspire change, is the difference between forcing the issue and turning into white noise, and just making something clear. However, if the horse is unclear on what I’m asking because they are trying and just haven’t figured it out yet, well then I sure don’t want to turn up the volume and maybe discourage the search and teach the horse that I’m just there to block out, or to bully them.

I wish I could give you a sure fire answer for when to turn up the volume and when to just wait. I can’t (if someone else can, please email me…it would help!), because it seems like it is just a matter of what the horse needs at that moment, and this depends on so many things. You just have to keep playing with this feel and decide what works and what doesn’t. And since you will never be able to replicate a moment exactly, you’ll never be able to drill this. It’s just feel and reading the moment and the horse.

When I’m unsure, it helps me when I ask myself, is this horse trying to find an answer right now, and just not getting it, or is this horse not even hearing my question?

Good luck and have fun!