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!

Feeling a Thought

In the spirit of the new year, I'm going to take a new direction with this blog. I'm not interested in producing any sort of how to manual. I read a lot of blogs, websites and articles where trainers seem to have it all figured out. The reason I love working with horses so much is because they are always a challenge. There is always more to learn. To me, working with horses is an exercise in self-improvement and self-awareness, both in and out of the saddle. I think I've got some pretty good things going with my horses, but I really hope that in five, ten, twenty years (or maybe even tomorrow), things will look completely different, and be better between us. I think when we think we've got it all figured out with horses (or maybe in life..but I'll stick to horses) it's probably time to quit. Horses deserve more respect than that, and knowing it all opens the door to forcing a horse to fit into our system, instead of trying to step into their moment. So, I'm going to let this blog be a place where I share some of my own journey towards understanding. Hopefully it will be useful to all of you, and feel free to email questions, comments, thoughts or specific subjects for discussion. alex@threerivershorsetraining.com

Feeling a Thought

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about slowing down. The last time I was with Harry and I was working on slowing something down, I said to him, “I never knew it could take so much energy to go so slow!” He just laughed, and then told me to go slower. But it’s really true. Going slow with a horse (and maybe in life…) means so much more than just speed. It means doing less, waiting more and only doing things that mean something. That’s not exactly how most of us live our lives, and so I really think it’s an exercise in a lot more than horsemanship. I think it has a lot to do with resisting the urge to just control the situation, and instead really being in the moment.

What does it take for you to ask your horse to turn? Most of us probably don’t even think about all that goes into it, but there is a lot! Deciding where you want to go. This probably involves something causing you to want to change direction, a look towards the new direction to decide a path, and then a decision that you are ready to go. Now you have to decide to ask your horse to do it, and then tell your body to do whatever you do to ask. Then there’s the actual physical act of asking. Next comes the horse actually understanding that request. That could be a whole other series of events, because I’d assume the horse goes through as many or more steps as I do in understanding the request, deciding to do it, and then actually making it happen with their body. And finally, (hopefully) everyone is going where you decided to go.

But in the moment, what do most of us notice? Just the asking (or telling) and the going. Pull this rein, go that way. Maybe you were taught to look where you want to go as a first step, maybe not. Maybe you do it, maybe not. But what if before and during any request, you said all of these steps aloud? I’ve played with it. “I’m going to go over to that post. There is a clear path. I’m going to ask now. I’m asking. My hand is moving. We are going” Etc. Etc. Etc. You can narrate until you are blue in the face. I’m not saying we should be chatting to ourselves all the time when riding, but it’s an interesting exercise to slow down and really be in these moments with your horse.

I’m always thinking like this these days. How little can I do to effect change. This really means, how clearly can I present the request in a way that is easy to understand and was presented at just the right moment so that the horse picks up my thought with very little effort. I’ve been thinking about this a lot while halter breaking a few fillies that up until a few days ago had never been touched. When working with a horse that has truly no idea of expectations, it really magnifies the need to take little glimmers of a thought. So to me, this means recognizing all the above steps I listed in terms of the human, from the horse’s point of view. I think about what the earliest moment of the horse understanding my request would be. Is it just a shift in weight, a blink, a glance, an ear? Sometimes I think if I’ve waited for the ear I might be late! Something told that ear to move, why couldn’t I have noticed that thought? I probably couldn’t have seen it. But I’m learning to feel it.

Yes, it might be a little different if the horse knew something about what I was asking but had learned from the human to be sloppy or sluggish, and the intensity of their resistance to changing a thought was a bit more, but still, getting even that dulled out horse to think things through will mean to slow some things down and make sure everything is clear. Again, slow doesn't only mean speed, but also intention and clarity. Even if the expectations of the actual physical performance are a little higher than that of the colt who has never felt human touch, the goal and philosophy can stay the same.

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. Often times as an exercise in self-improvement, when I think I’ve got something going pretty good with myself (not with a horse…but the me part), I take something away from myself, whether it’s a tool, an action, or anything else that maybe I could use as a crutch (like a flag, a noise, physical contact…). I take something away and see if I can get results I like as much with less. I like to force myself to be a little choosier with my asks/actions, because I can’t always be trusted not to use a tool if it’s in my bag of tricks. I give it back to myself once I think I can use it responsibly! Kind of like when I realize I’ve just been talking but have nothing to say. I listen more to the people who don’t talk for no reason, because I know when they do talk, it’s worth listening. So I try to take a lesson from that with the horses (I’m not as good at practicing this with people…). I say a lot with the space before and after the action, so maybe if I pay more attention to that space, there will be less to do.

So, tonight I’ll go to sleep thinking about what I could have slowed down today. What I could have let the horse find in her own time that maybe I rushed. What a horse gave me that I didn’t deserve. And tomorrow, maybe I’ll do it better!