In order to improve how I work with people I have been reading about different teaching styles and methods.
One that stands out for me is the Feynman Technique.
Basically to really know a subject you should be able to break down even the most complicated matter and simplify it.
Try and structure it in your mind and simplify it in a way that might be understood by a child.
Try and do this in your own words so that its not just rhetoric or the words of others.
This is a way of confirming to yourself that you have a grasp of the subject.
Making something sound so complicated that only a genius could understand it might be good for your ego but is a very ineffective way of conveying knowledge.
Parroting the words of others is often used to convey the illusion of knowledge.
This may prove that someone has a good memory for words and phrases but is only effective, in teaching, if those words and phrases are used in context.
The Feynman Technique is as much about learning as it is about teaching.
To know a subject you must be able to break it down and simplify it to the point where you can explain it to a child.
Now, if you are working with an animal you must be able to break it down and simplify it to a point where you can help the animal learn it.
You might consider that you only have actions to make your point.
Ian Leighton on why your position is so important to your horse
Let’s Get Deep About Your Seat.
Learning how to use your seat is one of the greatest changes we can make to improve our riding, our horse’s willingness, his balance and carriage and to help him stay relaxed while using his natural energy. Use your seat in a way that makes the horse feel like he can do what you are asking of him. Often this is not explained well and is made much more complicated than it needs to be. Like anything we do it’s not just a matter of learning the theory and everything falls into place but takes some commitment to become what your horse would like you to be as a rider.
If it takes that much effort to learn why would I want to, or why do I need to?
Imagine riding all day without getting tired or feeling like you are really working. If we can learn to keep ourselves and our horse balanced and not restrict what he does or “get in his way”(a term that is often used to describe a poor or unbalanced seat) the amount of Continue reading Let’s Get Deep About Your Seat
If you are considering young horses or a green horse then also consider that young or green horses are still learning.
Ian working with some young horses.
If you have no or little experience with young or green horses then you are likely to have trouble. You should not ride and handle youngsters like an old pony you learned on. They are still learning and often too sensitive to deal with that.
You shouldn’t take your green horse home from the breakers, give it a month off, throw on a poorly fitting saddle and swing up expecting to have a great time.
You should not expect that you can do the things you saw at the horse expo or in a video without the practice it takes to develop the feel and timing and instinctual responses that are the difference between good horsemanship and poor horsemanship.
With green youngsters your confidence cannot be false confidence based on a less than frank picture of where your horsemanship is at.
The good news is that many people can learn to be good with a young horse and help it develop into a great older horse. Those that seek ongoing guidance from people who are experienced and competent with a young horse and are willing to change themselves and how they operate are the only ones that have good odds of being successful.
If you had trouble with your old horse chances are, without some changes, you will trouble your new horse .
Our video series Groundwork For Young Horses is a great place to start. It covers everything from hardly leading to picking up feet to float loading.
Every time your horse leans on the reins or the lead rope or on the handler see it as an opportunity.
Don’t just hold and teach him that it is ok to lean.
Don’t give to him and reward him for leaning.
Don’t punish him and make him too frightened to give you a soft feel when you want it.
Ian working with a horse at a clinic. It was cold.
Don’t hold him tight and make him feel trapped so that he feels like he has to lean or pull.
Don’t avoid his leaning
by staying out of his way or letting him teach you.
On the ground or while riding, don’t avoid teaching him his responsibility to not pull or push on you.
Avoid making it something he must endure every time you handle him for the rest of his life. That is neither comfortable for the rider or fair on the horse.
You could just hold a little more and release when he gives you a soft feel.
Maybe move his feet a little until he stops leaning and then let him stand as a reward.
Also, if he is leaning hard enough, follow him and maintain that contact until he stops or steps forward and then release.
You could use your presence and focus to help him understand what to do to gain that release.
Try to set the situation up again a few times so that he has a chance to properly learn how to avoid being in this conflict.
You could be totally consistent about this so that he learns to have a conflict free time every time he is with you.
Find some help with this if you don’t know what to do.
You could teach him in a subtle way at a stand-still how to respond to a soft feel so that he understands it Giving your horse a nice life means not shirking your responsibilities here. The more you allow him to learn that leaning is ok the more he will have to endure the conflict in the future.
Often the behaviour that causes the horse and rider the most discomfort “is not” caused by anything sinister. It is often caused by unwittingly teaching the horse to respond the wrong way to things.
Remember every time your horse leans you are presented with another opportunity to make his life more comfortable in the future.
Confusion and indecision is rife in the horse world.
There are so many ideas and gadgets and supplements and feeds etc out there all being marketed as the best way to go and the only thing to do if you like your horse even in a moderate way.
Ian and Kendric having thinking time
On the net everyone has an opinion on how everything should or should not be. Often these opinions Continue reading Confused?
Thought for the day:
The most common cause of issues between a horse and rider under saddle is what I call “preventative riding”.
Preventative riding is what a rider is doing when they spend more time trying to stop the horse from doing things than directing him or allowing him to do things.
If you ride in a preventative manner by holding onto your horse with your reins and legs in order to control it or prevent it from going too fast or from veering off-course or from bucking or any other manner of unwanted behavior you are most likely causing the behavior that you are frightened of.
Riding like this causes riders to be stiff and unbalanced and to hunch up when the horse panics. This in turn greatly increases the chances of falling off.
There are horses around that deal with this type of riding but they do so because they are dull or desensitized to it or are just working in a state of learned helplessness.
You can’t have feel when you use your reins like a set of handlebars or a brake lever.
Riding properly into the bridle on an engaged horse has nothing to do with anything I have written above.
All horses need to learn to go on a loose rein also.
There is so much rhetoric thrown around, about getting a horse to trust you, but “trusting your horse” is probably the biggest step you must take toward this.
If safety is your main concern then you need help to learn that safety comes from keeping your horse from feeling trapped, learning to balance, learning to teach your horse how to take direction and learning that the horses energy comes from from your energy.
You may want the fancy stuff or just a safe horse but learning not to be a preventative rider is the only way forward. This is walking before you can run. It can’t be over done.
Self control is the most important type of control there is when riding.
The picture is a group of great people working on this at one of our clinics.
Many people associate horse riding with giving their horse a cue to elicit a response, but how do riders get on with a horse that hasn’t been trained to respond to cues, or with a horse they want to take further in its education?
Riders can greatly increase their ability to teach in a way that a horse can understand, without it having had any previous exposure to what is being taught. They can also work in a manner that does not over-stimulate their horse, reducing the likelihood of eliciting a rushed, unbalanced or reactive response. This will help them to be able to direct their horse with the appropriate amount of energy, whilst maintaining a relaxed composure.
What do horses already understand, without training?
“Horses are born with, or develop early in their lives, a natural ability to read the focus and body language of another horse, and that of other animals, developing an understanding of their physical intent.
I guess we don’t think about it enough at times but so much of the horse’s natural behaviour patterns are related directly to their evolution as a prey animal. While selective breeding over the years has changed this for some, many breeds have built on the natural qualities of their ancestors for speed, agility and alertness. Reactions that would have been a huge advantage for prey animals to evolve with would have been an ability to ‘read’ and process the places where a predator’s attack may occur and manoeuvre accordingly to avoid this.
The horse’s ability to ‘read’ the intent of other horses would also be helpful to avoid collisions if they happen to be running fast in a large herd. You only need to see a foal running beside its dam when they are startled or run in fear, to see how it mirrors the mare’s movements and direction, appearing to be attached by an invisible cord. Consider how quickly and accurately they must process this information to avoid collisions and attacks.
When you see young horses being sent-off by older herd members for apparently no, or very little, reason, it makes sense that it is because that is how they learn to avoid a potentially fatal attack at some time in their future. An older horse always seems to gain quite a reactive response from a younger herd member and many believe it is all about respect of a more alpha horse.
I believe there may be a much more critical reason than has become accepted by many horse people. It makes sense to me that it’s more to do with the longer-term well-being of the herd and that it’s an evolved mechanism to assist in the learning of how to avoid becoming the victim of predators.
Nearly everything that has naturally evolved in the animal world is about the betterment or future survival of the species.
HOW does knowing about this help us train our horse?
Having some understanding of the nature of equine body language and intent gives handlers the ability to direct their horse during the process of teaching ground work and to understand how they may conduct themselves in order to lift up or lower energy levels or gain responses without directly chasing their horse.
Let’s take a horse learning to follow a feel on a lead-rope as an example.
One of the most common problems I see in ground work at the many workshops or clinics I teach in, is an inability for people to control their horse’s energy when asking it to move off during ground work.
To help the horse understand where we want it to go, focus and energy can be increased, thereby using our presence like another horse would.
Often handlers will ask by leading out with the rope and then chasing the horse away with a flourish of the flag or stick or the end of the rope, causing the horse to take flight in an erratic or rushed way. For overly desensitised horses, their reaction may be to ignore the handler and stand their Continue reading THE IMPORTANCE OF BODY LANGUAGE
It’s been a while since I’ve written an update, and I’ve made a lot of critical decisions during this time. The most critical thing is with the support of my amazing husband I’m moving away from my corporate life and concentrating on what’s truly important. Reclaiming the balance in my life.
For too long, my life-balancing attempt has been like walking a tightrope, juggling flaming batons (that would look rather spectacular), whilst wondering what to cook for dinner, looking after family, thinking about what I need to get done at the corporate job in a 38-hour week (which usually runs around 50 hours), lamenting how many girlfriends I haven’t caught up with in the past 3 months, running the property and horses whilst Ian is away teaching, and scheduling and administering our own business. We really do have a great life, it’s just that mostly it felt like I was missing the living it part.
We talk at home a lot about balance, mostly it’s about horses, balancing their diet and training, teaching them to balance their bodies and carry themselves in a manner which is conducive to long term well-being and soundness, and occasionally we delve into the whole “work/life balance” discussion. Recently, Ian wrote about some riders of green horses and said “they stay tight in the saddle and are sort of stuck in a position and miss the opportunities”. That was me, I was tightly in the grips of the corporate squeeze, stuck and missing life’s opportunities. What it took to release myself was pretty severe, and something I could never have done without the love and support of my husband, family and close friends. I gave notice on the corporate job.
Now I’m planning my professional extraction. Sounds dramatic doesn’t it, hoping those guys from tactical response will rappel down from a black-hawk overhead, clip me on and winch me up, but in reality it’s quite confronting, takes some degree of courage and requires me to take that first step. It’s one of those take a deep breath and have confidence in yourself moments that life presents from time to time. When you’ve given a lot of your life to your profession and take pride in the work you’ve done whilst maintaining that fine line between what sits comfortably with your values and ethics and the pressure and stress of corporate life, it’s quite confronting.
I always liked to think of myself as a person defined by who I am, not what I do. The social question, of “so what do you do for a living” seems so often to be the measure by which so many opinions are first formed. Giving up the career defining persona of 30 years and venturing into a new era is something that both excites me and challenges my need for security. I have a passion for our business, learning, refining and teaching horsemanship and encouraging others to be adventurous and courageous, empathetic and supportive. Now is the time to rebalance and focus on where the heart lies.
There’s this theory that there are two determining influences in our behaviour, one is love and the other is fear. When put simply, we can choose to act, make decisions and interact with others out of love, or out of fear. For me, making decisions based on love (where for me love can be defined as acting ethically, openly and honestly) provides a degree of clarify of where I need to be heading, and reinforces the confidence needed to go in that direction. It is far more satisfying, almost relieving, to make decisions based on this kind of thought process. It is far easier to choose life’s direction based on what we love and the feeling that this creates and resonates throughout our whole being, than making choices based on what we fear, want to avoid or are afraid of.
So really, I just made a decision out of love (I could have just started this whole piece with this – but honestly it took me the above paragraphs to process this into words). In some respects, this situation resonates with me in the other critical part of my life, my relationship with my horses and the challenges that I face. Any doubts or reservations are based on this fear based thought process, and recognising this is critically important. If I need to make choices, then they need to be based on love, and not driven by fear.
I’ve read a little lately about riders making life changing decisions based on fear, reservation, a lack of confidence in their emotional ability to change mentally and or physically, and most importantly without embracing the fact that decisions made from fear are rarely made with a positive outcome in mind. They are based on avoidance, rather than embracing the challenge ahead. If you are going to make a life changing decision, make it based on a love of the outcome, and make it a life defining deep breath moment.
When I think about what it means to get my life balance right, these are my new found basics.
Eat, sleep and breathe right – sounds simple, but too often this balance is not maintained. So I commit to myself that I will work on these things every day – out of love to myself. Honestly, we only get one body and this one has to do me for many years to come.
Life a life full of comfort – and not just a comfortable life. Comfort comes in the simplest and honest of forms – embrace the small things that come your way.
Work at doing what you are passionate about, and success will follow. I wrote a lesson to myself a while ago – success is not material or always obvious – but when you feel it, celebrate! I will celebrate more often.
We all have financial commitments in life, they are still there and have to be maintained but they can’t be the focus or reason for each breath I take.
Liz enjoying some time with Kendric
As always, each journey in life is taken one foot in front of the other. I will live a life of opportunity, ride with a commitment and relaxation only found through passion and self-belief, and not a life of regret.
So, for a while I’m going to rebalance and embrace life as a horse-wife and focus on what’s important – truly important – and that is to live making decisions that are right for my well-being and that of my family, and live that life happily – one step at a time.
First we need to define forward and a few other terms like rushiness or rushy (not real words but every horse person has heard them) and laziness or lazy.
Forward has nothing to do with revs per minute it is more about cadence or a freedom of movement in the legs.
To be truly forward your horse needs to be relaxed and free from resistance.
He needs to be focussed on you and your destination and he has to feel ok about going there.
I dislike it when I hear people say that a horse is “too forward” for them because, every time, I see a horse that is rushy not forward.
Length of stride at any speed is a hallmark of forward.
Rushy horses mostly are tight and defensive and while they may move their legs quickly their stride is invariably short. This shortness is the horse holding a little back for himself so he is ready to make an evasive manoeuvre whenever he sees fit or feels he needs to be ready to turn hard and fast without warning. Mostly this rushiness comes when a horse is feeling trapped by the riders legs and the bridle and they feel like they have no control if something goes astray for them or worries them.
Almost always rushy horses fall in or drop their shoulder on a turn and are stiff bodied and are often described as horses you can’t put your leg on.
They are nearly all caused by either fear, force, misuse of spurs and being expected to do everything at full speed before they are comfortable and correct slowly. All horses need to walk trot and canter easily and with cadence and on loose reins before they are taught anything else as far as moving goes. Mostly people hold on to rushy horses to attempt controlling their rushiness and this only adds to the problem. They learn to brace or protect themselves as best they can from the bit and do what they think the rider wants which is to go.
They are in a no win situation. Often horses that were free going (a desirable trait) become rushy when a new rider who is afraid of a horse moving out willingly holds on to them in an attempt to keep them at a slower pace.
They are also often created by people who want to do fast work and use fear of the spurs and bit to control them.
They want fast turns, hard stops, snappy departures etc. on an underprepared horse.
They often have poor timing and worse feel and pretty much bully a horse into doing what they want.
They create horses that might be light but they are definitely not soft.
What they lack in horse training knowledge they compensate for with bravado.
I am ashamed to say that when I was young I probably was much like this also.
Often we hear people from this day and age talking about how the new way is so much better than the old way. It sounds like they have discovered how to be more empathetic and less damaging to a horse than anyone in the past ever could.
They talk about new methods, training styles and attitudes as though they could never had existed in the past and the whole of history has been ignorant all along.
Here are some things I have come across recently. In a book called “The Virginian” written by Owen Wister in 1902 about range life in Wyoming, and beyond, he talks about not working young horses too hard for fear of “springing their legs” (or them developing splints) and not being useful older horses. He also wrote the lines, as near as I can remember without searching for it, “Doesn’t a horse rely on us to help him? Isn’t he just like a child”. The book is a novel, or fiction, but the attitudes and ideas were from somewhere.
In his book Hell West and Crooked published in 1988 Tom Cole wrote about his life as a drover, horseman and buffalo hunter in the north of Australia in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Its a long time since I read this book but he specifically talks about not putting horses to work until they are four or five years old. Again because that is the only way they could get them to last the distance.
I guess my point is that these guys relied on their horses and needed to look after them for the sake of them being reliable and functional for as long as possible.
It was not all the rough tough stuff that movies, and people with something “new” to sell would have us believe. It was also not all as bad as someone with a little less experience and age on them might say to give them the illusion of credibility.
I am not saying that the rough stuff didn’t exist then but we need to remember that the good, the bad and the ugly is just as prevalent today. Add the competitiveness of todays society and the money involved and we have a dimension that was no where near as commonplace in times past.
Traditional knowledge has taken several thousand years to evolve. It was developed by millions of horsemen and horses.
Army’s could not function on horses with sore backs or lame horses. Large pastoral operations and droving outfits did not want the burden of their horses only having a short usable life.
Most people in isolated locations often weeks or even months away from the nearest hospital did not want to ride frightened, worried or unpredictable horses. Unfortunately the stories of accidents and unfortunate “goings on” made much more of a story. I guess doom and gloom in most news broadcasts now is what takes hold of the general public’s ear.
In those older times horses suffering serious genetic disorders were generally not purposely “bred on” for aesthetic reasons and breeding stock had to prove their suitability for work and going the distance.
As much of the unsafe, unhealthy and unhappy things that horses have to endure come from a lack of experience and understanding as what emerge from a lack of respect for the horse. Not all that was done in the past is sinister and not all that is purported as a new revelation is in the best interests of the horse.
In the event that someone thought I may be someone they could ask for advice on this, it would be, “don’t be too quick to jump on a new bandwagon and don’t be too hasty in abandoning what preceded it. Lots of times a change is attractive to those who have not yet mastered the status quo”.
