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"You teach where you
release...through stress and recovery...which will bring you a
balance of trust and respect."
Some of you may remember the discussion we had
during the Fall Series when I brought up the above topic. I
believe this is a powerful statement that renders very powerful
results. It is the foundation in everything I do with the horse
(the pressure is on when they are wrong and off when they are
right). I would love for all of you to understand this concept on
a deeper level and to consciously implement it into your own
training program. So in this article, I am going to break these
concepts down to try and explain them a little further. I'm going
to start with the goal of "trust and respect" and work my way
backward to how we can reach that goal by "teaching where we
release" through "stress and recovery."
Balance of trust and respect
Getting trust and respect from our horses is a
continual balancing act on our part. The horse is a prey animal,
which can make him afraid, but also he has an instinct for
survival that encourages him to challenge his pecking order. This
unique combination of traits in a horse is where, we as trainers,
have to learn to read the horse and adjust accordingly. Learning
to read horses and knowing your own horse takes a lot of time. But
it is such a fundamental requirement for all of us to be able to
move our horses forward in their training. People are always
reluctant, but I keep encouraging them (more like nagging them) to
spend more hours on the ground to try to establish this balance of
trust and respect. I use exercises such as round pen training,
lunging, and leading exercises to establish this balance in the
horses that I train. If we are having trouble with either trust or
respect from the ground, it surely will get worse when we step
onto the horses back. We also need to have this foundation on the
ground so we will always have a place to go back to when our horse
gets out of balance.
Stress and recovery
The way we can gain trust and respect is by giving
our horses stress and recovery. Just like physically, a weight
lifter needs to stress his muscles and give them recovery time to
get stronger, our horses need to be stressed physically, mentally,
and emotionally and given recovery time to get stronger. Our
society is geared so much toward the thinking that the more we do
and the more we push forward, the further we get ahead. But an
interesting and important point to remember is that during the
recovery time is where muscles grow and also where horses will
learn- not when we are stressing them to learn. Therefore, we get
further ahead in our training when we give our horses recovery
time.
The hard part with the stress and recovery method
is to know when, how intense and how long to stress and when and
how long to allow them recovery. If they are not being
appropriately stressed, the recovery time will mean nothing to the
horse. To help us with this issue, we can continually ask
ourselves the questions, "is he trying?", "is he scared?", or "is
he being disrespectful?" The answer to these three questions will
help us know how much stress we should apply and how much recovery
time we should give. A good rule of thumb is to balance the amount
of stress the horse is feeling to the amount of recovery given. If
he is scared (this means he already has a lot of stress) we will
stress the horse less and recover more. If he is disrespectful
(this means he does not have enough stress), we will stress more
and recover less. And if he is willing and trying (balance of
trust and respect), we will stress and recover with equal amounts.
The key is to read our horses and let them tell us the optimal
degree of stress and recovery.
We teach where we release
The concept of "teaching where we release" goes
hand in hand with the concept of "stress and recovery." We have to
remember to never give recovery time when our horses are not
giving us the appropriate behavior. We will teach them to further
the bad behavior because we will have given them a reward of
recovery time at the wrong time. When horses are taught with the
stress/recovery method, they soon look for the release from the
stress/pressure. They begin to try harder because they know there
is always hope for them to choose the appropriate response and to
get the release from the stress/pressure, whether it be from our
hands, our legs, our seat, or our body language. This method
builds confidence in our horses because they learn that they have
control over the consequences of their behavior.
In conclusion, knowing when to get into a horse and
when to get out of a horse is very important for furthering one's
horsemanship skills. Please keep in mind that if we are
understressing our horses...their training will never move
forward. But if we are overstressing them... our training will go
backwards. Continually gage your horse's performance to find that
point of optimal stress and always balance that time with
recovery. And also remember to be very conscious of where you are
releasing the stress/pressure. If you are not releasing it at the
appropriate time...it may breed frustration, fear, disrespect, or
lack of try in your horse.
Pick any maneuver or a behavior you feel your horse needs work on
and try to implement these three concepts into your training
program. I didn't cover shaping (baby goals) because of limited
space, so make sure you break your goal down. Give recovery
(reward) for the try your horse makes with each step in the
correct direction. Please let me know your results, email me at
marcia@mm-horsetraining.com.
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