Back to basics

[glenatron]

I was working with Cash this evening, helping him to figure out back-up under saddle. He's doing so great now- we're approaching the point where the main thing he will need is just miles on the clock.

But it got me thinking about teaching back-up and it's kind of a microcosm of where I'm at with my horsemanship in general. There are several components to a good back-up - it needs to be relaxed, the horse's head needs to be low with the shoulders lifted, the movement needs to come from the hind feet so the horse is pulling themselves back rather than pushing with their front legs and the movement needs to be free and smooth.

With a baby like Cash I am constantly finding the balance point between the different things he needs, trying to do enough to keep everything clear and enough nuance in the signal I'm offering him that he can recognise every backward step as being the right response to this cue, but I still have headroom to ask him to do it in a more correct way, without pushing on the bit and dropping his shoulders. If there is too much pressure on the rein he's either going to feel constricted and get scared or he's going to learn to pull on me so I have to make sure that I am doing enough to provide signal, but not so much that he feels pulled on and then be ready to change things if he tries to run through the cues. If I'm going to do that it needs to happen in a way that doesn't conflict with what I'm trying to help him to figure out, ideally by giving him the impression that he has run into his own pressure rather than it being something I am actively doing.

Meanwhile I also have to be noticing the changes of mind, when possible, or body and rewarding them with a break and thinking time so he is able to process what is going on. And there is no benefit in drilling on this and letting him jam up- once we have got something a little bit right we go back to some more forward work so he doesn't get his feet and mind all stuck.

I make allowances for where we are at, but I am still very aware of what I am asking for and exacting in my expectations of him. There is no point teaching him something now that I will need him to unlearn later, so sometimes I will hang in there when it might look as though things are alright because I know that we can be more correct very easily and that settling for less will help neither of us in the long run.

Today we got half a step of calm, relaxed back-up with his head low and his poll relaxed. I stopped the session on that.

Comments

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

You see, I think Ray used feet and controlling the feet as a metaphor for a specific sort of awareness of the horse's body, and that's the only way he could find to describe it. For whatever reason, focusing on the feet doesn't work for me (and it's not just on a horse's back, but in ballet, yoga and other areas, probably based on a quirk of my conformation that I note below). That's why I know that it's not as crucial as others insist to know the feet. It's just a learning tool, and there are many learning tools. My methodology is more of a gestalt awareness than a straightforward foot focus. I also feel that obsessing over foot control leads to the slippery slope of predator/prey ideology, and, well, you've seen my ranty rant on that one. "Controlling the feet" has always troubled me from a psychological point of view, because I don't think that's what an alpha mare is thinking, and I think we miss the point far too much if we keep harping on controlling the feet and not on what the alpha mare thinks and does to control her space and dominate the herd. Is she controlling the feet or is she controlling the expression of the behavior? I fear that in thinking about the feet so much, we miss so much else.

I focus on what I feel coming through the back and the rein (movement rhythm, patterning, tension in the back, which I feel is a very crucial awareness to have) when I'm riding, and body language on the ground. I think it is very dangerous to obsess about one metaphor--the feet--to the exclusion of all else.

(Another factor is that I have a seatbone that sits higher than the other, so input from that side is delayed at times, which is probably why I rely on awareness from other factors. Another example is that if I think about my feet when I'm dancing, I'm awkward and imbalanced. If I focus on where I'm supposed to be and what I'm doing, I move correctly and in balance. I have to see the motion, then feel it. Thinking about my feet trips me up. Same for skiing)

Sensitivity and responsiveness are not solely derived from the feet. I like the visual processing of being able to work on long reins and I do think the subtlety is possible. However, it takes time, experience and practice to get it. I also like long reins as a desensitizing and training tool. I was good at them before I got Mocha; Mocha with her perceptiveness has made me better at them. It is a more subtle skill to develop than riding, though, and some people are intimidated about the possibilities of a horse blowing up and dealing with the reins. It can be scary because it is a more difficult skill to master than riding, especially if you are working with greenies. But hey, after helping G work with the crazy brain-fried greenie, I'm pretty much over that.

I also think you don't get subtlety from the start but have to refine it from broader cues. But then, for whatever reason, I don't have problems getting horses to be more subtle, even when riding schoolies or rental string critters (I'm the student the teacher always yells at to shorten up the rein, rarely to let go of it).

"Taking the horse out of the horse"--so what exactly does that mean to you? Again, to me that resonates of a shorthanding that gets repeated over and over without clarification and so on. Perhaps it's been because I've spent most of my horse time with alpha, dominant personalities that won't let a human wipe out their personality. I don't want to bully a horse into compliance, but then again, when I was young, I had a horse who was not shy about expressing her opinion of training she didn't like (i.e., bullying).

I could say more, but gotta go. I'll be putting up a post on one-man horses today--I tend to make a lot of those.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

In terms of taking the horse out of the horse, I think a lot about the desensitisation a lot of people tend to use. Watch someone like Clinton Anderson on his TV and video shows and you'll see the horse being taken out of the horse. The result is a steady, safe, obedient horse with mechanical responses and a shut down personality. Tends to go hand in hand with flooding-oriented training which I also find disagreeable but seems to be favoured by a lot of high profile trainers.

A lot of the time it's a question of doing more desensitisation than the horse needs, particularly desensitising them to your cues, then having to put the cues back in there. You can also just confuse them so they can't figure out what you want and just end up losing their try, which gives a difficult pattern to break. On the whole it comes down to making the horse do something rather than working with them to do things. Most people get by on that and they're quite happy- in fact most people never learn to see the difference.

I think most my horsey LJ friends tend to be a more thoughtful cast than the majority of riders I see around the place, but being inside a bubble of thoughtful horsemanship does not mean that there isn't a world of terrible equitation beyond it.

I wasn't suggesting that subtlety and responsiveness are derived solely from having a good connection to the feet, but I think it helps to have one and that it really helps with a young horse because it makes it easy for them to understand. Understandability is really important to me in how I work with horses. I bet you have one when you ride, you just don't think about it in those terms because you're thinking about the back and the rein. Ultimately, for me, the thing that matters is the horse's mind and how they feel about what we are doing. As far as metaphors are concerned, one writer I admire observed "I conceive of nothing, in religion, science, or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while." I think we find ideas that work for us at a time or a stage and then we grow through them and they become part of the foundation of the next stage we move on to.

I don't think that it was strictly a metaphor either, though. The term that I took to describe that all-through awareness is feel and a lot of people have a lot of things to say about that. But Ray could sit on a horse and have them pick up any foot and move it any direction without moving any of their other feet. That's not purely a metaphor, there is a genuine connection there.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I am so with you on the flooding piece. I think Anderson overdoes it and I suspect using the predator/prey analogy leads to that sort of flooding desensitization which then progresses to a shut-down, compliant horse that is silently rebellious. I think you have to give the horse space to issue their objections, and understand why you're asking them to do something rather than just plain compel once you get past basic safety (I also hatehatehate the timed competition training stuff. So you can overwhelm a colt to the point where you can stand on his back after a set period of time and do other stuff? That's not training, that's circus tricks. And will it stick?). But you don't need to flood the horse to get basic safety stuff down. And you can't desensitize the horse to everything. Rather, you need to teach the horse that you're its leader, so that the horse reacts, then checks in with you (the jump, then freeze. You don't always want to have that jump gone, not if you plan to trail ride. That startle reaction from an attentive horse could save your butt).

I always remember Sparkle's reaction to a mountain lion on the other side of a river when we were trail-riding in a group. The other horses were panicky and running out. Sparkle jumped. Snorted. Then stopped and checked in with me. Another time, we encountered her first combine, at dusk, on a blacktop road. She spooked and ran backwards three steps. Then she stopped and checked in. That's what I want.

Doesn't work with hotbloods like Arabs, TBs, or QHs with a lot of TB in them. They tend to be unhappy and rebellious horses.

I think the key is establishing the relationship so that the horse knows you are trying to be fair. Horses understand fairness. I think we as trainers need to give them that space to issue their objections and state their opinions. I think in the long run that leads to a happier and more compliant horse, because they know they can object and you'll listen.

Works for teaching middle school kids, too.

I also see now what you mean by foot control. I think it's a metaphor for feel, but I think too many people focus on the feet and not the feel. I've seen G do the same thing as Ray, only I think he can articulate it a bit more clearly. Not saying he's better, just that he explains what he's doing through the whole process.

(And he will be the first person to tell you I don't always feel the feet. I blame the screwy seatbone for that one. I can feel the left side fine, not the right)

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

For more on working with the inside of the horse, I'm sure you're a regular already, but I certainly recommend Ross Jacobs' Blog (http://goodhorsemanship.com.au/blog/blog.html) - along with Mugwump he's probably the most interesting horse training related blog out there.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't--thanks! I see he's a 2nd method Baucherist (from his description of getting the horse off of the forehand, classic from Jean-Claude Racinet).

You might want to look Racinet up. Here's a good place to start:
http://www.learningjoyresources.com/dressage.html
http://horsesforlife.com/content/view/1687/1433/

I dearly wish I'd had the chance to ride Mocha in one of his clinics before he passed. I audited one of his clinics, and it was marvelous. Everything that was talked about in the second link.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Ross is very well read but his core teaching these days is mostly influenced by Harry Whitney. I was talking with him over email a while ago and he said that Ray was the best horseman he ever saw, but Harry was a very close second and Harry can explain what he is doing. That put him right on the list of people I would like to learn with.