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glenatronI want to get this down while it is still fresh in my mind, but it is hard to say what I want to about this weekend, it has been moving and instructive to a point almost beyond what I can find words to express right now, but at least I have immediacy.
This weekend we were at a horse training clinic in Sussex, lead by the amazing Steve Halfpenny, a 6'8" Australian in a white cowboy hat with an great skill in communicating with horses, with people and perhaps most importantly at facilitating communication between the two.
After some last minute panic about finding a lorry to put the horses in - the one we were planning to use didn't pass it's horsebox MOT thing so we had to find someone who could take us at the last possible minute. What could have been a catastrophic end to the weekend before it had even begun was translated into something much more positive when Lou not only found someone who could drive us, but they also turned out to know Karen, who owns Joe, and to be an intensely likeable person, with a great affinity for the horses.
While Lou was handling all this I was continuing the week of a thousand gigs ( I know, it was actually only five gigs, and you've told me a million times not to exaggerate, but week of five gigs just doesn't sound right ) by playing in High Wycombe town hall - a fantastic venue with a great sound and a smaller audience than it deserved, especially when the bill included us and the superbly gothic and generally outstanding Wire Jesus, a band you would like if you like girl and boy vocal harmonies, cellos and genius. Why they aren't signed to an awesomely cool indie label and releasing albums to massive critical acclaim and cult success I have no idea.
Saturday morning began with bright sunshine and a general chat with Steve and the participants in the clinic to discuss what we wanted to achieve. My goals were relatively simple- I wanted to be able to hold Othello's attention instead of him ignoring me and I wanted to help him move more softly and in a relaxed fashion rather than in his typical tense and braced way. Because I was self-confessedly the least experienced horseman with the least experienced horse I volunteered us to go first. We began with some very simple leading and Steve quickly picked up some problems with the most basic things I was doing, particularly in the way I was allowing him to use his shoulder to move me out of the way and the grudging and resistant way that he was responding to my requests. Steve did some basic work with him, observing that the way he was looking away from handlers and tasks and seeming to not be paying attention was actually him defensively blanking out humans in the hope that if he shut down and ignored them hard enough, they might go away. This is probably because he has been treated in a way that seemed to him as though whatever he tried to do was the wrong thing, so he just closed down and stopped trying. This made me realise that the reason that he has seemed slow on the uptake is possibly because he has never been able to benefit from making a decision- it seemed to him that whatever he did was wrong and so he just gave up trying and let himself be dragged around by whatever human was on the end of the rope unless he saw an opportunity to drag them off. Steves approach to working with horses is to set them up with choices and to make the right choice easier. He can be very direct and bring a lot of energy into his work, but he always notices and rewards the slightest try on the part of the horse. Within minutes Othello was starting to realise that not only did his choices count but he could choose to make things easy for himself. When I took him back he was much more receptive and willing to listen - quickly we were leading from both sides in such a way that our legs were perfectly synchronised- our feet landing together and his pace matching mine as I slowed down or sped up. Othello had relaxed so much by this point that he looked like a different horse, much softer and more willing to listen. We worked at picking up the energy and the pace so we were trotting together, modulating from walk to faster walk, back to walk and then maybe back up to faster walk and to slow trot and so on, never escalating things too far in any given step. By the end of that first hour he was behaving significantly differently.
Watching the other participants through the rest of the day was also fascinating - seeing how many of the things that started out looking like very different problems actually came back to the same basics that Othello and I had worked on already was most informative. I was constantly reminded of the secret ninja wisdom of our Sensei Les: "If you can't do it slow, you'll never be able to do it fast."
In the evening Steve was doing a demonstration and we had volunteered Othello and his unwilling lifting of back feet as a potential candidate for this. I had to dash away to London for the next of the 1000 gigs, so I missed it, but apparently not only did they use Othello, but he showed a considerable degree of pique, culminating in hopping round Steve on three legs for several minutes before he realised that actually, picking up one's back feet is not as bad as maybe one thought it was and maybe it was the sort of thing that even a small horse from the dales could do if necessary. Apparently someone was videoing it so I really hope I'll get to see that some day.
We played a good gig, back in the 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street - fitting all six of us on the tiny stage was a challenge but we managed by balancing Tiffany on the bass amp. The venue was pretty full and combined with the warm weather and the radiant heat from my blazing sunburned arms it was probably the single hottest gig I have ever played. It went really well, and it was good fun, but my heart was in a Sussex field.
Obviously, I missed the last train back to East Grinstead, where I left the car, so I had to get Lou to retrieve me from Gatwick Airport, which was the nearest station I actually could get to. She was exhausted, poor little creature, but she rescued me like the hero she is.
This morning we had our second session - Othello and I were first again - and this time the focus was on controlling Othello's feet, moving his hindquarters and shoulders to make sure he is going exactly where I ask, getting him to step under his body and to follow the softest feel on a rope to encourage him to respond accurately to light cues. We also built on yesterday's leading work and I picked his feet up. That didn't need any work though- he lifted and held them like an old pro. There was a lot of consolidation for both of us and once Steve had explained where I needed to stand (at some points he had to actually take my shoulders and move me to the right place before I could understand it) we started to get some really good results. Not perfect and not subtle, not yet, but a clear indication of the direction in which we can go. One of today's major realisations is that I have been being too diplomatic in my dealings with horses - I've been asking softly and then asking more firmly and then a bit more firmly still until I finally reached a point where the horse responded. Watching Steve's work, which was much more along the lines of ask-tell, I realised that the consequence of that is that the second time he asks, he doesn't have to tell and soon he only has to hint at asking. My opposite approach of slowly raising the pressure was potentially having the effect of actually making them realise that if they have ignored the first ask, they can probably ignore the second, so that ultimately I end up teaching them to ignore my instructions. Either that or they ignore them until suddenly I put on more pressure than they can stand, which could have explosive consequences.
By the time Othello left the teaching area, he was moving and acting like a much different horse, even Lou, who has not had the best relationship with the little pony, admitted that she could see real potential in him, possibly for the first time. It's up to me, now, to continue the work and to help him to progress.
Again it was tremendous to watch the other participants ( it is much easier to see how to solve problems when you are spectating than when you are taking part- armchair expertise is the most attainable kind ) but I found myself in a slightly restless mood, with thoughts and ideas rushing around as though there is a firework display going on in my head. All too quickly we were coming to the end of the day. Last up, in an extra session that should have belonged to Karen as the event organiser but she very kindly decided to offer to Lou and Joe, Steve showed Lou how to do liberty work, where you and the horse work together without any ropes between you, so you have to have the horse really with you in order to achieve anything. After explaining the ground rules of the game to Joe (something which resulted in a small degree of Joe Rage) Lou was able to get him following and moving with her, his footsteps matching hers around the pen, turning together in curves and serpentines, it was beautifully executed and very moving to watch the relationship between Lou and her pony in action, in an environment where there is no way any of it could possibly be faked.
At that point, things got really amazing...
This weekend we were at a horse training clinic in Sussex, lead by the amazing Steve Halfpenny, a 6'8" Australian in a white cowboy hat with an great skill in communicating with horses, with people and perhaps most importantly at facilitating communication between the two.
After some last minute panic about finding a lorry to put the horses in - the one we were planning to use didn't pass it's horsebox MOT thing so we had to find someone who could take us at the last possible minute. What could have been a catastrophic end to the weekend before it had even begun was translated into something much more positive when Lou not only found someone who could drive us, but they also turned out to know Karen, who owns Joe, and to be an intensely likeable person, with a great affinity for the horses.
While Lou was handling all this I was continuing the week of a thousand gigs ( I know, it was actually only five gigs, and you've told me a million times not to exaggerate, but week of five gigs just doesn't sound right ) by playing in High Wycombe town hall - a fantastic venue with a great sound and a smaller audience than it deserved, especially when the bill included us and the superbly gothic and generally outstanding Wire Jesus, a band you would like if you like girl and boy vocal harmonies, cellos and genius. Why they aren't signed to an awesomely cool indie label and releasing albums to massive critical acclaim and cult success I have no idea.
Saturday morning began with bright sunshine and a general chat with Steve and the participants in the clinic to discuss what we wanted to achieve. My goals were relatively simple- I wanted to be able to hold Othello's attention instead of him ignoring me and I wanted to help him move more softly and in a relaxed fashion rather than in his typical tense and braced way. Because I was self-confessedly the least experienced horseman with the least experienced horse I volunteered us to go first. We began with some very simple leading and Steve quickly picked up some problems with the most basic things I was doing, particularly in the way I was allowing him to use his shoulder to move me out of the way and the grudging and resistant way that he was responding to my requests. Steve did some basic work with him, observing that the way he was looking away from handlers and tasks and seeming to not be paying attention was actually him defensively blanking out humans in the hope that if he shut down and ignored them hard enough, they might go away. This is probably because he has been treated in a way that seemed to him as though whatever he tried to do was the wrong thing, so he just closed down and stopped trying. This made me realise that the reason that he has seemed slow on the uptake is possibly because he has never been able to benefit from making a decision- it seemed to him that whatever he did was wrong and so he just gave up trying and let himself be dragged around by whatever human was on the end of the rope unless he saw an opportunity to drag them off. Steves approach to working with horses is to set them up with choices and to make the right choice easier. He can be very direct and bring a lot of energy into his work, but he always notices and rewards the slightest try on the part of the horse. Within minutes Othello was starting to realise that not only did his choices count but he could choose to make things easy for himself. When I took him back he was much more receptive and willing to listen - quickly we were leading from both sides in such a way that our legs were perfectly synchronised- our feet landing together and his pace matching mine as I slowed down or sped up. Othello had relaxed so much by this point that he looked like a different horse, much softer and more willing to listen. We worked at picking up the energy and the pace so we were trotting together, modulating from walk to faster walk, back to walk and then maybe back up to faster walk and to slow trot and so on, never escalating things too far in any given step. By the end of that first hour he was behaving significantly differently.
Watching the other participants through the rest of the day was also fascinating - seeing how many of the things that started out looking like very different problems actually came back to the same basics that Othello and I had worked on already was most informative. I was constantly reminded of the secret ninja wisdom of our Sensei Les: "If you can't do it slow, you'll never be able to do it fast."
In the evening Steve was doing a demonstration and we had volunteered Othello and his unwilling lifting of back feet as a potential candidate for this. I had to dash away to London for the next of the 1000 gigs, so I missed it, but apparently not only did they use Othello, but he showed a considerable degree of pique, culminating in hopping round Steve on three legs for several minutes before he realised that actually, picking up one's back feet is not as bad as maybe one thought it was and maybe it was the sort of thing that even a small horse from the dales could do if necessary. Apparently someone was videoing it so I really hope I'll get to see that some day.
We played a good gig, back in the 12 Bar Club in Denmark Street - fitting all six of us on the tiny stage was a challenge but we managed by balancing Tiffany on the bass amp. The venue was pretty full and combined with the warm weather and the radiant heat from my blazing sunburned arms it was probably the single hottest gig I have ever played. It went really well, and it was good fun, but my heart was in a Sussex field.
Obviously, I missed the last train back to East Grinstead, where I left the car, so I had to get Lou to retrieve me from Gatwick Airport, which was the nearest station I actually could get to. She was exhausted, poor little creature, but she rescued me like the hero she is.
This morning we had our second session - Othello and I were first again - and this time the focus was on controlling Othello's feet, moving his hindquarters and shoulders to make sure he is going exactly where I ask, getting him to step under his body and to follow the softest feel on a rope to encourage him to respond accurately to light cues. We also built on yesterday's leading work and I picked his feet up. That didn't need any work though- he lifted and held them like an old pro. There was a lot of consolidation for both of us and once Steve had explained where I needed to stand (at some points he had to actually take my shoulders and move me to the right place before I could understand it) we started to get some really good results. Not perfect and not subtle, not yet, but a clear indication of the direction in which we can go. One of today's major realisations is that I have been being too diplomatic in my dealings with horses - I've been asking softly and then asking more firmly and then a bit more firmly still until I finally reached a point where the horse responded. Watching Steve's work, which was much more along the lines of ask-tell, I realised that the consequence of that is that the second time he asks, he doesn't have to tell and soon he only has to hint at asking. My opposite approach of slowly raising the pressure was potentially having the effect of actually making them realise that if they have ignored the first ask, they can probably ignore the second, so that ultimately I end up teaching them to ignore my instructions. Either that or they ignore them until suddenly I put on more pressure than they can stand, which could have explosive consequences.
By the time Othello left the teaching area, he was moving and acting like a much different horse, even Lou, who has not had the best relationship with the little pony, admitted that she could see real potential in him, possibly for the first time. It's up to me, now, to continue the work and to help him to progress.
Again it was tremendous to watch the other participants ( it is much easier to see how to solve problems when you are spectating than when you are taking part- armchair expertise is the most attainable kind ) but I found myself in a slightly restless mood, with thoughts and ideas rushing around as though there is a firework display going on in my head. All too quickly we were coming to the end of the day. Last up, in an extra session that should have belonged to Karen as the event organiser but she very kindly decided to offer to Lou and Joe, Steve showed Lou how to do liberty work, where you and the horse work together without any ropes between you, so you have to have the horse really with you in order to achieve anything. After explaining the ground rules of the game to Joe (something which resulted in a small degree of Joe Rage) Lou was able to get him following and moving with her, his footsteps matching hers around the pen, turning together in curves and serpentines, it was beautifully executed and very moving to watch the relationship between Lou and her pony in action, in an environment where there is no way any of it could possibly be faked.
At that point, things got really amazing...
