--- In [email protected], "Karen Thomas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Which horse, which time?
Trausti, dealing with the backing problem > > So, excuse me if I wonder why you are asking me this - NOW. >From your account of what happened, it didn't sound like you broke things down very much at all, yet you claim to be able to break behavior into very small steps as well as anyone on this list. >.. On this > particular subject, I'm feeling a little attacked, especially after Cheryl's > silly post...and that's ok. I'm no shrinking violet and I can take it. I happen to agree with Cheryl's post. You have no problem attacking others. > But, I'm going to turn the tables on you, Mary, since you don't post here > very often. I don't post here very often because of negative energy that has become a constant on this list. I've been on this list from the beginning, and was on Judy's old list and Christophe's list before that. I used to post regularly, but I have better things to do with my life than get caught up in the constant nitpicking and criticism that is a part of this list. >YOU start a thread on how you do things. I tried to start a thread yesterday, but nobody picked up on it but Kim. I'd appreciate comments on the following post written by Alexandra Kurland. It describes a clinic I attended a few months ago. For those who don't know the code, WWYLM is the Why Would You Leave Me game, where you ask the horse to keep his attention on you and click and treat him when he does, first on the ground, then under saddle. You gradually ask him to re-balance and learn to carry himself in perfect self carriage, as you walk a circle. 3-flip-3 has been discussed in the past on this list. You ride with a single rein, asking for 3 gives to the bit on the inside rein, on the 4th give, you ask for a flip (disengagement) of the hip, then 3 more gives of the jaw. Enjoy, Mary >From Alex: One of the great joys of the clinic process is returning to the same area and working with horses over a cycle of many months. I am always astounded at the depth of the relationship that develops through clicker training. At the first Pownal Vermont clinic in August we had an Arabian who had "been through the wars" in terms of his past history. His current owner is a lovely person, who recognized immediately that clicker training was the perfect match for her. Prior to the clinic she had already introduced him to the clicker and the foundation lessons. He was beginning to emerge from a shut down, non-interactive state, but emotional control was clearly going to be a major issue for him. Our work space at the clinic was a round pen set up in the middle of an indoor arena. When his owner took him into the round pen and turned him loose, he was aloof, nervous, looking outside of the arena instead of at her. I had her work on "Robin's Magic Hands" and the pre-why would you leave me game. Her horse made progress through the weekend, but it was clear the attachment to her was still tenuous at best. He was right on the edge of connecting to his person, sighing, letting the tension ripple out of his muscles, checking in but always needing to leave again. Never dangerous, just not committed to staying. He wasn't convinced that his human really understood that there were horse-eating monsters lurking just outside the backdoor of the arena. He could stay with her near the gate, but the "Magic Hands" connection wasn't strong enough to keep him with her as she moved deeper into the arena. He had to skitter away, not quite brave enough to stay and face the monsters That was in August. I saw them again just a couple of weeks ago. The monsters are still there, but he's with her now. Connected, listening, trusting. He has all the reason in the world from past handling not to trust. In the first clinic, if we had "sorted him out" with traditional handling, she might have ended up with an obedient horse, one who followed her and did what he was told. But she wouldn't have the relationship which was so clearly emerging. The sparkle would have been missing. I know it can seem to the people who are outside this process that we are taking the slow road to riding. We put so many steps into the training! The jig saw puzzle isn't made with fifty pieces or even a hundred. This one comes with a thousand interlocking pieces, each one beautifully crafted and worth enjoying by itself. Each piece of the puzzle, when it falls into place with its neighbors, brings with it an understanding of the larger picture that you don't get when you build the puzzle with just a handful of steps. We live in such a make-it-happen culture. I know at times watching clicker trainers train must be a fingernails-on-the-blackboard experience for the people who want to "sort out" our horses for us. They truly do believe they need just a day or two to put things to rights. They may indeed be able to jam some of the pieces of the jig saw together, but the picture they create is never the same one that grows out of patient, thoughtful training. At that same Vermont clinic I had a fun lesson with Mary Arena and her Icelandic Stormur. Stormur has had a tough couple of years. He's had Lyme's disease, which has played havoc with his health. He's gone through some painful stretches where he could barely walk. Mary has had a frustrating time sorting out what she was dealing with and coming up with a treatment plan, but this summer Stormur was finally able to return to riding. I saw Stormur a couple of times this summer. We started on the ground with a review of basics, then moved onto riding. At this last clinic the pieces were falling into nicely into place, and we had a fun lesson together using the tool box. It was one of those sessions we should have video taped because it was such a clear illustration of how one exercise flows into the next. Instead of teaching the individual pieces of the jig saw we were using them to create the larger picture. In this case the picture we formed was restoring Stormur's balance and beautiful gaits to what they had been before the Lyme's disease. We had a circle of cones set up. Mary started by riding WWYLM around the cones. She began on the buckle. As long as Stormur stayed on the circle, she left him alone. If he started to leave the circle at all, she slid down the inside rein and brought his nose back onto the circle. Getting Stormur to connect with Mary's seat and stay on the circle had been the focus of our previous session together. Mary had done her homework, so in this ride she could ride Stormur on the buckle, keeping him forward and on the circle very consistently. The balance was there for them to shift to three-flip-three. This is such an important understanding to have of this process. By the time I asked Mary to move on the formality of the counted exercise, it was already there to be had. She didn't have to make it happen. She just had to recognize the balance and receive it with a gentle slide down of the rein. I didn't want a deep lateral flexion. Mary was to think of each give as a very little thing. And I also wanted to be sure that Stormur stayed ahead of Mary's leg. If he lost forward, she was to go back and confirm the wwylm energy on the circle. We were gathering the steps of a long chain. When three-flip-three was solid and consistent, I had Mary look for an opportunity to organize her outside rein. She'd go through the initial steps of three-flip-three, asking Stormur to stay forward and soften his jaw to her. As she asked for his hip, he was in the perfect balance to organize the outside rein. She didn't need to wait until she was at the end of the three-flip-three sequence. She could recognize that three-flip-three had done it's job. It had created the balance she needed for the next step. Out of the three-flip-three balance that was now consistently there, she organized the outside rein. She confirmed his commitment in the outside rein at the walk, and then asked for tolt. (Remember, Stormur is an Icelandic, a gaited horse. He has five gaits: walk, trot, canter, tolt, and flying pace.) If he anticipated the tolt, and changed gait on the pick up of the outside rein, she disallowed it with the rein mechanics of inside hand down, outside hand up. Done well, this rebalances a horse without shutting down the energy or compressing the spine. So we had a chain. I'd throw out the reminders. To the uninitiated it sounded as though we were speaking in code. And indeed we were. The fun for me was working with someone who knew the code, had ridden all the segments of it, and understood how to put the individual pieces together. I didn't have to explain each one. Mary knew what they were, and what elements she needed to collect before moving on to the next step. If she lost a piece, she knew how to go back, regroup and rebuild the chain. So we began with wwylm. This confirmed that Stormur had enough energy channeled onto the circle to sustain the sequence. When you first work on lateral flexions, it is easy to lose track of the energy. The focus is on other things. And for many people it is easier to learn the feel of a horse stepping under when there's not a lot of energy to worry about. But you do need some energy or you get into the "broken shopping cart" syndrome where the horse can't respond correctly and ends up feeling as though he's stuck in mud. The more bending and turning you do, the more the energy tends to dissipate. So when working on lateral flexions, it is important to recognize that forward is an important part of the cycle. The principle to keep in mind is: "For every exercise we teach, there is an opposite exercise we must teach to keep things in balance." When you create patterned exercises, you want to be certain to include the balancers in your chain. Three-flip-three begins with: go forward. That's an important part of keeping things in balance, but when you are first learning the exercise, it is easy to lose track of this first step. I will see people walk off not by picking up the buckle so the reins hang down evenly on either side of their buckle hand, but by immediately sliding down the inside rein. There is no moment when they are allowing the horse to move forward without also partially shutting off access to the "front door". So with Stormur, it was wwylm, or in other words: go forward, with energy, on the buckle, around the circle. Once the energy level and basic balance were set, three-flip-three was there to be had. Mary could slide down the inside rein and receive the balance of a lateral flexion. She didn't have to make it happen. Her job was to recognize what the previous steps had created and to receive what was already there so she could make it even better. Once the balance of three-flip-three was consistent, she could add in the outside rein, confirm the balance yet again, and then ask for tolt. At any step in this chain, if she lost the underlying element, she could go back and collect it. So our lesson together was spoken in code. My job was to confirm what she was feeling, and to call out the part of the chain she needed to think about next. She might be just about to organize the outside rein, when Stormur would, for whatever reason, lose energy. Rather than trying to get the energy back within that step, Mary would slide back to the buckle and wwylm, rebuilt the energy, and move back through the chain - to three-flip- three, to the pick up of the outside rein, to confirming the balance and the energy in the outside rein, to releasing the energy into tolt. She could click and treat segments of the longer chain, confirming that step, then withhold the click until the next piece of the chain fell into place. At the end she rode from wwylm, to three-flip- three, to the pick up of the outside rein, to an engaged balanced walk, to a beautiful transition into tolt, to a sustained tolt - all for one click and treat. Stormur ended the session with a beautiful, pure tolt, none of the rushy pace that he had been doing when his weight was all on his front end. It was the feel she had fallen in love with before the Lyme's disease and the pain, and the months of being laid up took all his beautiful balance away from him. It was good to see Stormur back again. And it was fun to play with the language and the tool box, letting each step produce the next so that we could get to the final point in the session where Stormur felt like the horse Mary so loved to ride. It was fun to see the process work and the pieces of the jig saw fit so neatly together. I didn't video Stormur's lesson, but I did manage to record some other wonderful sessions. I've got in excess of fifty hours of tapes to review. My winter project is going to be putting together a series of DVDs on the major lessons in the riding book. I know I got some great video on the t'ai chi rein handling mechanics, as well as the mechanics of single rein riding. I've got some really great video on three-flip-three, and that's just the beginning. So my thanks to everyone who participated in this year's round of clinics. I know for me it was a great year with many fun discoveries. There's nothing like the clinic process for sorting out what really matters, what really works, and what is just window dressing. So thanks again to everyone who joined me at these clinics. The one thing that is certain about clicker training is that it is a constantly evolving process. For me it is a richly rewarding experience watching the pieces of the puzzle come together for so many people. All the Best! Alexandra Kurland theclickercenter.com
