By Jen: Been digesting my recent Mark Rashid 'experience'......WOW is all I have to say. Really its pretty hard to express the profound impact he has had on my thinking and on my horsemanship 'path'...
Some notes: "Consistency creates dependability, which creates trust, which creates peace"...this was the theme for the weekend. Mark assessed each rider and horse. Where there were trust issues, he went right to the basics of being consistent in maintaining personal space, using body language and providing more information to the horse. It was amazing for me to see how I let things slide...little things like allowing my horse to drift or mosey into my space....without consistently setting a boundary and maintaining it dilligently. It makes a difference to our horses..consistency shows them we can be dependable. In regard to training a young or green horse. I brought my baby Belgian up to Mark, so I could learn the basics of 'ground driving' and get a sense for my plan over the next 6 months with Peanut. On the first day, he taught me how to be dependable....the starting point for any relationship with a horse. This simply entailed allowing Peanut to stand, outside my space quietly. He's allowed to look around at distractions but he should be able to do this without moving his feet. This literally took 60 seconds to accomplish...babies are so smart...and so looking for a leader! Next, Mark explained that babies have no context for 'learning' outside the herd, so our first job is to get across the idea that he can turn over some of his decision making to me...this is where being consistent and dependable are really important. To start this, Mark showed me some simple but non traditional lunging techniques. With a long line, I ask Peanut to move out on the circle. I move and he moves. Since we are preparing for driving, I stay back behind the drive line. I ask him to slow down by walking slower, stop by stopping, speed up by walking faster. Of course in the beginnning there was alot of 'reinforcing my aids' with a swinging rope or turning his nose with the lead. It was so neat....you could see Peanut had no clue what was happening at first. Then you could see him clueing in to Mark and then me, like...'hmmm, am I supposed to be doing something? Are you talking to me? Once that got reasonably reproducible, we added some rope work around the legs. You've all seen Pat and linda do this...take the rope around the flank and turn your horse around. We did alot of this and for the most part, Peanut was not bothered by the rope, but he did get quite sticky on the turn around. Mark had me 'do what it takes' to get him around in stead of waiting for him to figure it out. He explained that we are teaching a pattern and we want to be particular about how that pattern looks. Lightness and softness will be installed after the pattern is there. So although you always offer the lightest aid, you must be prepared to provide any and all the information required to get the pattern done, until the horse is engaged in the pattern. I think this was the biggest thing I learned about youngsters. Don't let them guess about what you are triing to accomplish...SPELL IT OUT in big letters! Make it obvious what the right thing to do is. Softness comes when the horse trusts the process and feels confident in his correctness. Once this confidence is in place, the sky is the limit in regard to training. Learning happens in horses like links in a chain. One piece links to the next. In this way they build their repetoire of learned behaviors. These links also include stuff we don't mean to teach, but allow the horse to learn by being inconsistent. So its not only important to make sure your lessons follow a logical progression, so your horse can link them together confidently, but also to be aware of unwanted behavior and intervene before that 'link' gets inserted into the chain. Probably the highlight of the weekend was watching the progress Tim is making with his mustang, Tico. He is ground driving as well, though much, much further along in regard the lightness and softness. It was beautiful, like a dance. You can really see the trust this horse has for Tim and real peace is just around the corner for this troubled horse. At one point on the last day, Tim tied Tico to a tree to participate in a group simulation. Tico got alittle troubled with the line and managed to untie himself, then got turned around in some brush. As soon as Tim appeared, he immediately came to him for direction. This horse is a real 'thinker' and to watch him turn over his decision making to Tim is truly special. Peanut was ground driving by the second day with Mark primarily (his 4th 'link'). I worked on my rope skills with Manny later that day and was driving Peanut myself with fair confidence on the third day. I now have a plan for how this pattern will evolve over the next few months and how we will get it softer and softer. The weekend was full of huge highlights for me personally. It was a thrill to see my baby do so well. Not just with the driving in class, but also the trailer loading, traveling, camping in a temporary pen, his manners in general. Mark liked Peanut and the idea that I have done a reasonable job making a good citizen out of him is a huge relief to me, lol. On the last day, I chose to ride my TB, Canon. He was stiff, as he can get if I haven't been riding him regularly. He has been recovering from a back injury from last year. Anyway, Mark commented that Canon is so stiff in the shoulders that his hind end has a hard time coming through. So he had me do some visualization exercises with the front end and then the back end and within 2 or 3 minutes I had this lofty, floating trot...huge suspension and his head long and low. It was amazing...no additional physical aids at all....in fact, while I was mentally picturing what I wanted to happen with his feet, I found I was relying less heavily on my hands, seat and legs to help him. It was SOOO cool! In my session with Kathleen, we worked abit on the canter. I have noticed that Canon has recently had trouble maintaining the canter. Turns out he was holding his breath and was only able to canter as long as he could hold his breath, then he would transition to trot. Once I got him breathing (by breathing myself) he was able to canter as long as I wanted. It was a pretty wild day for me...learning to crawl into the skin of my horse...that is really harmony, lol. ______________________ Judy http://icehorses.net http://clickryder.com
