October 2006 Newsletter
Copyright 2006 Alexandra Kurland
The following posts were written for the_click_that_teaches email discuaaion list.
Contents:
Three-Flip-Three: More Details
Safety Always Comes First
Incompatible Behaviors, Foundation Lessons, Kittens and "Yes Answers"
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Three-Flip-Three: More Details
By Alexandra Kurland
Copyright 2006
Lots of questions recently on three-flip-three.
Pam wrote:
I'm working on 3 flip 3 right now and had become aware and concerned at the loss of forward. I have stepped back and am working on each piece and keeping the forward before I go to the next piece.
I do have a question on the the first 3 gives - is the horse supposed to keep moving in a forward direction during these gives?
What I'm getting is he gives his nose and neck to the side I'm asking on, we often either end up spiraling or he keeps that bend
and moves out thru his outside shoulder. I've been asking for that bend in the first 3 gives as I thought this came out of WWYLM but I'm suspicious that I've got it wrong and the gives should be more gives of the poll and base of the neck with less bend so the horse stays going straight forward.
One of the principles of training states that for every exercise we teach there is an opposite exercise we must teach to keep things in balance. This isn't just true of clicker training. It is true of all training. Lunging on a circle is a great example of this principle. We want the horse to leave, to move out away from us, but we don't want him to keep going. Once he reaches the outer edge of the circle we want him to soften back to us. But we don't want him to come back to us so much that he ends up in our lap. Leave but don't leave. The balance between leaving and coming back creates a circle.
Similarly we want balance between going forward and stopping. It's easy for a horse to go forward if we let go of his head and get out of his way. And it's easy to get a stop if we get him to soften and bend his nose to the side. But what happens if we want both at the same time?
We want the horse to soften back to us and to step forward from behind. But the horse is going to say you can have one or the other but not both - at least not at the same time. In this scenario every time you slide down the rein and ask him to yield to you, you shut down forward energy. If you are sitting on a big-strided, high-energy horse, that may sound like a good thing. Shutting down the energy makes your horse more ridable - or at least that's the illusion. But shut down the energy enough and pretty soon your big-strided horse is going to be shuffling along like an old cow pony. That's a bad deal for both of you. It's a bad deal for you because you're missing out on the joy of riding a horse with impulsion. And it's a bad deal for your horse because shuffling forward with his energy shut down and blocked creates joint problems.
So what is the alternative? Can the horse learn that he can soften back to you and step forward from behind at the same time? The answer is yes, and that's what three-flip-three is designed to teach.
I wrote recently on the cumulative effect of three-flip-three. The first step is go forward. Then it is go forward and soften your jaw to me. The "and" is important. Lose track of that and you will end up with a loss of energy. Your horse may be bending nicely, but he'll just be shuffling along. That's not the end goal of this exercise.
If your horse is spiraling in, or falling out you want to check to see if you are keeping track of the progression. You may be blocking and pulling your horse onto his inside shoulder when you ask for the jaw. That will create a spiral. Or you may be holding on too long or asking for too much hip. By the time you are ready to ask for three-flip-three you are receiving something that is already happening, not making something happen. There is a huge difference. So check to see if you are creating an imbalance because you are doing too much. That's especially common in the second set of three. People often focus so much on moving the shoulder over that they get out of alignment.
Three-Flip-Three as a Tool
Three-flip-three is a tool. Not an end in itself. There are three phases to developing this tool. First, you have to activate the tool, meaning get your horse moving laterally. Next you learn how to follow the overall geography of the pattern. And third you learn how to use the pattern to improve the balance of your horse. You don't ride three-flip-three for it's own sake. (Though you could because it does feel grand.)
In the first stage, things may be a bit crude. If the horse steps laterally at all with his shoulders, it's click and treat. You aren't concerned about aligning the drill team. That will come later. For now any step over is cause for a celebration.
Once stepping over with the shoulders becomes a bit more ho hum, you'll be able to ask for the entire three-flip-three pattern, not just one or two steps in the progression. Now you become aware of the internal geography of the pattern. In the first set of three you want to confirm that your horse will give in his jaw and turn in the direction of the bend. The exaggerated form of a horse that doesn't do this is the horse that bends his nose to the side but keeps walking straight down the long side of the arena. His nose is not connected to his feet via the rein or the rider's body.
Getting a horse to bend and be soft in his head and neck is useless if you don't attach all that softness to his feet. Three-flip-three is confirming that you are fully connected to your horse. He will bend and turn in the direction of the give. And he will also bend, but step over away from the direction of the bend.
Here's an image for you. I've got a tea mug by my computer. I can hold the mug in my left hand and pretend my right hand is a horse. I can "walk" straight towards the mug, meaning I extend my fingers so there is no bend to my right hand and move it towards the cup. As I approach the cup, I can bend my hand and wrap it around the cup. I am now bending and moving in the direction of the bend. Because my hand is wrapping around the cup, I also know I am not falling in on my "shoulder".
So now I have my hand wrapped around the mug. Keeping that curve to my hand I can move my hand away from the mug. I am curving my hand so that it still matches the shape of the mug, but I am moving it off the mug.
I want both possibilities. If I am riding around a cone and my horse starts to fall in, I need to ride the second half of three-flip-three to create a smooth arc to my pattern. And if he falls out through his shoulders and drifts away from the next cone, I need to ride the first part of the pattern.
On an experienced horse I'll be able to do that easily because an experienced horse is essentially always in a three-flip-three balance. I don't have to create it each time I pick up the rein. It is there already. The tool is in place, well understood and ready to be used. If my horse loses his balance momentarily and is no longer moving in sync with me, I can use the skills we both learned in three-flip-three to reconnect and bring him back both into balance and connected to the geography I am riding.
So here's the progression:
You begin with clicker basics - the six foundation lessons. In those lessons you are developing rope handling skills and your horse is learning reaction patterns that you'll use later to create more complex patterns. If you are having trouble with mechanics - go back to basics.
The six foundation lessons lead to the "cha cha": asking your horse to go forward and back. From that it is very easy to introduce the duct tape lesson. (See the Step-By-Step book.) The duct tape lesson opens up lateral work. You can move directly to three-flip-three from the duct tape lesson. I like to add in the pre WWYLM and WWYLM game. These are transition lessons into riding. The WWYLM game in particular is asking a critical question: can I let go of you?
You can put the WWYM "box", the invisible target spot that the horse orients to, anywhere you choose. You can stabilize the WWYLM spot with the horse walking behind you, directly at your side, or up in front of you. As you know, I use the exercise to bring the horse forward, out to the side, and then up in front of me so a lateral flexion pops out.
Receiving
Once the horse is walking in front of you maintaining a lateral flexion, you are ready to convert this to the counted exercise of three-flip-three. And this is where people often find themselves tripping up mentally. They think they are after something different, something they don't already have.. But the beauty of all of these exercises is that you will know you are ready to move on to them when the horse is already offering them.
You are receiving, not creating three-flip-three. So there are two ways to go down a rein. One is to ask for something that is not already there. The other is to acknowledge/receive something that the horse is already offering you.
When you have WWYLM working well, the horse wraps himself around you and steps beautifully out of your way. He's already soft in his jaw. He's already lined up in the drill team. You don't have to ask for softness. It is already there.
At a recent clinic I had someone ask me why you touch the rein at all. For answer I had her pretend that she was talking to me on the phone. I had her describe her drive home. As she talked I made no response. No "uh huh"s, no "that's interesting", nothing. Without any response from me the conversation fizzled out. When my horse is walking beside me, I can slide down that soft as butter rein and acknowledge his wonderful work without disturbing it. That's a skill. Can you be present, without being disturbing? And can you in the next moment be present and ask for a change?
So when you are ready to turn WWYLM into a counted exercise, you are receiving the first three gives and the horse is wrapped beautifully around you on the circle. On the fourth touch of the rein, you glance back at his hip. And you keep walking with him. If you stop your feet to look back at his hip, you will block the hip. You will over rotate him, stall out forward, and end up with him backing up. In three-flip-three we want the give of the hip to be a forward moving exercise.
The give of the hip in three-flip-three is generated from just a glance back. Your horse is already in good balance. You are receiving the next step, not asking for the hip without any preparation. So be prepared for it to be there, and receive it as the next step in the progression.
The challenge for the handler in these exercises is being able to shift your thought from body part to body part, without losing track of what you already have. This is a skill you need for performance work. These patterned exercises are developing the mental flexibility in the handler to be able to accompany the horse through shifts of balance and to assist where needed should the horse momentarily lose his balance.
Drill Teams and Geography
By breaking this process down into its component parts it can seem at first as though I am making things more complicated, but really I am making it much simpler. You are learning how to put two elements together - forward and back, then how to add in the next element, and the next. It's a bit like juggling. You don't start by tossing seven balls into the air all at once. With horses we don't begin with an organized drill team. Instead we identify the members of the "drill team" and learn how to influence each member individually, then in simple combinations, then in longer chains, and finally attached back to geography.
And speaking of geography you are about to leave the geography of a circle. WWYLM is a patterned exercise built on a circle. I use cones or other markers to lay out a circle so the handler knows she is walking where she wants to walk, not where her horse is drifting or pushing her. The horse is now consistently on the circle, in lateral work. The handler slides down the lead and receives one, two, three gives of the jaw, releasing the lead after each give.
She then slides down the lead and at the same time she glances back at the hip. The horse will respond by stepping a bit more under with his inside hind leg. From this balance, when the handler focuses next on the horse's shoulder, the horse will move his withers over and step a bit further over with his outside front leg. He'll be leaving the circle and moving off at a slight tangent to it. Click and treat.
As you are feeding the horse, change sides. Now many people at this point feel as though they have to return to the circle before they can start a new cycle. They start the horse up and walk into his front end to push him back to the circle. That's not what I want.
You will eventually be returning to the circle in three-flip-three, but not yet. After that first sequence of three-flip-three where you head off the circle on a tangent, you click, change sides, and begin the new sequence from wherever you happen to be in your work space.
You'll ask your horse to go forward, and then to soften around you. It's as though someone magically rushed in while you were giving your horse his treat, picked up your circle of cones, and set it back down oriented around your new starting position. You receive three softenings of the jaw arcing around this new circle, then ask for a give of the hip by glancing at the hip. You will then receive the up and over of the shoulders so you are once again moving on a slight tangent to your circle. But this time the circle is an imaginary one.
Physical Props to Visualized Props
We keep moving from actual physical props to visualized props. In the foundation lessons we led the horse with real targets. In WWYLM the target became invisible. You imagined a box, you didn't carry one. In WWYLM the circle is laid out for you, marked by cones so that you learn the feel of a circle. In three-flip-three the circle is imagined.
When I lay out a WWYLM circle, I always pace it out. I don't guess at where the cones should be. I pace it out. I want handlers to learn the feel of a circle, not an approximation of a circle.
When you move onto three-flip-three, you take this feel of the circle with you. Geography may dictate some deviations from symmetrical patterns. When you are in close to a wall, you will be turning on a circle with a very small radius, but you will still be working with circles and tangents to the circle. You will still be wrapping your hand around the tea mug and then moving it off the tea mug.
There, that's enough for this morning. Let's see what part of the "mud" this clears up, and what new questions it generates.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
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Safety Always Comes First
By Alexandra Kurland
Copyright 2006
Safety, safety, and more safety. Safety always comes first. That's what reading the last batch of posts made me want to emphasize - yet again.
(This next section was written in response to some questions asked on The Click That Teaches list by a new horse owner who was feeling afraid around her new horse.)
First Mae, congratulations on your new horse. And what a great name, Unique.
Building a relationship with a new horse is such an important stage. The other primary training principle that accompanies safety always comes first is: you can't ask for something and expect to get it on a consistent basis unless you have gone through a teaching process to teach it to your horse.
Unique has already learned quite a lot, but you haven't taught it to him, so it is worth going back to beginning steps to handle him almost as though he is a foal. Introduce him to your world not expecting him to know anything. Lots of things will progress really fast because he is already familiar with what you are asking. The things that are sticky will reveal the holes in his training, holes you need to identify and fill in. It's the holes that make you feel nervous around him.
Fear is such a good guidance system. You need to listen to it. It will keep you safe - not paralyzed, but safe. It will help you to identify the training holes. Fill in the holes and the fear will go away. Ignore the fear, ignore the gaps in his understanding and you could get hurt. The fear that comes after you've been hurt isn't about some imagined outcome. This new fear has roots, and those roots can be hard to dig out once they take hold. So take your time. Enjoy the process of learning about your new horse. And keep yourself safe. Remember it's all the little lessons that add up to a great relationship.
Protective Contact and Foundation Lessons
Did I say keep yourself safe? If you need protective contact, work with a fence between the two of you. I am never in a hurry with the basics. Make them bedrock solid. The more your horse worries you, the more safety-net behaviors you want to include in your basics. What do you need your horse to do in order to feel comfortable around him? Make a list. Then ask yourself: how well does he know these things? Have I gone through a teaching process to teach them to him? How solid are they? Under what level of distraction? That will take you straight to your lesson plan. And, as always, keep a journal.
(This next section was written in response to questions posed by a stallion owner who was wondering is the time had come to geld her very beautiful, but rambunctious youngster.)
Amanda, all of this applies to you as well. Safety always, always comes first. You don't want fear to keep you from enjoying Classic. Your questions made me think of Kathy Sdao's wonderful story about ET, the walrus she worked with at a zoo in WA state. ET was orphaned as a pup and brought to the zoo. As a youngster his keepers interacted freely with him. Then as an adolescent he became very aggressive. He killed the harbor seals that were in his enclosure with him, so needless to say, the zoo management made the decision that no one was to go into his enclosure with him. The social isolation added to his stress. He became a nightmare for the zoo management as he regularly destroyed his exhibit area.
This was the animal Kathy Sdao was asked to work with when she went to the zoo. She began with protective contact. There was no question that anyone would go into his enclosure with him, but that changed as ET learned how to interact safely with people.
When I first heard Kathy talk about ET, she showed a video which was taken on her last day at the zoo. At that time Et had over 65 behaviors on cue. He could do the usual trick behaviors such as wave a flipper. But they had also taught him things such as to inhale and exhale on cue so they could study blood gases. Inhaling and exhaling on cue meant that he could also play the harmonica.
He was no longer worked with protective contact. Kathy was in his enclosure with him. Et performed his daily walrus calisthenics and then rose up to his full height so he could give Kathy a hug, enveloping her with his enormous flippers. Then he held his mouth open so she could examine his teeth. It was most impressive watching her reach her hand into his mouth to check his molars. What was even more impressive was this video was shot in the spring and ET was in full musk. So it is possible to develop a relationship that overrides hormones and natural displays.
The Ideal Training Environment Versus The Real World
It's possible, but of course Kathy was a very skilled trainer working in a very controlled environment. The problem we face in the horse world is we are in too much of a hurry. It isn't just that we are in a hurry to breed our horses, and to ride our horses. We are in too much of a hurry to interact directly with our horses. There are a great many horses that should be dealt with using protective contact. That doesn't mean that there aren't skilled handlers out there who could go in directly with a horse and be safe. But remember those handlers developed their skills over many hundreds of hours working with horses. They worked under the guidance of a more experienced horse person. They often did get hurt during the learning process. And even with all of their training they still encounter horses that present challenges.
Most of us don't have the thousands of hours of training time backing us up. We have to use other things to keep things safe and still be effective trainers. We have to be patient. We have to break lessons down into smaller steps. We use protective contact where needed, and for as long as it is needed. We manage the environment until our skill level is a match with the challenges the horse presents.
In a boarding situation you can't control Classic's environment. You can't always work with protective contact, or at the pace you need to keep things safe. You have to deal with all of his adolescent behavior complicated by the stallion behavior. If you had your own place, you could control these factors so much better than you can at a boarding barn.
You are asking questions which in the end only you can answer. But do remember, safety always comes first. You love Classic. You don't want to be afraid of him. You may indeed be able to manage him as a stallion, but at what cost to your relationship? You are right to be asking these questions. You and Classic will find the answers that fit you best together.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
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Incompatible Behaviors and Foundation Lessons
By Alexandra Kurland
Copyright 2006
This is a post of appreciation and thanks to lots of people for sharing their experiences on the list. The emails make for great morning reading.
Amanda wrote
But when I took him back to the field, he got fixated on the girls inthe distance....The way he had to look at them meant he had to bend hisbody away from me.. . I immediately sensed that he was in a good rear position .. . So,instictively I asked for the 'ground manners' position. I had been instilling this in him before our incident and was amazed how perfectly he remembered.
. . . I had asked for this because I thought it would draw his attention away from the girls....then it dawned on me, in this position, he CAN'T rear !! and I am not using any force, just asking for something that was well ingrained.
Until this moment, although I have used the techniques I have learned in many situations, I have always used them in non-'stress' situations. This was the first time I had really done something subconsciously in reaction to a potentially unsafe situation....and so I had a light bulb came on...it suddenly dawned on me then what you mean by 'everything is everything else'. I not only need to think outside the box within my training....I need to think outside the box
in how to apply it.
So I walked away trusting the process 100% again. I can deal with this...that's not to say I am not going to geld him. The environment and my abillity to control this has not changed. But I feel much more able to deal with the rearing with the tool box I have. I now need to practice (in a calm environment) keeping myself in a position that will allow me to maintain this lightness and bend but also stay safe (as I realise that he can still wriggle out of this if he wants to? I just need to ingrain this behaviour so much that he will give it no matter how much excitement he feels to something. And we are also already working on head lowering on cue :-) I feel much better :-)
Incompatible Behaviors
There's not much to add to this - except awesome post. You have discovered the power of asking for incompatible behaviors. And you also understand the importance of making these behaviors so solid that the horse offers them even in the most distracting environments.
When I think of incompatible behaviors, I will always have the image of Julie Varley at the Equine Affaire taking her mare, Allie out for a walk. Julie would have the lead in one hand and a mat in the other. Any time Allie showed any concern, down went the mat. Allie didn't even have to be asked. The mat was her security blanket. She'd stand on it with her head down to the ground, letting all the worry and concern just melt away. It was beautiful to watch.
Julie told me later Allie was handling all the unusual commotion really well until she spotted a group of saddlebreds at a distance. Allie's early training had been as a park horse. The sight of those horses triggered all her past panic. Julie dropped the mat, Allie stepped onto it, and it was as though a protective bubble had suddenly surrounded her. Her fear evaporated just as fast as it had appeared.
The foundation exercises become tools. The more you reinforce them, and use them, the more powerful they become.
Foundation Lessons
Kathryn wrote in response to my post last week about safety:
This is such great advice. I wish I'd known this when I got Jodie 2 years ago this month. Experienced people told me "she should know better than to behave like that," and "you shouldn't let her get away with that," and I was pretty much helpless when Jodie displayed all the fearful behavior that accompanied her move here. And I was too green even to understand that my lack of confidence and nervousness wasn't helping. Slow work with the clicker saved us, because it gave me the
necessary time I needed to get used to an 1800-lb. draft horse and horse behavior and horse language and the inevitable surprises, and it helped me "reach" her so we could begin to build the trust that has helped reduce her fears. We are still chipping away at some of them, but it's the clicker that's taught me we can do that, in small increments, without EVER having to resort to punishment or coercion.
And by the way...Jodie is now crossing creeks without hesitation! Not deep ones, but real creeks with real water in them. Amazing.
Very awesome. Again it is the foundation that is so important. I was thinking about all the good things that evolve out of the foundation training. At this past weekend's clinic Lin Sweeney, our host and clinic organizer had a new kitten, Rose, in the house. What a delight. And also what a little terror! Everything in the house was a toy to her, something to either be climbed or chased. We spent the weekend keeping her away from the house plants which Lin had moved into our meeting room. Normally the kitten doesn't have access to this particular "playground", so here was a whole new world to be explored. The plants were just too tempting. She was either batting at stray tendrils or climbing the taller ones as though they were giant oak trees - very cute but hard on the plants.
Kittens and Horse Play
Her insistence on exploring the jungle otherwise known as potted plants at first brought out the usual response. People told her "no!" and scooted her out. She learned to dash out of the plant as soon as anyone approached her, but she was right back in the jungle as soon as their attention was diverted.
"No" was at best a temporary fix, and it was creating some unwanted side effects. First it was unpleasant and disruptive to have that all too frequent "no" reverberating through the room. And it was making this kitten wary of approaching humans. That was definitely not a good thing.
Rose had been a stray. The woman who first found her had taken several weeks to get her accustomed enough to people to catch her. Lin had continued the process once she got her home. Rose was still a squirmer, not really comfortable being picked up and held. When she first saw all of us invading her home she wanted to hide, but she couldn't resist the lure of her cat dancer toy, a marvelous invention. For those of you who have not been initiated into the pleasure of playing with kittens, cat dancer is a long piece of wire with some rolled up paper at one end. It bounces delightfully and unpredictably and is an irresistible draw to any cat in the vicinity.
Lin has taught Rose a wonderful recall, so when she was scaling the houseplants, instead of scolding her, we started to call her to us instead. At the sound of her name, she would come bounding out of the plants and race across the floor to us. Her reward for this wonderful eagerness was a few minutes play with the cat dancer toy. When I was playing with her, I would let her chase the toy, then I'd give her a quick cuddle and then let her chase the toy again. In classical conditioning, the emotional effect travels backwards, so I made sure the cuddle was always followed by play. Cuddling was fun! On Sunday I was rewarded for my efforts by the soft hint of a purr. By Monday, the purr had grown to a proper rumble, very reinforcing!
Yes Answers: Compelled or Freely Given
So what has this got to do with horse training? Watching foals learn about the world is just as much fun as playing with a kitten. In fact many are very much like that kitten. The world is a wonderful adventure. They are bold, and daring. And then people start handling them, hurting them, and the guardedness sets in. So starting over truly means finding a place where the guardedness at least diminishes. Many of you are working with horses that have had horrible experiences that have left them defensive, withdrawn, and sometimes even aggressive.
And that's why the basics are so important. You are going to a place in the training where you can get a "yes answer". But here's the catch. This is a clicker "yes answer", not a compelled "yes answer". Using a standard horse training tool box, I can get a "yes answer", but it will often be compelled. In clicker training I want to find a "yes answer" that has choice surrounding it. And that is the profound difference that creates the magical relationships we see emerging with clicker training.
When a clicker trained "yes answer" is the core of your foundation, you can add in lead ropes and the structure of pressure and release of pressure. You can say this is what we are doing now, and the horse will follow your guidance not because he has to, but because he wants to. Again, there is a profound difference.
In her post Laurel described beautifully the beginning of this process:
It took 8 weeks to put a soft rope halter on,(the first day I carried a web halter into the paddock she broke into a sweat and bolted to the far corner, and some days she was so negative I just had to walk away) breaking it down into putting her nose in a loop of rope with the cue 'tack up', head lowering from hand on poll (after lots of 'can I touch you'/ friendly game) then throwing a soft rope over her neck, all with clicker. One day it just all came together, she tacked up, I threw the head piece over her neck, wandered round and tied it all together and there she had practically haltered herself, and I could hardly believeit, it was a champagne moment and anticlimax all in one! Little steps led to great things and clicker just takes all the heat and fury out of it.
I love these stories which illustrate so well these concepts. Laurel, you did a great job finding the small "yes answer" she could give you. You found a way past the fear and the trauma that kept you both safe and allowed you to build a relationship.
Tea Mugs and Drill Team Balance
On a completely different thread Pam wrote in response to my three-flip-three post:
The tea mug image was very clear and I was able to take that out to my horse and be much clearer for both of us.
Thank you for the feedback. I wasn't sure if that one would translate. Good that it was helpful.
If my horse loses his balance momentarily and is no longer moving in sync with me, I can use the skills we both learned in three-flip-three to reconnect and bring him back both into balance and connected to the geography I am riding.
Ah, the process! If I'm following you correctly, this process is teaching my horse and my self how to be in balance and how to get back to balance whenever needed. A major piece of the fondation.
That's exactly right. In Video Lesson 4 I go through the basics of single rein riding. I'm using the balance of three-flip-three and hip-shoulder-shoulder throughout that section. At one point Peregrine starts to bow out through his outside shoulder. I comment on it as I am readjusting his balance. The loss of balance is so subtle, you probably won't even see any change, but I could feel the drift about to happen. I used the connections we'd built together through the single-rein process and readjusted his balance within one stride. Because I'd ridden three-flip-three, I recognized the balance shift almost before it happened: I knew what it was, and I knew what was needed to fix it.
I'm really starting to see lots of little pieces as I play with this. I'm seeing my body language clearer - am I consitently sending clear messages with my weighting and balance. My horse lets me know that I'm getting it right as he responds to smaller and similar cues and is able to differentiate what I'm asking. His way of clicking me when I get it right.
That's the process in action. Wonderful!!! You've described beautifully how this works. I can say to people that the rider's awareness, control, and understanding of position evolves out of this process, but it is so much more powerful to have this confirmed by people who are exploring the work. You are discovering the same things I did, and that's why I kept looking more deeply at single-rein riding. There is such power and subtlety in it.
Choice
More good stories: Pam also shared her story of Thunder walking off while she was bridling him to go stand on a platform:
After about a minute he stepped back down and walked back over to me and got in position to be brideled.
It's just a funny little thing but I was so appreciative that I felt totally at ease letting him be able to do what he needed to do. Prior to clicker training I would have insisted he stand but with the clicker training we have done I felt very safe in just letting him do what he needed to do and when he was satisfied he came right back to continue with what we were doing.
This is a great example of what I meant about choice. We build our foundation on choice, so we do not have to be afraid when our horses express their personality.
I'll end this email with a P.S. The posts between Barb and Yvonne about Barb's participation in the "Why Would You Leave Me?" Game DVD make me want to send a public thank you to all of you who have been part of the book and video projects. The feedback I consistently get about the videos is how useful it is to see people who are just learning an exercise. As Barb said, it can be a little intimidating to stand in front of a camera. I know it's hard enough to learn something new. Having a camera running makes it that much more challenging. So I hugely appreciate the willingness people have shown to help me in these projects and to share their horses and themselves with everyone else.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com