ClickerBlogAugtoOct2006

August 2006

Contents:

How Does the Horse Know What I Want?

by Alexandra Kurland

Kathryn H. wrote (July 22, 2006)

"I'm starting to work with Jodie on lateral flexion according to Alex's instructions in the Riding book. I have what's probably a silly question: How is Jodie going to distinguish between my holding the single rein steady asking her to flex from my asking her to turn? I know that in asking for the flexing she's figuring out I want her to soften her jaw and neck, but from then on, won't she just flex when I ask her to turn, or is it all about my holding the rein at the buckle with one hand that will help her figure out the difference?"

There are two phrases you want to keep in mind as you puzzle your way through single-rein riding and lateral flexions. They are:

"When you think different, you are different" John Lyons

"Everything is Everything Else" Alexandra Kurland

As I wrote those two sentences together, I realized what a huge metaphor for Life with a capital L they are. But I'll leave it up to you to sort that one through. This post is about single-rein riding.

Let's start by looking at the first statement: "When you think different, you are different." Okay, fine, words on a page, but what does that mean?

Riding Your Office Chair!

Let's start off with a simple example. You're probably sitting in a chair right now, reading this post at your computer, so it's easy to ask you to look behind you. But wait. I'm first going to ask you to sit on your hands so you can feel your sitting bones.

Okay. Have you found them? Now go ahead and look behind you, over your right shoulder. Did you feel the change in your sitting bones? In your feet?

I'm sitting in an office type swivel chair right now with a comfortable cushioned seat. I'm sitting forward a bit in my chair, not slouching back. I'm sitting vertically, not leaning forward, or back, but in good riding position. When I sit straight looking forward directly at the computer screen, I can feel both of my sitting bones pressing evenly down on my hands. When I look over my right shoulder, I can feel the pressure on my right hand lessen. My sitting bone slides up and back off my hand. There's slightly more pressure on my left hand, but from a different part of my pelvis. It feels as though my sitting bone shifts slightly towards the right, but my weight rests down more on my hand.

When I sit straight, my feet feel even. I can feel both the heel of my feet and the balls of my feet resting on the floor. When I look behind me, I feel the contact with the floor change ever so slightly. I can feel myself rotate slightly onto the inside of my left foot and the outside of my right foot. That's what I feel now. The changes in my feet, however, depend very much upon how far out in front of me I place them. Try starting with your feet tucked back under your chair and then move them out in stages. You'll feel the difference reflected in the pressure on your hands each time you look behind you.

It's interesting because where you place your feet directly impacts the rotation of your weight not only in your foot, but also through your whole leg. Can you feel at times how, if you were riding, your outside leg would be coming more onto your horse's side, and sometimes would be rotating off it?

I didn't have to consciously direct any of these changes. They happened because I can never do just one thing. Perhaps I should have added that phrase to the first two. It's certainly a life metaphor as well. You can never do just one thing. So when you turn to look over your shoulder, you aren't just moving your head and neck. Your whole body is involved.

When you try this, you may feel something totally different from what I'm describing. This is what I experience, what I notice. You don't have to try to mirror the exact same changes. If you are leaning slightly forward, slightly back, you will feel something different. But hopefully, you feel some shift on your hands as you turn. Even if you turn just your head, you will feel a slight change.

Not sure you felt anything? Okay. Let's exaggerate the turn. Instead of just moving your head to the side, look as far around as you comfortably can. In other words turn your shoulders to look behind you.

Now did you feel a change on your hands? Wonderful! You just exaggerated the turn to amplify the movement under you hands. If you were riding, does it make sense that your horse would absolutely feel that shift in your body? After all, if they can feel a fly land, they ought to be able to feel such a large shift in your seat. But just because they can feel the change, doesn't mean they'll automatically respond to it. Riders shift around a lot, and horses learn to tune out a lot. The function of the single-rein riding is to give meaning to specific shifts in your balance, and to turn them into cues that your horse consistently, promptly, reliably responds to.

The "Duct Tape" Lesson: Connecting the Hip

Okay. So there are two parts to this equation: the rider and the horse. Let's imagine we're starting out with a stiff rider and a stiff horse. Suppose you were one of those people who didn't feel much of a change until you turned your shoulders to look behind you. In the beginning stages of teaching someone the basics of single-rein riding I'll have them look back towards the horse's inside hip to turn. This is the "duct tape" lesson of video Lesson 2 transferred to riding. (See also Ch. 9 in the Step-By-Step book, and the riding portion of Video Lesson 4, as well as the riding book.) The "move the hip over" spot is right on the point of the horse's hip. Imagine there is a flag pole suspended from that point so that you are looking back at a flag that is level with your eyes. This will keep you from leaning down or collapsing in your ribs when you turn.

Let's explore the contrast between these two types of turns. Sit on your hands again. Now look behind you, looking down towards the floor, or down in the direction of your horse's inside hip. Next look behind you at an imaginary flag that is level with your eyes. Feel the difference between these?

Okay. You are now more aware of the movement of your bones and the shift in your weight as you turn. So now let's add another piece. Can you look straight ahead - not turn in your upper body - but consciously create the same shifts in your pelvis that you felt earlier. Go ahead and try it. You may have to go back and forth between turning with your whole body a few times and just turning with your seat before the two feels match.

Now you can be one of those elegant riders who can look straight ahead and deliberately signal a change to their horse. You have developed more conscious, more intentful control over the movement of your bones.

Thinking Differently

But now let's go one step further because your horse certainly will. What changes do you feel on your hands when you just think about turning? This is a little like telling you to think about a spiral staircase without picturing one in your brain. When you think about turning, can you feel the slight change under your hand? It isn't huge, but it's there, and it's enough of a difference for a tuned-in horse to respond to. So when you think different you are different. And if you want, you can make those differences mean something to your horse. Also, if you want, you can exaggerate those differences to turn them clearer, more distinctly differentiated cues.

When you think about cantering, or trotting, or stopping, your body changes. When you think about asking for a softening of the jaw, or a give of the hip, your body is different. Initially you may not be aware of these differences. In fact there may not even be much of a difference because you haven't created that level of subtle movement in your body. And your horse certainly won't understand that these changes mean something. And here's another one of those key phrases, one you've heard before if you're at all familiar with my work. "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."

So here's how the teaching process works both for you and for your horse. Instead of telling you what to do with your sitting bones, what shifts to make in your feet. I'm going to let the process bring you to a deeper, more subtle awareness of the body language cues we use in riding. Instead of telling you how to turn, I'll just ask you to turn. Your body will interpret that request however it has learned to turn. That's the baseline we have to work with. But as you turn and focus on connecting with your horse, you'll figure out what you need to change. Too stiff - all that turning will free you up. Too crooked? Your horse will mirror that, and together you can sort out your collective twists and turns to arrive at good spinal alignment for each of you. How do you do this? We begin by asking for the individual connections we're going to need. Then we string those connections together to create more complex sequences.

The rein is there to signal to your horse that there is new information coming that he needs to attend to. When you take the slack out of the line (see the Riding book and the Lesson 4 video), you are saying to your horse that you want something. When you release the rein, it means he just noticed the change in your body and made the appropriate response in his.

So sit on your hands again and see if you feel a difference when you imagine the following:

1.) Suppose you want your horse to walk straight but soften his right jaw. If you aren't sure what this feels like, try softening your own right jaw. Imaging you are wearing a bit and someone is very gently taking the slack out and applying a little pressure to your right rein - not enough to pull you off balance or to cause discomfort, just enough to signal their intent and to guide the change. The bit isn't intended as an intrusive or threatening device. It is used in the same way an Alexander Practitioner might guide you through an exploration of body awareness. She might stand behind you and very gently place her hands behind your ears to guide you through the intended releases of your jaw and neck. The asking via a rein can work in a similar fashion.

As you give in your jaw to the imagined bit, can you feel a change in your hands as you sit on them? If it's hard for you to imagine this and feel a change, exaggerate your position by pretending that you are a stiff horse. Stick your chin way out in front of you and stiffen your neck. Now soften a little. Or invert your spine so you start out above the bit. Experiment with different body postures until you find one that mirrors your best interpretation of good riding position. Now imagine again your horse softening to you. Imagine sliding down your inside rein to ask your horse to walk straight and to soften his jaw to you. Feel how you're sitting on your hands. Asking for the jaw is a little thing when you are sitting on a responsive horse.

2.) Imagine you want your horse to soften his right jaw and to walk forward and around a curve that arcs to the right out in front of you. When I try this on my office chair, I look out ahead of me beyond the front of my desk and out the far window.

3.) Suppose you want your horse to turn in a tighter circle. In fact instead of turning in an arc out in front of you, you would like him to turn back on himself, yielding his hips around. When I imagine this, I turn as I did at the beginning of this post, looking back over my inside shoulder. I picture my horse turning so his body turns tightly back towards the back of my desk, not out beyond the front of my desk as before.

4.) Suppose you want your horse to move laterally stepping over towards eleven o'clock with his outside shoulder (see the riding book) the way he might need to move to open a gate or to step over to avoid an obstacle. How does this feel?

Each one of these will give you a different feel on your hands. So now let's try something else. Let's create three-flip-three (refer to the riding book.)

Three-Flip-Three

Imagine you are sitting on your horse - and he is the perfect horse who knows this work and responds to match the changes he feels in your seat. Still sitting on your hands so you can feel the changes - imagine that you are asking your horse to walk forward and soften his jaw slightly to the inside. You signal this request by sliding down your inside rein, and releasing it as he takes a step forward in sync with you.

Imagine him giving slightly to the side. That's one give.

Now ask again. Get the response and release. That's two.

Now ask again. Get the response and release. That's three.

Now imagine yourself asking for the hip. You know that feel by now and how to make the asking more definite as needed by turning to look back at his hip. That's the "flip" of three-flip-three.

Now imagine your horse continuing to stay soft in his jaw and connected in his hip while at the same time he steps over laterally with his outside shoulder. That's one.

Imagine another step of lateral movement where he continues to soften to you as he steps again to the left away from the arc of the bend. That's two.

Imagine yet another of lateral movement. I'm looking to the right within the arc of the bend as I do this, not out over my "horse's" outside shoulder, but my intent is focused towards the left corner of my desk where my printer is sitting. That's three. I've just completed the second set of three in three-flip-three. Click and treat.

Now try something else.

Imagine you are asking your horse to walk forward and soften his jaw slightly to the inside just as you did before. Only now instead of going systematically through three-flip-three, you go straight to asking your horse to step over laterally. You can probably do it, but it may feel a little forced.

Now go back through the sequence of three-flip-three. Can you feel how the set-up of the first three gives helps you to access the change in your hips that signals the "flip"? And can you feel how those two parts of the pattern combined help you to access the lateral steps over? Instead of being separate discreet requests, it becomes a flowing pattern with each piece setting up the balance that makes the next step easier both for you to ask for and your horse to give to you.

So now go back to three-flip-three again.

Imagine yourself asking for the first give to the side. You'll find yourself mimicking the response you want from your horse. You'll soften a little to the side. That's one.

Ask again, softening a bit more to the side. It's like bending a coat hanger. The more you bend it, the softer and more pliable it becomes. That's two.

Ask again, softening a bit more to the side. That's three.

Now feel how easy it is to ask for the hip. That's the flip.

Now feel how easy it is to send your seat over towards eleven o'clock. That's one.

Repeat for another lateral step over. That's two.

Repeat for another lateral step over. That's three. Click and treat. You just finished another sequence of three-flip-three.

Repeat this a few times, and you'll begin to feel how you can really roll your hips from right to left to ask for a big step over.

Contrast Teaches

We've done all this work focused just on the right. Think back to what you were feeling as you began this process. Do you feel any different? Are you more aware of subtle shifts in your balance? Are you freer in your body? What are the changes. Can you describe them? That's important. Write down what you are discovering. Transferring these experiences from feels to words is an important part of the learning process. It gives you broader, more long-term, more deliberate access to the communication system you are building with your horse.

Now shift your focus to your left side. Start back at the beginning of this post and look over your left shoulder. Feel any difference between your right and left side? Many of you will feel an enormous difference. Your right side has become so much more aware, and flexible just in the few minutes you've been exploring these exercises. Your left side may feel stiff by comparison. Enjoy the contrast. It's a great learning experience.

Appreciate how you may feel to your horse. Which rider would he rather have? The tuned in one represented by your right side? Or the stiff one represented by your left side? And which horse would you rather have? The soft, connected horse who moves in sync with you - or the stiff, or wiggly horse who has learned to tune you out? Hopefully the answer to those questions is you want to be the aware rider sitting on the tuned-in horse. And that's what the single-rein riding process creates.

So how do you get there?

Everything is Everything Else

The second key sentence I wrote at the beginning of this post is everything is everything else. So you get there by beginning at the beginning and proceeding in a step-by-step process forward. I've written a lot of posts lately on the importance of basics and body mechanics. Ground work prepares both you and your horse for riding.

Ground work gets you moving with and using your entire body. Ground works shows you how to connect with your horse: how to ask for his jaw, his hips, his shoulders - first individually and then coupled together. Ground work teaches you how to straighten out and begin again when your horse gets over-flexed and turns into a pretzel. It shows you how to keep the "drill team" balance of front end and back end, inside and outside aligned. Ground work gives you an understanding of weight redistribution, and how you can use it to create balanced movement. In other words good ground work is fundamental to keeping a horse sound, safe and happy through a lifetime of work.

"The Grown-Ups are Talking"

So let's look at just one place where all this applies and that's in the foundation lesson "the grown-ups are talking, please don't interrupt now" (Video Lesson 1: Getting Started with the Clicker). In grown-ups are talking you begin by standing next to your horse. When you click, you want to feed your horse so his nose is exactly where the perfect horse's nose would be. And that's between his shoulders, not slightly off to the side intruding into your space.

As the lesson progresses, you want to be able to step a little further, and a little further still away from your horse so you can eventually leave him standing ground tied while you walk around him, groom him, leave him to get your tack, etc. So you will be moving towards him to give him his treat, then stepping back away from him. In the beginning stages of this lesson you will be returning to the neutral body position of "grown-ups". You want to be able to stand next to your horse with your pockets full of treats without being mugged. That's the first, primary intent of this lesson.

As you know by now from reading my recent posts, mechanics matter. And in "grown-ups" there are details which can make a huge difference. (See the Lesson 1 DVD.) One of these details is the ability to move your feet. It is amazing how stuck to the ground many people become when they are first learning this lesson. The horse takes his head away, click. The handler reaches into her pocket and holds the food out away from her body. She twists around as far as she can to deliver the food while her feet remained glued in cement. She ends up in an unbalanced awkward position. How much easier it would be if she just took a step in towards her horse to deliver the food.

Check yourself the next time you work with your horse. When you review the "grown-ups" lesson, are your feet stuck in cement, or have you learned to move as a connected whole?

And how does this relate to riding? Everything is everything else. Are you a stiff rider who doesn't send much information to her horse because there's not a lot of connection between your intent and your actions? Or are you the body aware, balanced, fluidly moving rider who can easily signal deliberate intent with subtle shifts in muscle tone? Ground work is a great place to learn how to become that more body aware, intentful rider.

Ground Work: The Connection to Riding

But the question was: how does my horse know the difference between asking for a flexion of the jaw and asking for a turn? If you're an experienced single-rein rider, you can certainly start out under saddle to teach this distinction to your horse. But for a green horse or green rider, it is much easier to figure it out first on the ground. It is certainly a great place to discover if your horse is walking with you or if he is leaving you, pushing past you, leaning onto his inside shoulder, bowing out through his outside shoulder, etc. . When you work a horse through the "duct tape" lesson, the "why would you leave me?" game, three-flip-three on the ground, and the other related ground work exercises, you are learning how to separate out the different connections you need - jaw, hip, and shoulder - to correct these leading problems. And as you combine the elements together, you learn how to create the balanced, flowing movement that looks so beautiful and feels like heaven to ride.

When you transfer these lessons to riding, you begin to understand that you and your horse are already familiar with the exercises. Everything is everything else, and riding really is just ground work where you get to sit down. When you slide down the rein, your horse is already softening to you, because he knows how to soften to the lead. When you slide down the lead and think about him yielding his hips over, lo and behold he does! Very neat. And because he is so responsive, he sometimes gets himself turned inside out like a pretzel because you haven't yet learned how to keep the drill team in balance and to release to his softness. You may not be expecting him to be so wonderfully responsive, so you end up holding on way past the point where he has given you what you want.

That's all right. Just begin again. Get a little, click and treat. Ask again, click and treat. When the asking and the responding seem clear to both of you, ask for a bit more before you click. Or ask for the next piece in the chain. It can sometimes take a few strides for your horse to recognize the new asking and to shift his balance in response. That's all right, too. Stay soft, but stay clear. As soon as you feel a change that seems as though it's in the ballpark of what you are looking for, release the rein and click, give him a treat. You're collecting data. The more data you collect, the more refined you will become in how you ask, and what you accept.

If he gets too twisted around into a pretzel, straighten his head out by extending your inside hand forward to begin again. (See the riding book). Or bring him to a halt by reaching a bit further down the rein and asking for his hips. That will also let you begin again. If he starts to rush, or changes gaits, reach down and take his hips around. Release the rein, change to the other side, ask for his hip. Repeat, changing rein after each release until he is at a stand still. Click, and treat, then ask him to walk forward.

As he walks forward think about what it felt like as you were sitting in a chair and you were imagining that your horse was walking forward in an arc and softening his jaw. What do you get? If he over-arcs, can you now, after going through all the exercises I've been suggesting, figure out why? Are you asking for too much? Straighten out his head by extending your arm forward and begin again. If your horse continues to walk in a tiny circle as though he's caught in a whirlpool, you might want to review some of the ground work lessons, particularly wwylm. That will show you when he's falling in, and also how to rebalance him so he ends up walking with you, not through you. You can then transfer this refined understanding of his balance back to the riding.

Everything is everything else, so when you are having difficulty under saddle, go to ground exercises. Think of ground work (that's working a horse on a lead or in a bridle), liberty training (where there is no tack), and riding all connected together. Liberty training helps ground work and riding. Ground work helps liberty training and riding. And riding helps ground work and liberty training.

Everything is everything else.

And when you think different, you are different.

Two simple sentences, with great learning to be found in them. Have fun with the process!

Alexandra Kurland

theclickercenter.com

More on Head Lowering and Three-Flip-Three

by Alexandra Kurland

Tanya asked:

"So here is my question: If you do have to ask for head down in the

field, wouldn't you always end up with a grazing horse? It was not a

bad thing with Mac, since it actually helped him relax, but I might

not always want that. His owner complained that he always tries to

snatch grass anyway, and I wondered to myself if he would be so happy

to know that I actually taught his horse to put his head down. He

never tries to snatch grass when I ride him, but I guess this is

because I keep him busy the entire time. Anyway, any thoughts on that?"

Head lowering is not a forward moving exercise. Grazing is. What this means is you can train head lowering on grass. It really doesn't matter that the horse is finding his reinforcement at his feet. Since we want head lowering for its calm down value, if he is able to eat grass that will help him to feel even more settled. But remember head lowering is not a forward moving exercise. The key is to recognize two important directions - forward and up - and to respond promptly when your horse moves in either of these two directions.

So picture what a grazing horse looks like. When he drops his head down to eat grass, where is his nose in relation to his front feet? It's out away from his feet. And as he eats, he'll step forward. Oops! Head lowering is not a forward moving exercise. So when he steps forward, you'll ask him to first take a step back, and then you'll let him lower his head to the ground. Again he can eat grass, as long as there is no forward movement. The head down that you get out of this form of eating grass is totally different from the drag-you-off grazing that is the more normal form of grass eating behavior.

Now "up". You also need to look at that. Think about bouncing a ball. The more energy you put into the ball as you bounce it, the higher the ball will bounce back to you. Or in horse terms, the more energy the horse has, the more his nose will yo yo up and down instead of dropping and staying down.

Now dropping and staying down, means just that. It doesn't mean dropping and doing little bounces up and down near the ground. So watch carefully when your horse drops his head. When his nose goes down so it is close to the ground, the distance between his front feet and his nose diminishes. As he lifts his nose up, it doesn't go straight up. It follows an arc, moving first out away from his front feet and then up.

You can feel this yourself, especially if you are limber. Stand with your feet apart, hands held together. Pretend your outstretched hands are a horse's head. Now drop your "head" meaning your hands. Pretend you are a horse going through the yo yo stage. Drop your hands down around your ankles, then bounce right back up again. Put some energy into it and you'll see that your hands drop towards your feet, then move out and up in an arc.

Now make the decisions that you are going to bounce your hands down, and then immediately dampen out all the energy so there is no bounce back at the bottom. That's an interesting process. You really have to think about it. And you have to actively take the energy out at the bottom so there is no bounce back. That's part of the power behind this exercise. The horse has to actively dampen out his own energy to keep his nose from bouncing back up. He isn't just dropping his nose down. He's dropping his nose down and then keeping himself very still.

I got some great video of this at a recent clinic which I'll probably include in one of the DVDs I'll be working on this fall. The horse (pony actually) we were working with was concerned about being away from home. She expressed her concern by being busy. She fidgeted and fussed. She was manageable, but handling her was a little like squeezing a balloon. Her energy kept squirting out in different directions. In the head lowering, she could drop her nose to the ground, but she couldn't leave it there.

So we worked on the detail of really monitoring up. When the distance between her nose and her feet began to increase at all, her handler immediately asked for to drop her head. The arena we were in had little clumps of tasty weeds growing in the sand. She could nibble on them as long as her nose stayed down, but as soon as the distance between her nose and her front feet began to increase, that was both up and forward movement. A quick reminder to keep her nose down kept her from creeping forward to the next clump of weeds. And it created true stillness in what was a very active pony.

The second half of Tanya's question was:

"Another concern I had about this exercise is that initially Mac

volunteered to drop his head every time I picked up the rein. Then he

started sorting my pick ups out. But at first, every time it was

the "wrong" pick up, he would still try to drop his head, pulling on

the reins. If he were my horse, I would not be too concerned, but I

wondered what the owner would think if that happened when he was

riding. Any suggestions?"

One of the principles of training says that for every exercise we teach, there is an opposite behavior which must be taught to keep things in balance. When you teach head lowering, you most definitely want to teach behaviors that will keep it in balance. Down is great, especially if you have a nervous horse, but too much of any behavior can become a nuisance.

The easy answer to what behavior balances head lowering is head raising. Okay, but how do you get the head up? By asking for the hip. And it makes the perfect pair with head lowering. Head lowering is not a forward moving exercise, and yielding the hip over is. When you ask for the hip, you want the horse to remain forward. So these two behaviors work wonderfully work well paired together.

Your horse's nose is on the ground. Slide down the lead and ask him to swing his hip over. To get the hip in motion, you'll first have to ask for a step forward. He may respond to the activation of the rein by trying to take his head down.

If down is the first direction/body part you have taught, what he thinks he knows is that down is the answer. Of course he's going to try to offer down. You'll stabilize your hand and continue to focus on his hip. You'll include in this a request for forward energy. As you slide down the lead, your hand will be rotating forward, not up as it did for head lowering. You'll be looking back at his hip so your body will not be in the same orientation to him as it is for head lowering. These are huge differences which your horse will become aware of - but not necessarily right away. At first he'll still be convinced that down is the answer, but the more energy he puts into trying to lower his head, the more leverage advantage he gives you for asking for his hip. So his hip will swing over, click and treat.

Repeat this a few times, and he'll become aware of the difference in your body, and so will you. You'll both become more deliberate - you in asking for the response you want and your horse in giving it to you. The momentary confusion and frustration he experienced when he thought there was only one answer to every question will pass.

When you are first learning this process, it's easy to get things a bit out of balance. You have to focus so much attention on head lowering because you can only learn one thing at a time. If you were asked to process the technique for asking for the hip at the same time that you were learning all the details of head lowering, you might easily feel overwhelmed and not be successful at either.

Once you understand both behaviors, it's easy to link the two. They make a great chain because the two behaviors balance one another. Your horse is walking forward. Ask him to yield his hips. As he swings his hips over, they will line up with his shoulders, making it easy to ask him to take a step or two back. When he has backed however many steps you want, release him into head lowering. From head lowering you can then ask him to walk forward into a yield of the hip. Where do you place the click? On whatever element needs the most clarification, strengthening - which can mean on each segment of this chain, or after the entire loop has been completed. You get to decide where the loop begins and ends depending upon whether your horse needs more emphasis on going or stopping.

All of this is counter-intuitive which is why people can sometimes find it hard to wrap their minds around these lessons. Normal everyday head lowering is forward movement. It puts the horse on his forehand, so he moves forward in part to keep his balance. Normal head lowering is grazing. In normal head lowering the distance between the horse's nose and his front feet is stretched out.

To get normal head lowering, you draw down on the lead, not up. Up on the lead makes no sense - at first - not when the direction you want is down. But this isn't normal head lowering. This is head lowering is not a forward moving exercise. This head lowering, built out of backing, shifts a horse's balance onto his hind quarters. It creates a release through the entire top line that you don't get in normal head lowering. In this head lowering the distance between the horse's nose and his front feet closes. To get this kind of head lowering your hand lifts the lead is up not down.

That the yielding of the hip is a forward moving exercise is also counter -intuitive. After all we use the swing of the hip to stop horses. Your horse is tanking off on the lead. What do you do? You slide down the lead, and take his hips around. You release and repeat this, until the action of swinging his hips over brings him to a stop. Click and treat.

So yes, the swing over of the hip can bleed energy out of a horse. But it can also put energy back in. When you want a horse that is standing still to swing his hips over, you need to engage his energy forward. For example, when you are doing three-flip-three, it's important that the horse stay forward through the entire sequence. If he loses too much energy, he'll stall out the hindquarters, and the shoulders will fall out of alignment. He'll end up falling out through his outside shoulder, and you'll be left wondering why in the world I make such a fuss about getting these so called lateral flexions! All they seem to be doing is teaching your horse to be wiggly and crooked.

When you maintain the forward energy as you yield the hips, the whole picture changes. The step you get activates the hind leg so your horse steps forward and under his body, bending the joints of his hind leg. That's it's value. Now instead of falling out, he's beautifully balanced. Transfer this to riding and instead of feeling like a carpet that's been pulled out from under you, your horse will be giving you a magic carpet ride.

So head lowering is not a forward moving exercise, while yielding the hip is.

Okay, that makes sense in terms of keeping things in balance. But isn't the horse moving forward when you ask him to walk with his head down? Yes. That's a great example of compound cues - asking for two separate, well known behaviors at the same time - in this case walking and dropping the head. You can create other compound cues. Spanish walk is a great example. Walk and lift your front leg straight up and out in front of you.

Compound cues are great fun to play with. Other examples anyone?

Three-Flip Three Questions

Yielding the hip is a forward moving exercise is an important clue to the questions that have come up in the past week about three-flip-three. So here's a phrase I use a lot when thinking about this pattern: "What the horse gives you, do not let him take away."

What does that mean. Three-flip three is a compounding pattern. Each piece builds on the previous step to create a cumulative result. So the first step is "go forward".

"What the horse gives you, do not let him take away." You get forward movement. The next piece in the pattern is a give of the jaw. If you lose forward as you ask for the jaw, you must go back and get forward again. I'll often be chanting to myself as I work: "Stay forward - soften the jaw, stay forward - soften the jaw, stay forward - soften the jaw. The click will come when the horse can stay forward and soften the jaw at the same time. Then I'll move on to get two softenings of the jaw with the horse staying forward throughout. If I lose forward, I'll put my focus back on that. I must have all the elements in the sequence working in combination before adding another layer.

When you are first learning the sequence, it is normal to get the horse forward, then to focus on the jaw and forget about the first element. That's all right as a first approximation, but if you let that become the norm, you will end up with a crooked horse that lacks impulsion.

Once my horse can consistently stay forward as he softens his jaw, he's ready for me to add in the hip. When I ask for the hip, if the horse either stiffens his jaw, or loses energy, I have to go back and collect those elements before I can truly say I have the hip. The sequence is:

stay forward - soften the jaw: yes - go to the next step: if no - go back at least one step

stay forward - soften the jaw a second time: yes - go to the next step: if no - go back at least one step

stay forward - soften the jaw a third time: yes - go to the next step: if no - go back at least one step

stay forward, keep the jaw soft and step up and over with the hip : yes go to the next step: if no - go back at least one step

stay forward, keep the jaw soft, remain balanced in the hips, and move the shoulders over: yes go to the next step: if no - go back at least one step

stay forward, keep the jaw soft, remain balanced in the hips, and move the shoulders over again: yes go to the next step: if no - go back at least one step

That's three-flip-three. If at any point in this sequence, you lose forward, straighten your horse out and begin again. You may have to go all the way back to the beginning of the sequence to rebuild from step one. As you and your horse gain more experience with the pattern, you can stay within it as you make sure all the elements are present and aligned as you want them.

When you first encounter it, three-flip-three will seem like a very simple pattern, but that simplicity hides tremendous complexity and nuance. Hidden within it is a t'ai chi connection to great gaits.

Alexandra Kurland

theclickercenter.com

For more information on the Three-Flip-Three exercise refer to:

The Click That Teaches: Three-Flip-Three: Understanding Lateral Flexions

A two hour DVD lesson.

Visit the on-line bookstore for more information.

Three-Flip-Three

by Alexandra Kurland

This post was written in response to a series of posts that appeared on The Click That Teaches list in July 2006.

Hi Amanda,

I read with interest your string of emails about the recent evolution of the lateral work with Classic. This illustrates so well the importance of keeping a journal. You can think you aren't making any progress, and then suddenly the pieces of the puzzle fall into place and you have a totally new balance to work with.

You also raised the key question about three-flip-three, and really all lateral work. Are you just getting a neck bend, or are you stacking the building blocks to create good balance? A neck bend can be a good thing if you are starting with a stiff-as-a-board horse, which is not the case with Classic. If you have a very stiff horse, getting the neck to bend is a good starting point. However, if you don't connect that bending to the rest of the horse's body, all you get is a wiggly horse. With that horse you began with stiff, migrated to wiggly, but you still have no meaningful control.

So there has to be more to the lateral work than simply getting the neck to bend. You also have to connect the jaw to the hips and shoulders. There is a progression of lessons that takes you there. I begin with clicker basics, with a focus on backing because that is usually the sticky direction. Then I progress to the duct tape lesson (Video Lesson 2 and Chapter 9 of the Step by Step book), and from there to the pre-why would you leave me and why would you leave me game. (WWYLM DVD)

"Why would you leave me?" is set up on a circle with cones marking the perimeter of the circle. It is a lesson of geography. I want the handler to know the feeling of being able to walk a set course. I want her to recognize when she is being pushed into the center of the circle and when she is being dragged or drifted off to the outside. If the handler doesn't recognize and respond when the horse has taken over the helm, three-flip-three will disintegrate into neck bends and a horse drifting out over his outside shoulder. So beginning with a set geography is important. When you can walk the circle and your horse wraps beautifully around you, you are ready to leave the circle behind and head off into three-flip-three.

Three-flip-three has geography, but it follows a flowing pattern, and one that the handler can vary. It takes a bit of experimenting to discover the real power of this exercise. You're collecting data. Sometimes the pattern will feel awkward and rushed. It will feel as though you are playing catch-up, hurrying after a horse that is drifting further and further away from you. This is a horse that is drifting out over his outside shoulder. I show an example of this in the duct tape lesson on Video Lesson 2. I deliberately focused too much on Robin's shoulders to create extra drift. You can see what it looks like when a horse drifts to the outside through his shoulders. Yes, he is moving sideways, but the hindquarters are trailing behind. They aren't stepping up in line with the rest of the horse's body so they can lift the front end.

If you've done three-flip-three at all, I'm sure you've felt this. "Even Olympic athletes fall off the balance beam." That's an expression I use a lot for this work. There will be times when the drill team falls apart and the shoulders and hips drift out of balance. Remember, you're collecting data. It's okay to get it wrong. That's how you begin to decipher what feels good to you, and what just feels like a horse staggering sideways.

If you get things out of balance, straighten your horse out and begin again. You aren't setting things in cement where a mistake in one round of three-flip-three will be indelibly set into your horse's balance. You can experiment, get things out of balance, scratch your head over why is this exercise supposed to be a good thing, and then try again. As you sort through the differences that lead to the drill team falling apart or coming together, you will have sorted through some major layers in understanding how to create superior balance and the elevation you want.

As you experiment there will be times when everything feels solid and flowing, and you'll be glowing with pride over how gorgeous your horse is. So what is the difference? The best way to understand three-flip-three is to walk it using the tai chi walk (see the riding book). And remember, the elements in three-flip-three are cumulative. If you get the jaw to soften, but then lose forward as you ask for the hip, the drill team will fall apart, and you won't get the wonderful lift you are after.

It sounds as though you are very much on the right track. Walk the exercise so you experience it within your own balance. Pay attention to the additive nature of the steps, and see where that takes you. As you get the drill team lining up, you will want to have your camera ready. Classic will be gorgeous!

I have to leave for the weekend. I should write more about the usefulness of walls*, but that will have to wait. People tend to want to avoid arena walls, when they should be using them. They are a powerful part of this exercise. I shot some excellent video recently illustrating this, so my winter project will be assembling it into the visuals you are looking for.

Alexandra Kurland

theclickercenter.com

* How to incorprate your arena fence into the flowing pattern of three-flip-three is illustrated in the DVD: Three-Flip-Three: Understanding Lateral Flexions

Three-Flip-Three: More Details

By Alexandra Kurland

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

Safety Always Comes First

By Alexandra Kurland

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

Incompatible Behaviors and Foundation Lessons

By Alexandra Kurland

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

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