|
Alexandra Kurland
Repetition and the Training Game
1/8/00
Note this report refers back to other posts written on this topic. You can search the clickryder archives to read these related posts.
Repetition for me is one of the corner stones of a good training program. For those who want to run, not walk, from any mention of repetition, the important element to understand is that through repetition you aren't turning out cookie-cutter molds of the same behavior. Behavior varies. I'm sure in Marie's experiment on repetition where she had James and her other animals touch a target over and over again, she saw some variability. The touches would have varied in intensity, speed, placement on the target stick, duration, etc. The differences might have been minuscule. James might have touched the target an eighth of an inch to the left of his previous touch, but that's still variable behavior. For target touches that difference may not be significant, but in dressage and other performance disciplines those differences are the raw material we use to shape excellence.
If I can tune in to that tiny variation, I'll be able to reinforce those differences which will take me in a desired direction. That means that over time I'll be able to shift a whole complex of related behaviors, not just the single one I'm focusing on. I do this through repetition. The repetition at first gets a crude form of the behavior to happen over and over again on a consistent basis. That gives me an opportunity to collect data about the behavior. Because I get to observe it happening over and over again, I can begin to see details in the behavior I wasn't initially aware of. I can see which of those details are important to my over-all goals; when they are likely to occur; what the precursors are. That means I can be more prepared to reinforce them when they happen. All of this I learn by asking for the behavior over and over again.
Is this boring to the horses? No, in my experience they enjoy it. Each little increment of success builds their confidence and encourages them to go on. From their perspective they are involved in an enchanting new game which they are quite content to go on playing for hours. I got a wonderful sense of this playing the training game. (See my book for details about what this is.) I was with a group of my clients. They had each had a turn being the "trainee", and now it was my turn to be trained. They decided they were going to get me to goose step around them on a circle. Of course, I didn't know what they wanted. I just knew there was a specific behavior they were going to try to get me to perform. That's one of the big differences between the horses' perspective and ours. We have this bigger picture of some final product that we want to create. If we can't get our "trainee" to perform the desired task, we get frustrated. Boredom, anger, frustration: these are all linked emotions, and once we start down that path, we are in danger of triggering matching responses in our horses.
But what I felt that day so strongly is we don't have to view training in this black and white, success or failure mode. My "trainer" was new to clicker training, and she had chosen a complex behavior to shape. She wasn't sure how she was going to get the result, and she was feeling pressure to succeed. All her school-room anxieties returned in full-force to trip her up and make her nervous. I could hear her going through the emotions of frustration, confusion, etc., that often accompany this early stage of the learning process. People come to clicker training with all of their previous baggage attached. Horses do to, which is why you often see in the first session or two an escalation of unwanted behavior. The horses think it's just business as usual. They don't realize the rules have completely changed and they are now engaged in a wonderful new game. At first they respond with all their old defenses and behaviors. Nadine gave a wonderful description of this in her recent post about her Andalusian stallion.
I was feeling none of this tension. I was out there getting clicked. I felt wonderfully successful. I had set aside my human notions that there was some final task that I was supposed to figure out, and instead was happily offering these little segments of behavior for which I was getting clicked and reinforced. It was a very liberating experience. My trainer did indeed get the behavior she was after, and no, we have no pictures of it, thank goodness. She got it through repetitions of small units of behavior which she could gradually shift in the desired direction. Whatever emotions she may have been experiencing as the director of the process, at no point did I feel anything but relaxed and successful.
You can learn a lot by playing the training game. It's an exercise I highly recommend. The more you play it, the more you'll learn. The first time you experience being the "animal" you may well find yourself feeling frustrated, bored, confused; all those things people have been saying horses experience in training. But as you "learn how to learn" in the context of the game, you'll find that these feelings will be replaced by those of relaxation and enjoyment. That's the whole point of clicker training. You're giving your horse a structure in which he can be successful. Repetition is certainly part of that structure. Used in conjunction with the click and the treat, it becomes a tremendous confidence builder. As you and your horses get deeper into the "training game", you will find yourself using repetition routinely in the shaping and refinement of behavior. As long as you are engaged and interested in the process, your horse will be, too.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
written 1/00 as a post to clickryder
Part Five: What's New/Special Events/Articles
|
