practicing pressure

Doozy had her first lesson with one of our local horsemanship pros, Jim McDonald, last week, and it was good! I've done a number of sessions with Jim over the years, with various horses both of my own and within my barn circles. 

legit the only picture i took from our horsemanship lesson. pretty representative tho! 

Particularly -- he's my go-to for all things trailer loading. But over his years of experience training horses, Jim has developed a simple, elegant, and practical system for progressively building connection with your horse through ground work exercises. Trailer loading is just a natural offshoot from the steps in his system, as are other normal horsey activities like lunging and standing at the mounting block. 

stormy skies!

There's something else about Jim, tho, something that keeps me bringing him back with each new horse in my life --- even tho he's already trained me on his 'system' and the lessons always follow the 'same' process. It's that... Knowing a thing about horses, reading something in a book, or having something explained to you... It's not quite the same as doing the thing with the horse. 

oooooh and it's actually a rare pic of me and my horse, and Royal!

And doing the thing is always ALWAYS more nuanced. There are things that Jim knows, things that Jim does, that go well beyond what can easily be conveyed just by words and explanations. His perfect posture in relation to the horse, perfect timing, his energy. 

He understands his system so well bc it's his own native language in communicating with horses, and his fluency means that horses plain old understand him, effortlessly.

actually got a couple of pics of me from our walkies last week.... turns out, yes i AM kinda a weirdo lol

Most of the rest of us mere mortals are.... a bit less clear in our communication with our animals lol. A little muddier, let's say. Maybe bc our posture says something a little different from our pressure signals, or because our timing in the release is slightly off, or even bc we're not even entirely certain ourselves what, exactly, we want the horse to do. 

just me and my fluffy hair, taking ?ridiculously? long steps walkin my pony around lol

So every time I work with Jim, my goal is to basically absorb more and more of his way, his method. His timing, his energy, how he places himself relative to the horse. 

I don't plan to replicate him exactly, tho --- bc let's be real, I kinda like my horses to be a bit in my pocket, and Jim prefers horses respect a larger bubble around him. And that's fine, right? But it's really useful to understand how Jim builds that bubble. 

just grazing things

It was definitely funny, tho, bc after Jim observed me handling the horse a little bit, and then took the line himself to demonstrate a more refined way of moving Doozy around, quarter by quarter, with and without physical pressure cues.... 

He kinda looked at me confused, and asked, "Ok, So.... What's the problem?"

supervisor michael, doin supervisin things

Which, lol, there IS no problem. Doozy is, by all appearances, a sensitive horse who has a correct and honest (but not frantic) response to pressure, as well as a strong desire to connect with her people. Only observation I've made so far is that she's likely to "shut down" a bit and recede within herself if she doesn't fully understand. But generally, she's good, ya know?

unrelated: slowly but surely de-redneck-ifying my craigslist truck. monster tires are GONE, replaced with much more sensible (and smooth rollin) variations

And that's exactly what I told Jim. That's basically also why I bought her LOL. Like, yes, I like this. More importantly --- I want to preserve this, keep this, build on this, even as we start introducing more pressure and uncertainty to the equation. 

Like, eventually, both Doozy and I are going to both start making more and more mistakes in our work together -- like when we go to learn jumping together lol. So I want to set a really strong baseline now, ya know?

the better to travel to horse shows with!

So. That's what we worked on. Jim's process starts with having a horse who is responsive and sensitive to (but not fearful of) the working tools --- including a line or any whip/stick/string/extension tool you might be using. 

The second step involves learning to move each of the horse's quarters independently. An exercise he calls 'hip-hip-shoulder-shoulder-back-forward' wherein the repetition of each word reflects moving from one side of the horse to the other. Hip = turn on forehand; shoulder = turn on haunches; back + forward are as stated. 

which also conveniently provides opportunities to familiarize (but not actually practice yet) with the trailer

The critical aspects of this exercise are:

1. Positioning yourself correctly to the horse -- as in, in relation to the axis of movement you are requesting.

2. Knowing exactly what you want before you ask for it --- and NOT changing midstream. Specifically: how many steps of TOF or TOH do you want? I start with 1, usually, then build to 3.

ooooh and moar pics of me and my ponies! from when my parents visited to meet the new red thang
and random musing... i see pics like this and wonder, did i wreck my left ankle bc i stand like this? or do i stand like this bc the ankle is wrecked?? lol chicken or egg, i guess! pro tip: don't be like me, do physical therapy....

3. Releasing at the right moment. Which... generally... is sooner than I think. Horses learn in the release, so whatever you are doing in the moment of releasing pressure is what the horse learns. In my case, I was waiting until the last step was completed, but needed to actually be thinking of releasing as soon as that lest step begins. 

4. Following a consistent and systematic pressure progression. Always starting with the lightest possible ask, like leaning in, and progressing through a consistent system - maybe next to verbal, then touch, then... more and more until the desired outcome is achieved. 

If you always follow the exact same progression, eventually the heaviest asks fall away and you can achieve the desired outcome with the lightest possible pressure.

turns out framing pictures with horizontally long creatures (like horses) is hard for folks used to shooting vertically LOL

Which takes us to the next step of Jim's process --- repeating the same exercise, the same set of movements in the horse, with predetermined numbers of steps, but this time without needing to touch the horse. 

This is something I never quite mastered with Charlie in our regular early practice, tho eventually we got there anyway in terms of him being able to move each quarter away from my non-touch pressure. And actually, something Teresa wrote her in own recent post maybe helped me understand this a little bit more --- about how our own horses tend to start seeing us as their 'safe space' and might be likelier to tune us out a little bit in instances where they are more distracted by the world around them. 

that's all for now!

But anyway, this was the step where Doozy kinda shows a little bit her tendency toward shutting down. She's not quite ready for that non-touch 'sending' cue, so need to keep working on the broken down individual pieces. Then she'll figure out how to move away from me without touching, then I'll be able to reliably "send" her etc, including onto the trailer. 

Last piece that Jim really wanted to reinforce with me: to slow down my own thinking. To not be so preoccupied with what I *think* the horse will do, what I think might happen, or not happen, or how I expect the horse to respond. 

His counsel was, paraphrased, 'No matter what is going on, what's happening, whatever, if you want the horse to move her left hind leg over, just think about that left hind leg. That's it. Nothing more. Just get that left hind leg to move. Then focus on whatever next movement you need. One step at a time.'

Which.... Now that I think about it, is actually maybe pretty good horse advice generally lol. Focus on the small pieces, be consistent. Practice diligently with a clear sense of your desired outcome at each step of the way... And... Eventually you'll get there!!*

So. Here's to more and better practice, as always with horses, and forever lol.

(*Shout-out to Carly, formerly of Poor Woman Showing, who has done exactly this for the last 10 years --- and got somewhere really great this weekend, earning her final score toward her USDF Bronze Medal!! Woot woot, way to go Carly!)