10 Ways to Guarantee Frustration with Your Horse

The only horseperson who never has been frustrated with his horse has owned only Breyers. Put any two living creatures together and you’re bound to get conflict. Here are 10 sure-fire ways to clash with your horse.

1. Be in a hurry
If you’re under a time crunch, your intent and energy will escalate in a stressed (not playful) way. The horse will hate this conflict and resist.

2. Have people watching
Being self-conscious causes you to lose spontaneity and get “out of the moment.” If you’re not present, your horse won’t be.

3. Don’t know what to do
If you’re confused about a new technique or your horse does something unexpected, you’ll find it’s like trying to teach rocket science in a foreign language.

4. Expect perfection
Wanting perfection (and “close to perfection” is the same thing!) will never, ever happen, so will always, forever, create problems.

Sometimes it seems like even fake horses can cause frustration! (Image taken from http://www.clipartguide.com)

5. Have poor goals
If you don’t know where you’re going or your destination is an unreasonable place or impossible to get to, the path there will be pretty darn frustrating.

6. Don’t be willing to compromise
The key to creating conflict in any relationship (horse-human included) is to never give in and never pick your battles.

7. Stick too closely to one system
If you can’t do something because the Guru Training System of Amazingness doesn’t allow it, you’re going to have a nasty conflict of loyalties.

8. Have the wrong equipment
Yes, it’s possible to do what you are trying to do with different equipment. But sometimes, it’s just not worth it. Unless you want to be frustrated.

9. Do too much, too soon
What you want to do may be entirely possible, but may not be the best thing right now.

10. Forget the purpose of horsemanship
Horsemanship is about having a relationship—you don’t need to do anything. But definitely make Doing your priority for maximum frustration.

There is little that’s guaranteed in horsemanship, but if you want to come close, bet on these ways of creating conflict. They’ll work or your money back!

Have Horse, Will Travel: Training Horses in Many Environments

“50% of your training should be on the trail.”

This quote by Lynn Palm, one of the world’s foremost horsewomen, startled me. Yet, the more I thought about it, the more I realized its wisdom. (The opposite is also true: trail horses should have 50% of their training in the arena.)

Most of us won't have to deal with an environment this extreme, but just imagine the training that had to go into this environment! (Image taken from http://www.listbyte.com/list/entertainment/endurance_riding)

Why? Because environments have to be trained just as much as behaviors do. Every new environment has different feels, obstacles, and purposes from the last one, requiring unique physical, mental, and emotional responses from both you and your horse. This is the very definition of something that needs to be specifically trained.

Therefore, a specific trained behavior does not easily “cross over” into a new environment, so you should be just as intentional about training in new environments as you are about training new behaviors. In fact, let your environment do the training for you. Your horse becomes much more engaged with you, then, for several reasons:

1. There’s a purpose behind the principle
When a horse applies what he’s learned, like when he learns to collect because he is going downhill, he integrates it into his understanding and behavior. He becomes more proficient at it, because it has become applicable and moved beyond theory.

2. There’s a goal to the behavior
Horses love to understand why. If the horse realizes that backing up will get him to a better place to cross the stream, he will become more trusting of your requests, because he’s learned they are not trivial. Trivial tasks bother horses like they bother you!

3. The horse teaches himself
If he moves forward when sidepassing over a log, he hits his own legs. He doesn’t associate with you; he learns to be self-taught and self-motivated.

4. In a natural environment, the horse becomes free
When a horse has to engage all of his natural instincts—navigating different footing, difficult obstacles, potential dangers, and a need, versus just a “suggestion,” to connect with a human—he fully engages his mind, body, and spirit.

What is one of the most difficult environments you have trained in?

Start Horsin’ Around: Feel and Release Simulation

If there is one thing it seems necessary to understand in horsemanship, it’s pressure and release. The formula of Pressure Y--> Horse Does X --> Release Pressure Y is unavoidable, right?

Wrong.

I have talked a lot about my journey into feel and release, and you can find more information here and here. However, I want you to feel it yourself in an exercise inspired by Karen Musson.

1. Hold one end of the rope (not a nylon strap!) with your friend holding the other end with a good loop in it (but don’t let it touch the ground). You are the horse and your friend is the person.

2. Close your eyes, and have your friend press her finger firmly on the rope, then release it quickly. You should feel the release through the rope. Think about this—you can feel release just like you feel pressure!

3. Now have your friend give you more “float” in the line. “Float” sort of means “looseness,” but with connection. Meaning, she shouldn’t just chuck the rope towards you and let it flop. She should glide it toward you in a floating way. Notice how you can feel this release of rope toward you.

4. Here is the fun part! With your eyes open or closed, have the person guide you around the area using only release. So, if she wants you to go left, she is not allowed to pull the line left.

Simulations of horsemanship can be really useful! (Image taken from http://enews.parelli.com/2007/enews100507.html)

This is harder than it looks! Focus on having a lot of “intention” in your body and experimenting confidently with different ways of giving that release (step 2) and float (step 3). Think about “opening” the place where you want the horse to go (through giving float) and “closing” the place you want the horse to move off of (by focusing on it).

Once you get the hang of it, switch roles. And once that becomes easy—go try it with your horse, and you will have started the very first steps of feel and release horsemanship.

So tell me, how did it go? What did you learn?