The Ahhhh in Dressage

Dressage as it could be! Hope you enjoy this link and article as much as I did. http://www.eurodressage.com/equestrian/2010/11/03/uta-graf-and-stefan-schneider-kingdom-horse

Focus and Attention by Sherry Jarvis

I see so many horses that are not paying the least bit of attention to their handler or rider.  When you take a horse away from the comfort and safety of his natural surroundings, there are many things in the big wide world that can distract or attract him. His attention wanders to those other things. All horses are this way by nature, and green horses or horses that haven't been handled much or well are by far the worst. They HAVE to check this, that, and the next thing out in their environment.  They need to be sure there's nothing that's going to come get them. They like to check and see if there is some other horses they'd like to be with, some grass or some other food they'd like to go eat, some manure to smell, or some wide open space they would like to go lounge in. These are the things that give pleasure to all horses.

A horse pays attention to what matters to him, and the direction of his desires. Are you more important to your horse, than anything else in the world, including such powerful draws as other horses, food, and piles of manure? At some point you have to get to where you rate higher in his mind than those piles of manure!!! Are you something that gives your horse pleasure? Or does he dread to see you coming unless you have a bucket of grain?

If your horse is easily distracted and doesn’t seem to want to stay with you it's time for you to start thinking about supporting your horse toward being more able to choose to be with you rather than anywhere else. When a horse learns to pay attention to the handler/rider he becomes able to focus on the handler/rider when requested for a few seconds at first then building to longer periods. Something magical happens when a horse begins to really pay attention. It is like something clicks over on the inside to where he begins to have a feeling of inner peace and confidence, rather than a feeling of anxiety. He actually stops trying to leave you all the time, and starts wanting to be with you.

We have all had the experience of being in a classroom at school. The teacher stands at the front of the room and expects all the students to pay attention to what he/she is saying. When people pay attention to a speaker they look at the speaker. But if, suddenly, there was gunfire out in the street, then everyone's head would turn because their attention would have been caught by the sound from outside. It is your power of observation to see where the horse’s attention is and how to get it back that allows you to train horses with effectiveness and without the need of painful physical force or coercive methods.

There is a law of the horse's life which says; wherever the horse’s attention goes, his body must also go. It causes a horse to experience great inner turmoil to have his body separated from his attention. The main cause of a horse’s body and attention being separated is the actions of people who do not even realize what is occurring. Some horse owners are not even aware when the horse has lost his attention they only see and are aware of the things the body is doing wrong. I challenge each of you to pay closer attention to where your horse’s attention is especially when he isn’t doing what you want him to do.

A common way to practice being more aware of where the attention of your horse is directed is to dramatically slow down your actions. If you will learn to be more present in each moment with the horse you will start to see things you never saw before. Learn to wait on the horse, and give him wait time. This doesn't mean you can't be present while working fast. Speed and intensity of focus can go hand in hand.  Also worth considering is the subtle distinction between "working quickly" and "being in a hurry"

If your horse jumps around and this catches you by surprise, it is because you were not paying attention. This means you were not attentive to what the horse was paying attention to. It means you were not sufficiently focused to call upon him to remain focused upon his work, or what you wanted him to do. Your focus determines his focus. Your confidence and inner peace determines his confidence and inner peace. Your ability to "set the horse up" to go quietly depends entirely upon your ability to attend to the signs he gives you BEFORE he jumps around.

There are a million things that can potentially distract or spook a horse. You can never desensitize him to all the things he may encounter. Our mistake is in thinking that being distracted or being afraid is the horse's main problem. It is not his main problem. The external situation or objects are not what cause the horse to be distracted or concerned. It is the loss of his attention, the loss of his inner peace and confidence in himself and in us that is the problem. There is a buildup before this happens. The rider or handler's shortcoming lies in not being able to detect, or defuse, this buildup. We have to know what happens before what happens happens.

It is true that other animals, dead fish, flags, blowing paper, motorcycles, bicycles, rattling dry branches, loud noises, flowing water, high wind, other horses, and ten thousand other things all have the power to unsettle a horse. But they do not have the power to do that all the time. I am sure that all of you have noticed that sometimes the sign on the road doesn’t concern your horse in the least and he keeps his mind on his job. Then the next day the same road sign is associated with a buildup that leads to an explosion. Why is it that on the same trail ride some horses totally refuse to cross flowing water at the same stream that another horse will quietly cross?

The answer is that when a horse gets 100% OK on the inside, nothing bothers him, or at least he has learned how to deal with it. Some people believe this is impossible. But I believe it is possible you just have to work to find that ability with yourself. How do you help a horse become 100% OK on the inside so he is OK with everything on the outside? How do you help a horse learn to deal in a postive manner anything that is thrown at him? In order to do this you have to start with one particular thing or situation where you work through together successfully with the horse no matter how long or how much effort it takes. Then you go on to another success and another. After a time, it becomes second-nature, a habit that both you and your horse do all the time when something unexpected happens.  Many of you have heard me say over and over that good horsemanship is a HABIT. And you have to be Ok with this stuff you are asking the horse to do too. Because until you are 100% OK with what you are bringing to the horse, they will never be 100% OK with you or the object. An example is a person who really wants to canter their horse but the moment the horse brings ups his energy to do it the person immediately says "Whoa" in his mind and also in his body, but especailly the reins. I call it the "Go but not really syndrome". I see it all the time.

Remember horses learn to be 100% OK from the release of pressure. To drive a horse into pressure destroys his confidence and causes the horse to develop distrust for you as a leader.  I take the horse back away from the pressure area until we find that place where the horse is comfortable.  Then once calm is fully restored, move back toward the pressure until we reach the slightest reaction point. Keep repeating the approach and retreat while holding the horse’s attention with you all the time. As soon as you feel or see the horse’s attention starting to leave you need to catch it before it leaves. If you catch it before it leaves it never does leave. This is why we need to ride every step and be present every moment with your horse. The earlier you try to capture the attention the less physical you will have to be to get it back. The goal is to become so subtle that it is invisible to those watching.

If we expect to be able to control our horse's attention, we had better be able to control our own first.  If I am still focused on other things or if I have a case of ADD, is it fair to ask my horse to focus on something other than the grass beneath his feet or the next manure pile that he would like to smell? 

PS: Our Friendly Warning: There is always some risk involved in horse training for both you and the horse. Horses can cause serious injury. Be sensible and don’t attempt anything that is outside your comfort level. Any information in this article or that we present through any of our programs are intended to illustrate how we apply our training techniques with success. However you are responsible for using this information wisely. If you don’t feel comfortable with your abilities or an exercise, don’t do it! Seek advice or assistance from a professional before attempting things beyond your skill or confidence level. Stay on the "high side of trouble". Keep it natural and above all KEEP IT SAFE!

Until Next Time, 

Sherry Jarvis

Author of "Win Your Horse's Heart" (And Be a Better Horseman)

www.heartinyourhand.com

82507 465^th Ave. Burwell, NE 68823, Tel: 308-346-5663

Interview With Eitan and Debbie Beth-Halachmy

You will be able to find further updates on Eitan’s activities on the new Western Dressage Association website  www.WesternDressageAssociation.com  Eitan is an Advisory Director with this new association.  You can also find continued information on his Cowboy Dressage website.  www.CowboyDressage.com  

Going to WEG? Don't miss this:

Check out:
http://www.internationalequestrianfestival.com

This is a separate event and only cost $5 for entry! It goes from 1-9 pm each day, with shopping, entertainment, seminars and clinicians. It's downtown--with air conditioning! Rides on a segway or a horse simulator are available. Julie Goodnight, Monty Roberts, Rex Peterson and JP Giacomini (and his stallion Istoso) will be there.

Join us WEG!

Dear all,

I hope some of you will make it to WEG and we will get a chance to meet YOU at our booth (26/27, Equine Village).

On the Friday Oct 1st, I will be on at 5:00 in the "clinician arena" which is the square ring where they usually show the breed parade, if you know the Horse Park.


We will have several of our Lusitanos there. Orion is 5 yrs. old. We will also show his 1/2 brother Zafer (3) who will demonstrate the results of endotapping in hand and another 3 year old, Zidane who will be ridden by my assitant Cedar. He is a very nice young horse with about 120 rides. We will have a Quarter Horse stud with his cowboy rider and later in the Games, a GP jumper that has been transformed by the technique from a talented rebel into a very classy horse who goes like a decent dressage horse (though his true job is to jump the really big stuff). We had a GP dressage horse scheduled, but he got a bug and can't come.  We'll also have another very talented huge Hanoverian which I have been working with between Nov and April, but he hurt himself in a paddock, so our Iberian horses it will be for the most part for me to ride an show.

See you there, please stop and say hello.


JP Giacomini
Baroque Farms USA
Kentucky

Join our yahoo group 1ArtofTraining to stay in touch.
+++++++

In answer to a question about self-carriage, I wrote the post below to a list (bragging as the proud breeders of the horses we are taking).

Preparation Notes:
The last few days, I have been doing work all over the farm rather than in the arena to get my young stallion Orion used to work in strange places in preparation for WEG. It will be the first time that he will go anywhere other than the farm he has grown on since he was 2.

I wanted to test his willingness to go everywhere as well as his balance and I worked him on a hill that is probably 20% slope in most places. We did all his work up and down and obliquely to the slope, including tempi on a circle, canter half-passes and pirouettes, figure 8 in rein back and passage circles. He can do all the canter work in balance without changing his very light contact or his speed (particularly the tempi). That is the beginning of decent self carriage. Today, he still sped up a little in the trot downhill but that maybe because he just got trimmed and his balance has changed.

Needless to say, we are hugely proud of him :). Shelley and I bred him, his mother and his grandmother and I trained his father and his grandfather which I imported one from France and one from Portugal.

Come and see him and his brothers at WEG in the Equine Village (or visit us at booth 26/27 right between the Visitors Center and the Museum, next to Pat Parelli - can't miss his huge booth :).

I will be there giving clinics everyday for the duration. The times are different everyday and are in the program. I am probably the only dressage clinician there from what I gathered (except maybe for Eitan Beth Halchmy who does "Cowboy Dressage").

I will also do 4 presentations of high school in-hand in Lexington at the IEF (Rupp Arena) after 8:00 PM with Istoso.

I promise to tell you what I get to see in the warm up arena, which is right by our arena, if I get allowed to escape my job at the booth... Will report when it is all over.

Take care, JP

Photo courtesy of Shelley Giacomini

Body Language--What's my horse reading: my thoughts or my body?

Julie asked if I would post this here. I re-wrote and added to it to
eliminate the comments I was replying to, so hopefully it makes sense
on it own.

In the course of a discussion on another list, someone commented that
they didn't agree with the concept of horses reading our "intent"
because in their opinion, it sounded as if it meant that horses were
reading our minds. Additionally, the argument was raised that one
could (purposely) fool a horse by thinking one thing, but displaying a
"cue" that a horse is already familiar with. I'm assuming that this
comment was to bolster the argument that horses don't read minds.

Well, maybe they are (reading minds), maybe they aren't, I don't know.
What I do know is, that if I form an intent, the thought itself
results in a change in my physical self. My horse reads this. It's not
telepathy...it's just an ability to observe, interpret, and respond to
minute changes in the demeanor of another being.

I like the word intent, because it indicates a conscious awareness of
the connection between a thought and the physiological manifestation
of that thought. I don't think that horses read minds....I think
rather that they are amazingly gifted observers and interpreters of
body language. The very best trainers know exactly how the horse is
interpreting their body language. They know that the formation of a
intention forms a physical reaction that a horse can read. By being
aware of the connection between intent and the physiological response
that results from it, one can choose to control the physical (outward)
response as subtly or overtly as the situation calls for. They have
mastered the display of their physiological responses. They know how/
when/where to direct energy, they know how much energy is needed or
exactly when to turn it all off. They are also incredibly consistent
in their actions so a horse learns to trust what a trainer is telling
them through the body language.

I've spent a lot of time paying close attention to what body language
I display, and trying to fine tune it. Tamarack is a great sounding
board for all of this. Especially at liberty, something as small as
adjusting the pitch of my shoulders in relation to him by an inch can
block or allow his movement as well as affect the quality of that
movement. What part of his body I look at matters (and he knows where
I'm looking), an arm slightly raised, a shoulder tipped lower than the
other, tensing the muscles in the back of my neck or across my
shoulders...hundreds of combinations, all form virtual sentences that
Tam can read and respond
to. And they are, for the most part, natural reactions that he
displayed, that I took note of and capitalized on. It all means as
much on the ground as it does in the saddle. It begins to LOOK like
the horse is reading your mind if you are very consistent in your
delivery. Your horse begins to respond almost before you ask. They see
or feel everything. By being very conscious of my own body language,
being as consistent as I can in thought and action, then I can observe
consistent responses in my horse and mentally catalogue it. I then
know if I do a certain thing, that Tam responds a particular way.

I never attempt to disguise intent, because that would create a muddy
picture or "muffled words" or otherwise cause a confusion in my horse.
Clarity is key. If I cannot remain focused and clear and in the moment
with my horse, then I do nothing instead. It's like trying to have a
discussion with someone who always mumbles....it's frustrating and
eventually you just give up listening because you can't really
understand them.

Since horses can read the smallest body language signals in us, I feel
it's important that we are aware of it ourselves. I think I've only
scratched the surface with what my horse is capable of understanding.
Discovering the potential in the subtlety of it all is fascinating.

Karen

Photos courtesy of http://www.heartinyourhand.com/ colt starting clinic.

Do You Know Your Horse's Footfall?