It's the Release that Teaches
This post is about horses being emotional and tense. For some reason, last fall Gunny started to get very emotional when we were out riding. He would usually be calm on the way out and as soon as we turned towards home, he would start to get emotional and impulsive. I tried many different things, such as impulsion programs, watching for thresholds, doing more groundwork, doing lots of backwards and sideways, and probably more stuff that I am forgetting. Some stuff helped but nothing really remedied the situation.
Over the last month or so I have been putting a lot of thought into the saying "it's the release that teaches". Another closely related saying is "never release on a brace" or "only release on softness". In the Parelli stuff we are taught that when a horse gets RBE (right brain extroverted), we should match their energy and calm down when they calm down.
Now, what Gunny had been doing wasn't really classified as RBE, but I decided to start treating it the same way and with the same idea--that being when you get tense I am going to get intense and when you calm down, I will calm down. In a very short time, this has made a huge difference. So this little idea of adding my own intensity to match his is what I have added to the equation since my previous posts.
We recently had a session on the 45' line where we went for a trail walk. He was nice and calm on the way out and sure enough, as soon as we made the turn marking the halfway point on our loop, he started to get antsy. So I matched and mirrored him until he calmed down. We went back and forth like this for a little while until he was able to stay calm going through that territory. Once we got to our playground, I noticed a few things.
One of these things was that if Gunny ignored my soft requests for something and then I got firmer that he would get tense. In the past I would notice this tension but persist until I got the physical response that I was looking for and then I would release. Usually, Gunny would then lower his head and lick his lips after I released. So I didn't think I was doing anything wrong.
But what I noticed yesterday was that if I had to increase my phase, his initial response was tension and then doing whatever I asked while he was tense and I was releasing while he was tense. We have all heard the saying, "it's the release that teaches" a million times. But up until yesterday I hadn't thought about it in this context.
So I changed my tactics and when he got tense in response to my getting assertive, I matched and mirrored his tension with my own and only relaxed after he had relaxed. So if I was asking him to transition from a walk to a halt and he ignored my first phases but then responded with tension when I increased my phase, I responded by mirroring the tension and holding that tension until he relaxed. So even though he had halted and I had released the halt request, I didn't release my energy until he relaxed his.
Another thing that I did during this session was, if I had Gunny out circling around me and he got tense out on the circle, I would immediately start to ask for "stuff" as well as mirror him with my energy and then go back to neutral when he relaxed.
So after a little while of doing things, some interesting stuff started to happen. I noticed that he became very soft, willing and responsive from further away. We played with that for awhile then I stopped him at the end of the 45' line and had him face me. He pricked his ears and offered to trot to me. We hung out for a bit and then I sent him back out and was going to let him graze a little bit. I walked over to sit down on an obstacle and after a couple of nibbles, he left the grass and walked over and just stood by me for about ten minutes. I was more important than grass to a horse that is kept in a dirt paddock!
We then proceeded to walk calmly the rest of the way back to his pen. While we were walking by a neighboring paddock, the resident horses who usually get all excited as a horse is led by, all walked calmly down and around the corner with us. It was like it was catchy!
To summarize, I have been using this idea for emotional tension in several areas:
By the end of our session yesterday, I only needed to square my shoulders when he started to get distracted by something in the woods and he would immediately relax. It felt like he appreciated it too, because I was showing him a way to feel better. And I think that another effect was that because he felt better, then he was able to be comfortable even though we were outside of his comfort zone.
Over the last month or so I have been putting a lot of thought into the saying "it's the release that teaches". Another closely related saying is "never release on a brace" or "only release on softness". In the Parelli stuff we are taught that when a horse gets RBE (right brain extroverted), we should match their energy and calm down when they calm down.
Now, what Gunny had been doing wasn't really classified as RBE, but I decided to start treating it the same way and with the same idea--that being when you get tense I am going to get intense and when you calm down, I will calm down. In a very short time, this has made a huge difference. So this little idea of adding my own intensity to match his is what I have added to the equation since my previous posts.
We recently had a session on the 45' line where we went for a trail walk. He was nice and calm on the way out and sure enough, as soon as we made the turn marking the halfway point on our loop, he started to get antsy. So I matched and mirrored him until he calmed down. We went back and forth like this for a little while until he was able to stay calm going through that territory. Once we got to our playground, I noticed a few things.
One of these things was that if Gunny ignored my soft requests for something and then I got firmer that he would get tense. In the past I would notice this tension but persist until I got the physical response that I was looking for and then I would release. Usually, Gunny would then lower his head and lick his lips after I released. So I didn't think I was doing anything wrong.
But what I noticed yesterday was that if I had to increase my phase, his initial response was tension and then doing whatever I asked while he was tense and I was releasing while he was tense. We have all heard the saying, "it's the release that teaches" a million times. But up until yesterday I hadn't thought about it in this context.
So I changed my tactics and when he got tense in response to my getting assertive, I matched and mirrored his tension with my own and only relaxed after he had relaxed. So if I was asking him to transition from a walk to a halt and he ignored my first phases but then responded with tension when I increased my phase, I responded by mirroring the tension and holding that tension until he relaxed. So even though he had halted and I had released the halt request, I didn't release my energy until he relaxed his.
Another thing that I did during this session was, if I had Gunny out circling around me and he got tense out on the circle, I would immediately start to ask for "stuff" as well as mirror him with my energy and then go back to neutral when he relaxed.
So after a little while of doing things, some interesting stuff started to happen. I noticed that he became very soft, willing and responsive from further away. We played with that for awhile then I stopped him at the end of the 45' line and had him face me. He pricked his ears and offered to trot to me. We hung out for a bit and then I sent him back out and was going to let him graze a little bit. I walked over to sit down on an obstacle and after a couple of nibbles, he left the grass and walked over and just stood by me for about ten minutes. I was more important than grass to a horse that is kept in a dirt paddock!
We then proceeded to walk calmly the rest of the way back to his pen. While we were walking by a neighboring paddock, the resident horses who usually get all excited as a horse is led by, all walked calmly down and around the corner with us. It was like it was catchy!
To summarize, I have been using this idea for emotional tension in several areas:
- When the horse gets tense instead of responding to a request
- When a horse gets tense in response to something in the environment outside of my control
- When the horse is responding but is also showing tension at the same time
- That I start with Phase 1, but go to the effective Phase.
- That I am not pushing my horse over thresholds. If I can identify a threshold then I address the threshold and the tension by retreating from the threshold but making sure that I am mirroring the tension level. Once the horse relaxes, the threshold might go away without any further need to address it.
- That I have addresses friendly game issues--my horse is not emotional because he is afraid of my tools. Instead he was ignoring my tools/request and becoming emotional when I became effective. Or he was becoming emotional to some outside condition which I couldn't really name--such as the "scary end of the arena".
By the end of our session yesterday, I only needed to square my shoulders when he started to get distracted by something in the woods and he would immediately relax. It felt like he appreciated it too, because I was showing him a way to feel better. And I think that another effect was that because he felt better, then he was able to be comfortable even though we were outside of his comfort zone.
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