The Easy Path
Carolyn Resnick says that training should be easy and not require a bunch of skill and that the more skill the technique your are using requires then that is usually an indication of how far off the path you are. She said it much more concisely than this, but that is the main idea.
Over the past year with Gunny, as we have struggled to try to "do" the things for Parelli L3, I have tried to be more and more skilled and have analyzed our difficulties to death. And things just kept getting worse and worse.
Now to an outside person looking in, they would still think that things were looking pretty good, but being on the inside looking in, I could see how things were deteriorating. An example of one of our points of contention was walking through gates, especially the gate that led out to the pasture in the AM. All I wanted was for Gunny to walk calmly through the gate, but it had turned into mental gymnastics to figure out how to accomplish this. I remember one day in the fall when I was very frustrated and discussing this with Eric. I was telling him what I wanted and what I had all tried as I was trying to get Gunny to walk through the gate calmly. And he said to me, "why don't you just walk him calmly through the gate? Have you tried that?"
And I had to admit that I had not tried that. I had not tried the obvious thing of just doing it. So this set off a thought process of needing to be more direct in explaining what I want. There was another day in the woods when we were riding and I had come up with this elaborate plan of what to do when he sped up and when to quit. I was sticking to my plan and being patient and while we were in the middle of it I had the clear realization that Gunny had no earthly clue that what I was doing had any connection at all to what he was doing.
Now for Gunny's whole life, I have followed the idea that the horse thinks that they are training me, so that when I quit doing something they will think that it was their action that caused me to quit and then the horse will avoid doing that thing. But here was clear evidence that that was not how it was working. Gunny was just thinking that I was arbitrarily deciding to do certain things and he was just going along with what I was asking. And then when I arbitrarily decided to quit doing that thing and walk on, then we was happily doing that.
At the time I was thinking that it was dominance--that he thought he was getting me to change the subject. But this really didn't jive because he was plenty happy and willing during all the phases of the ride. He wasn't expressing an opinion about not wanting to go a certain direction or not wanting to stop or not wanting to go. But when we walked forward he would prick his ears and just happily motor on.
Now that I have had more time to think about it and time to focus on the idea of just asking him to do "it"; I realize that more likely the problem was that he didn't understand a request to slow down within a gait. He understood stopping and he understood going, but he didn't have a slow down gear at all. When I would ask him to slow down he would stop and then I would ask him to go and he would motor off again.
So I have spent the limited training time the last few months building up the idea and several different requests that mean slow down. It seems to finally be sinking in. The litmus test will be when we can actually go back in the woods again and when we start riding again.
Another thing that I have been spending a lot of time doing this winter ala Carolyn Resnick is Sharing Territory/Undemanding Time. Because of the fact that it is winter, I have been doing it in short little spans and just hanging out in the lean-to as Gunny eats his hay. When it gets warmer I will take a chair and a book and Share Territory in earnest.
So between Sharing Territory and learning a communication system about slowing down, I see a new calmness coming over Gunny. I hope it is here to stay.
Another thing that CR says that I really liked was she talked about a horse needing to learn to respond to light cues and to firm cues and not get rattled just because the cue was firm. She says that all of our cues should be relaxing for the horse. Her floating hold and give and take techniques seem to work well for Gunny too. They get the point across of what I want and also create some nice relaxation. I look forward to seeing where this Easy Path leads.
To quote Carla Benson, "I just want to ride my horse!" That is the spot I am in right now. (when I actually feel up to riding again) For now I am not mentally up to it but I know that when I am that is what I want. I want confident, calm, and harmonious rides with other horses and by myself out on the trail. The other stuff just doesn't draw my interest as in doing the Patterns and stuff.
I saw a post on the Parelli SC forum today where someone was talking about the horsenality model not working for them because they weren't able to pick out the right technique to use in the moment based on the model. That person finally came to a realization that it wasn't her inadequacy but rather that the model wasn't working for her and her horse. I feel the same way. I have been trying to do everything according to the book of Parelli for the last year and a half and things weren't working. The more they didn't work the more I tried to "do better" to make them work. My thought process was that either I or Gunny was doing something wrong and that was why things weren't working. It wasn't until recently that I realized that maybe it was the techniques that I was using that weren't working for the two of us.
So I am trying to learn some new techniques and new ways of thinking this winter and I have decided to embrace the Calm Easy Path as much as possible.
Over the past year with Gunny, as we have struggled to try to "do" the things for Parelli L3, I have tried to be more and more skilled and have analyzed our difficulties to death. And things just kept getting worse and worse.
Now to an outside person looking in, they would still think that things were looking pretty good, but being on the inside looking in, I could see how things were deteriorating. An example of one of our points of contention was walking through gates, especially the gate that led out to the pasture in the AM. All I wanted was for Gunny to walk calmly through the gate, but it had turned into mental gymnastics to figure out how to accomplish this. I remember one day in the fall when I was very frustrated and discussing this with Eric. I was telling him what I wanted and what I had all tried as I was trying to get Gunny to walk through the gate calmly. And he said to me, "why don't you just walk him calmly through the gate? Have you tried that?"
And I had to admit that I had not tried that. I had not tried the obvious thing of just doing it. So this set off a thought process of needing to be more direct in explaining what I want. There was another day in the woods when we were riding and I had come up with this elaborate plan of what to do when he sped up and when to quit. I was sticking to my plan and being patient and while we were in the middle of it I had the clear realization that Gunny had no earthly clue that what I was doing had any connection at all to what he was doing.
Now for Gunny's whole life, I have followed the idea that the horse thinks that they are training me, so that when I quit doing something they will think that it was their action that caused me to quit and then the horse will avoid doing that thing. But here was clear evidence that that was not how it was working. Gunny was just thinking that I was arbitrarily deciding to do certain things and he was just going along with what I was asking. And then when I arbitrarily decided to quit doing that thing and walk on, then we was happily doing that.
At the time I was thinking that it was dominance--that he thought he was getting me to change the subject. But this really didn't jive because he was plenty happy and willing during all the phases of the ride. He wasn't expressing an opinion about not wanting to go a certain direction or not wanting to stop or not wanting to go. But when we walked forward he would prick his ears and just happily motor on.
Now that I have had more time to think about it and time to focus on the idea of just asking him to do "it"; I realize that more likely the problem was that he didn't understand a request to slow down within a gait. He understood stopping and he understood going, but he didn't have a slow down gear at all. When I would ask him to slow down he would stop and then I would ask him to go and he would motor off again.
So I have spent the limited training time the last few months building up the idea and several different requests that mean slow down. It seems to finally be sinking in. The litmus test will be when we can actually go back in the woods again and when we start riding again.
Another thing that I have been spending a lot of time doing this winter ala Carolyn Resnick is Sharing Territory/Undemanding Time. Because of the fact that it is winter, I have been doing it in short little spans and just hanging out in the lean-to as Gunny eats his hay. When it gets warmer I will take a chair and a book and Share Territory in earnest.
So between Sharing Territory and learning a communication system about slowing down, I see a new calmness coming over Gunny. I hope it is here to stay.
Another thing that CR says that I really liked was she talked about a horse needing to learn to respond to light cues and to firm cues and not get rattled just because the cue was firm. She says that all of our cues should be relaxing for the horse. Her floating hold and give and take techniques seem to work well for Gunny too. They get the point across of what I want and also create some nice relaxation. I look forward to seeing where this Easy Path leads.
To quote Carla Benson, "I just want to ride my horse!" That is the spot I am in right now. (when I actually feel up to riding again) For now I am not mentally up to it but I know that when I am that is what I want. I want confident, calm, and harmonious rides with other horses and by myself out on the trail. The other stuff just doesn't draw my interest as in doing the Patterns and stuff.
I saw a post on the Parelli SC forum today where someone was talking about the horsenality model not working for them because they weren't able to pick out the right technique to use in the moment based on the model. That person finally came to a realization that it wasn't her inadequacy but rather that the model wasn't working for her and her horse. I feel the same way. I have been trying to do everything according to the book of Parelli for the last year and a half and things weren't working. The more they didn't work the more I tried to "do better" to make them work. My thought process was that either I or Gunny was doing something wrong and that was why things weren't working. It wasn't until recently that I realized that maybe it was the techniques that I was using that weren't working for the two of us.
So I am trying to learn some new techniques and new ways of thinking this winter and I have decided to embrace the Calm Easy Path as much as possible.
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