communication

This isn’t a Method, with a strict set of rules and steps that must be rigidly followed. Its is more of a tool box. A set of useful exercises and concepts to help you and your horse on the road to a more fulfilling relationship for both of you, through better communication and understanding.

Timing

Good timing is an essential ingredient in that most illusive of qualities “Feel.” It is something that we are not all naturally gifted with, but luckily for most of us it can be learned and developed with practice. In order to improve your timing and through it your feel you need to maintain your awareness. Not only awareness of your horse but awareness of yourself. You need to train your eye to recognise how your horse is going and feeling.

On my last clinic tour in Europe, my husband Michael (who isn’t a horse junkie like me) came with me and acted as my videographer. At the beginning he didn’t always understand what was happening, between me and the horses during the sessions.At the end of the sessions he would ask questions, that showed me that he had not fully grasped what was going on. But after about five or six horses, and only five or six horses, I could hear him talking to the people on the sidelines, commenting on the horses, explaining what the horses were doing and why. What he was saying was exactly accurate, and very insightful. I was so surprised at how much his eye had developed just by standing there and filming! 

He had learned to see when they were thinking, he could see when they were about to try things, he could see when they were tense and under pressure, and when they were just feeling the pressure and trying to understand. By the end of watching 45 horses he was able to accurately predict a lot of the time how the horse would respond, and I don’t doubt that if he stepped into the yard with one of the horses he would do just fine.

He had developed so much understanding of timing and feel, without having worked with a single horse.

Developing your eye

I strongly encourage you to watch lots of videos of people working horses. I can’t recommend it enough. This is one of the best ways to train your eye. Bellow are some of my videos that may be helpful for developing a sense of timing. But don’t stop there, watch lots of videos by lots of different riders, trainers and handlers. You will start to see not only good timing but also bad timing, when people missed an opportunity to correct or reward their horse, or made the wrong move at the wrong time and got in their horse way. Recognising these moments when you see them in others, will help you to recognise them in your own self, and with your own horse. Watching videos is not only great for training your eye but it can also give you new insights and ideas. You don’t have to take everything people say as writ, but you can always learn something from every person and every situation, even if you just learn what you don’t like, and don’t want to do.

It is so good for your horsemanship and riding, to work with as many different horses as you can. The best teachers are horses, and every horse will teach you something new. But we are often limited by the fact, that we will mostly interact with only our one or two horses. Watching videos of other horses can help to make up for this and teach us so much.

Have a plan

A good leader is just the person with a plan who can effectively communicate that plan to others. So in order to lead our horses we need to communicate, and in order to communicate we need a plan. A plan is so essential to clear communication, that it almost can’t happen at all without a plan. Many great riders and coaches talk about “visualisation.” It is the ability to imagine clearly what you are working towards. It sets you up on a path that leads in the direction you want to go, goal that you want to achieve. It guards against distractions and it keeps you honest about what you really want and not settle for good enough.

We need to be honest with ourselves and our horses. We need to lay out a plan, have a clear idea in mind for what we want our horse to do and hold to that. It doesn’t do ourselves or our horses any favours to constantly move the goalposts. If you wanted your horse to do something you need to be clear and honest with him about what you expect, what the plan is. If you let him get it wrong and then go “oh yeah I guess thats ok” then you aren’t helping him. If you have a clear plan, a clear goal in your mind, then you can accurately tell the horse when he is doing it right and when he is a little bit off. Your horse will appreciate it if you don’t move the goal posts. It enables him to feel secure and confident knowing that you know what you’re talking about.

You know when you’re talking to someone, who didn’t have a clear plan about what they wanted to say, before they started talking. They just waffle on and on, never really getting to the point. It can be very frustrating and you may start trying to find ways to leave the conversation, politely at first, but getting less polite as time goes on. Or when someone asks you for help with a project, and they don’t have a clear plan for what they need to do. You try to help them, but it can be so frustrating watching them fluff around that you either stop helping, or try to take over and just tell them what to do! It is important to have a plan.

If you don’t have a plan and you don’t really know what you want your horse to do how the hell is he supposed to figure it out?

Listening to your horse

Communication is a two way street, it is a conversation not a lecture. If there is no back and forth it stops being communication and starts being bullying. You stop being a partner and start being a dictator. We need to listen to the horse as much as we talk to him. I like affection from my horse. If he is polite about it, I don't mind him coming into my personal space and initiating contact. It's nice that he wants to be close to me, and give me a rub or a pat.

We don't want the horse to think we won't listen when he has a problem. We want him to trust us with his concerns, and we need to take them seriously. Only then can we tell him he has nothing to worry about, and have him believe us. I want my horse to communicate with me, not just be dictated to. Most of us know that we don't want to use cruelty and force to dominate our horses, but many people don't think about the small ways we subjugate our horses when we continuously suppress our horses ability to express himself. When horses are never allowed this freedom they will often shut down and withdraw. They may do what we tell them but only the bare minimum, and they wont willingly give us 100%, or even offer that extra 10%. At least 50% of communication and, as an extension, riding is listening. Listening to your horse means being prepared to let him express himself enough that you can tell how he’s feeling. Remember that your horse, is a horse first and a companion to us second.

Authenticity

What does it mean to be authentic, and what does it mean to our horses? This is a difficult question to answer, both on a personal level and in our riding. One definition of authentic is "representing one’s true nature or beliefs; true to oneself ." Being authentic to yourself means knowing yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, your beliefs, values, and also your temperament. Temperament is a word we more often use to describe horses, but it can be equally fitting for us riders as well. We need to be honest with ourselves about these things, so that we can build on our strengths and work on our weaknesses.

Another definition of authentic is "True, not false or copied; genuine, real." We see these successful and talented riders and trainers, and we can be tempted to think that if we emulate them, do exactly what they do, walk their walk and talk their talk, we will gain their success. But unfortunately it rarely works that way. When we blindly follow, or try to copy another, something is usually lost along the way. It's tempting to think that if their path led them to the top that it will lead you there too. But we have to remember that they got to where they are by being authentic.

Authenticity is also described as "Reliable; trustworthy." We need our horse to trust us, without trust there can be no real partnership. We can learn a lot about authenticity from our horses. Horses are wonderfully rich and complex individuals but they don't lie. They are always honest and often wear their hearts on their sleeves. They are authentic in every sense. We need to listen to them about their strengths and weaknesses, build on their strengths, work on their weaknesses, but be aware of who your horse is. Don't try to put yourself or your horse into anothers mould. Respect yourself for who you are, and respect your horse for who they are.

Intent

What is it that your horse actually understands from you?

I am constantly trying to figure this out, and it all seems like magic sometimes. But as far as I can tell it isn’t. All the things we communicate to our horses, where they should go, what they should do, how they should act, how they should be, involves communicating with them somehow. We often think about body language and cues as our first points of reference for communication, but I think it starts somewhere more subtle than that. I think it starts from intent.

For some reason it is a concept that can be hard to grasp, but it is something we use every day. In this video I begin to explain intent and how it applies to my work. At the end I show two examples of some basic exercises I do with horses, which show intent at work. Even though I am not actually teaching you how to do the exercises in detail, try using intent first when you do basic things with your horses, like going around behind them as I did in the video, picking up their feet, and moving from one side of them to the other. It’s as simple as asking mentally first before giving any aids or cues.

I think intent is important if you want an actual relationship with your horses. By actual, I mean built on connection and a mutual understanding. Your relationships can be dulled down when cues, treats, and other aids are used without first asking with intent.

Body language

Horses are excellent at reading body language. They communicate mostly through body language. But there are many misconceptions about body language. Body language is not a purposeful or rigidly defined set of postures that we can concisely communicate with. Our body language is the largely unconscious physical expression of our intent and moods that others usually pick up on in an unconscious way.

Every persons “body language” is as unique as their personalities and voice. So body language cannot be learned or faked and still be convincing for a horse. The idea that you can somehow learn horse body language and somehow emulate it to communicate with a horse is absurd. Its like saying you could somehow learn Whale song and then sing it back to a whale! Perhaps we can learn what the songs mean but we are as incapable of producing those sounds as a whale is of speaking in any human language. So too with horses.

We can learn how to understand a horse through paying attention to his body language but we cannot recreate the body language (postures, movements and expressions) of a 600kg quadruped with a long neck, tail and mobile ears. Neither can said quadruped mimic human body language! But what we can do is learn each others unique and very different body language and reply in our own way.Because body language is largely unconscious as soon as we start to “do” body language it actually becomes harder to understand. Instead what we can do to effectively communicate with body language is have our intent clear. Intent is communicated naturally through body language. The intent comes first and the rest will follow. That’s not to say that no thought needs to go into where you stand and how you move but the intent has to come first.

Horses learn to understand people and their body language because they see and interact with us every day, that is also how many horse people seem to know what their horses are thinking, because we learn each other when we spend time together.