Feeling trumps Words everytime

With endotapping it seems that the points to argue endlessly about are: the use of food, the use of clicker training with this method, the use of training head down without the endo-stick etc…

For me it boils down to the fact that too many details about riding and training horses can only be FELT and then ONLY in the MOMENT by the HANDLER/RIDER. Case in point was working Z yesterday when changing from the halter to the neckrope got me a response that my groundsperson, just a few yards away, could not see/feel. How many times have I videotaped and not seen on the tape the change I know I felt?

While it may be fun to discuss training methods and ask for advice on the internet, the reality is that there are too many variables. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received an email from someone wanting training advice, and as more and more emails are exchanged I am then suprised to learn something that the advice seeker never thought to mention at the beginning which plays a huge part in the problem. Or the classic is the person who states adamantly it is not pain on their horses’ part, it must be training – to only find out that yes indeed, their horse has a huge medical issue.

For me, when researching a new method or something I want to try with my training or riding I ask myself:

1.) does this method make logical sense? yes endo-tapping does make sense to me. I do believe head down changes the horses’ mental state. And yes, I do believe that being relaxed, increases the potential of learning.

2.) is it congruent with my own training methods and philosophies? Generally, yes as it non-violent and mostly non-coercive. Though I do think the tapping could grow to be a huge irritant to the horse so there is “pressure” involved and there is definitely mental pressure being applied to get the horse to submit.

This is why I personally would use this method selectively because my path lies more towards figuring out how to get the horse to comply of their own free will as seen with the halter/leadrope vs. neckrope work.

3.) do I think it would achieve my end goals with a certain horse? I feel that with Dee yes, with Z not so much. It would definitely be worth trying with Dee and evaulate the results as I think her temperment would well suit this method.

4.) can I combine it with methods I use today? Yes, though the purists on the Yahoo group might faint.

I’ll post updates as we progress, and hopefully video and photos too.

Relaxed states of mind learn

As I’ve written before Dee carries herself in a high state of physical tension. The good news is that this does not explode into shying behavior or being upset; the bad news is that it is a fixed behavior that is extreme.

I’ve experienced this before with my other TB, T-man. Trying to get that horse to lower his head at liberty was next to impossible. It would be obvious and say this is a TB trait but I think it evolves more from training. TB’s have a desire to move forward and are extremely athletic; people shut this down with their training and tension results.

That is probably an oversimplified statement but I need to save some space in this blog entry…

Last summer when I was riding with Molly, she brought up endo-tapping developed by JP Giacomini. Ivy had brought it up to me more recently as perhaps an avenue for Z’s training. While I won’t be going down that path for Z (see our last entry) as I feel we can work her in a relaxed state using other methods, this would probably be a perfect method for Dee.

JP Giacomini has a general article about why being relaxed is a desired mental state and how it contributes to learning. If you are a follower of Linda Tellington-Jones, the principles of relaxing in order to further learning, is extremely similar and complimentary.

Now, I’m going to throw something out there about childbirth. I have had two children and one was born with the Lamaze method. Lamaze uses breathing patterns to focus the woman during childbirth. IMO it was a load of crap and didn’t make it easier or more productive. Of course, to be fair, the first born was a back labor birth that lasted over 13 hours.

With child number 2, the Bradley Method made far more sense to me. At the root of the Bradley method is two ideas: 1.) pain has a productive purpose in childbirth and to fight it actually lessens it’s ability to proceed the labor; and 2.) the woman must relax against it. Only through relaxing against the pain does the labor proceed. Baby No. 2 was another natural childbirth and was textbook-lovely.

BTW I think a lot of factors contributed to the differences in these two labors, and I also don’t feel we need to carryover the pain correlation to our horse training! What I do think is that if you consider the pain of childbirth to be one of the number one pains a human body can experience, and it is STILL possible to relax, then despite distractions and whatever is going at home or at a horse show, a horse can also relax.

It’s clear working with Dee that she will need to be trained to relax. Relaxing of her own violation may never happen, though yesterday’s work did get ONE head/neck shake! yeehaw!