By Chris Irwin
I remember a long time ago in high school seeing a sign behind the desk of my algebra teacher that read: The older we get the more we realize how much we don’t know . I also remember that at the ripe old age of sixteen that I thought this was a stupid statement. I naturally assumed that this was just another example of false humility designed as a politically correct manipulation of young rebellious minds like mine in yet another attempt to coerce us into minding our manners and conforming to the standardized norm of the educational system. That was thirty years ago when I was 16. However, it didn’t take me all these thirty years to realize the profound truth in the statement that I had once assumed in the wisdom of my youth to be so ridiculous. Years later, while coaching in a clinic, I heard myself spontaneously uttering the words the more I work with the horses, the more I realize how much I don’t know. That realization suddenly dawned on me when I was about 40.
When I produced my first 2 training videos back in 1997, one on round penning and the other on riding, I was very fortunate to receive rave reviews in the horse industry magazines. But it was only 5 years later that I started realizing that I needed to re-make those initial videos because I had learned to work with horses more effectively, softer, more proactively instead of re actively, and as a result, more humanely. By 2004, seven years since my first videos were released, I couldn’t stand to see them being played at the horse expositions and my conscience wouldn’t allow me to produce and sell them anymore. In fact, it was time to start reproducing my entire video line. Why? Who did I meet that changed my perspective so much that I had to start all over with a new and improved methodology of horsemanship? The answer may surprise you as much as it did me. I met the true mind and nature of the horse.
The awareness for the reality of the cause and effect between humans and horses and the realization that horse trainers tend to want to fix or train problems and behaviours in horses that we, as humans, aren’t aware of our roll in causing in the first place, slowly began to dawn on me as I stepped out of the circle of influence of doing with the horses in the name of training and began to teach or coach from the outside looking in as a so called expert. In other words, I had very little awareness for the fact that I had become a master fireman who did not know that he was teaching people how to put out fires with horses that we had inadvertently started in the first place. It wasn’t until I had spent more then a few years on tour as a clinician that I finally began to realize how much I didn’t know about what was really going on between people and horses.
Today, as I travel the world teaching what I have learned since I started teaching, it is not uncommon to witness people experience a myriad of emotional roller coaster reactions as they see with their own eyes what they have never seen before and they realize that they have unknowingly been causing so many of the undesirable issues that they have with their horses. Reactions commonly range from giggling with childlike delight on the upside to the extreme downside of sadness, guilt and despair, or sometimes an emotional meltdown complete with rivers of tears.
It can be a bitter pill to swallow when we are face to face with the glaring reality that a good trainer knows how to fix problems with horses but that a truly great trainer has learned how not to cause problems in the first place. It can pull the rug out from underneath our self image and our ego can have a very hard time accepting that a good trainer has the seat and the courage to ride the buck out of a horse but a great trainer rides a horse that has no need to buck. The older we get, the more we find out that so many of those old sayings are so true. We get in the way of what we want. We are our own worst enemy. We get ourselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. We so often create a situation of no-win, damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Then we want to shoot the messenger. And here’s the rub – somewhat like us, the horses do not know that we do not know our role in what we are causing.
Here’s an example. Let’s say that we are in the round pen or working with a horse on the longe line. As I’ve demonstrated in so many of these columns in the past, a horse will read our angle of approach when we are moving on the ground as a signal of our intent. Now, if the center of our body (meaning our belly button) is aiming at the shoulder or girth of the horse as we step in from behind to say go forward, then we are interpreted as herding the horse from behind and it is clear that we are simply moving the horse around us in a turn or a circle. This shape of body typically leads to a comfortable way of going and does not typically stress the mind of the horse. However, at least 95% of the people I meet are aiming at the head of the horse with their body while they work the horse from the ground. It is indeed human instinct to confront and to talk face to face so we think nothing of it. However, the horse interprets this as bullish body language and sometimes even as more of a threat to capture then a signal to herd. This stresses both the body and the mind of the horse and, depending on the confidence of the horse, will initiate fear, annoyance, frustration or even angry aggression. Then we need to fix the horse that is timid or needs to be shown who is boss. Most often, if the horse is merely annoyed and is saying so by contstantly swishing his or her tail, then people don’t seem to see, or care to listen, to the message coming from the horse.
This is just one example of hundreds of cause and effect issues that are commonplace in everyday horsemanship. My point here is that when we unknowingly send signals to the horse that cause it to become stressed it does not know that this is our mistake. The horse does not know that we do not know our role in causing it to behave the way it does. The horse is a sentient being that lives in the moment and when we make it feel confused, frustrated, frightened, angry, sullen or any other feeling that does not feel good, then the horses associate that feeling with us. The horse looks at us as, uh oh, here comes the guy that makes me feel bad and they do not know that we do not know that we are causing this feeling. Here’s an example without horses that we’ve all seen that we can all relate to.
Imagine a young child holding a kitten in its arms. The child is enjoying loving the kitten. We see that the child is happy and simply wants to show the kitten affection. However, we see very clearly that the kitten is not enjoying how the so called loving is being communicated and while the child is having a feel good experience the kitten feels trapped and mauled. We find this scenario somewhat cute because we know how innocent and niave the child is as to how the kitten is perceiving the experience. The child does not know what he or she does not know about the reality of the situation. The kitten also does not know that the child does not knwo but then the kitten says enough is enough and claws and scratches at the child in order to break free of the human being causing it distress. Then the child cries out in pain, releases the kitten, and then most often feels sad or angry at the stupid cat that does not appreciate the love it was receiving.
Now exchange the word kitten with horse, the young child with almost any human being of any age or background, and exchange the kitten clawing and scratching for horses that are biting, striking, kicking, rearing, bolting, bucking, jigging, pawing, refusing to stop, refusing to go, won’t stand still for mounting, can’t be caught, won’t pick up their feet, refuse to load in trailers or wash racks, will not accept the bit, will not respect the leg, the list goes on and on.
The performance and behaviour of your horse is a direct reflection of how it feels about your performance and behaviour. Fact: If you keep repeating the same techniques over and over again, believing that practice makes perfect, but the methods are not working and getting for you what you want from your horse, then you’re missing something and you need new information. Practice does not make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect. Perhaps Einstein put it best when he said: Problems can not be solved at the same level they are created.
While it is indeed true that there is not a horse that can’t be rode or a cowboy that can’t be throwed it is also true that nobody is perfect and none of us know everything there is to know about what the horses truly need from us in order to be the best that they can possibly be. My point here is not to give you a practical tip to fix anything about your horse but simply to remind you that we are supposed to be the one who leads the dance between human and horse and a horse can only follow as good as it is lead. If your horse has even the slightest issue such as his or her tail swishes even when there are no flies around, or it carries itself just slightly inverted, or not quite engaging and tracking up enough, or any number of little things that all add up to a less then ideal experience with your horse and for your horse, then please remember that the buck stops here and it is up to the human, not the horse, to acknowledge there must be something I don’t know that I need to figure out in order to resolve this issue with my horse. Knowledge is power and the more we know the softer, kinder, gentler and more satisfying our relationship with horses can be.
In closing, I could sum up this column with ask not what your horse can do for you – ask what you can do for your horse.