Last Friday I completed my social anthropology degree! The last year has been pretty hard work, balancing home visits, teaching and studying, but finally, it's over and life can return to normal. My dissertation explored the way horse/human interactions are studied within anthropology and behavioural sciences, so it's been fascinating, but pretty hard work. Harvey clearly realised his early retirement was coming to an end (he's had 6 weeks off due to dissertation madness) and so promptly developed a foot abscess, but now that has burst too, so that both Harvey's puss-y foot and my fuzzy head are left with empty cavities. Not for long mind; I now have the refreshing job of going through the endless 'to do after May 14th' list (see how I put a positive slant on that?!), but at least I'm back to working full time and riding plenty so, with the sun out, all feels wonderful.

            Over the weekend I ran a Practical Skills Development course with Sandra Williams and Jim Goddard. I absolutely love running this clinic because it's very pragmatic. We have 'real' youngsters and horses with problems for students to train in small groups, and it's a really positive feeling course as both students and horses progress at the same time. On this course, the problems included a young horse who broncs when girthed up, a 2 year old entire colt, an Iberian horse that is very scared of being long-lined, a cobby chap who could be bargy and nippy, an ear shy pony and a thoroughbred who has a tendency to rear.

            I saw an interesting comment on a forum thread this morning that got me thinking, the author was worried that training a horse to move out of pressure using 'natural horsemanship' techniques would make it very difficult to encourage the horse to accept pressure in the future (e.g. from the leg and the hand.) So much of the training that we use at IH comes down to an awareness of pressure and release, that it, making sure the horse has an appropriate release when they do the right thing. Generally, we teach the horse to move away from pressure because that is what most horsemanship requires, e.g. you use the reins and the horse slows down. But if we really pick it apart, it isn't really all about moving away from pressure – it's about accepting it and moving away softly. The point was emphasised by the rearing horse that my group worked with on the PSD course. I rode this little guy for a demo slot during the lunch break. Initially, during groundwork, when you touched his belly and asked him to move over, he swished his tail, pinned his ears, and leaned towards you before shuffling away. With a little work, he was able to calmly cross his hindlegs over when asked with a touch on his belly, which then transferred in to a ridden aid that helped me to soften him once I was on top. The point is that moving away isn't enough, we are not just teaching horses how to avoid pressure by evading it, we are teaching them how to accept it softly without tension or stress, because they know how to release it again. This is indeed the type of response that you want from your horses sides beneath your legs, mouth beneath your reins, or in fact any part of him at any time. You can teach a horse to pull into pressure too (a driving horse for example), and still the best way to teach the desired response to pressure is with well timed released for the behaviour you want to encourage. Of course it takes a while to generalise the learning and attitude so that the horse is not expecting pain or stress but ready to listen to each pressure willingly and work out how to release it softly and without stress.

            I suppose it's not so different for people. Sure I learned how to deal with academic stress calmly, with clarity, enthusiasm and organisation. Not quite managed the same response to the pressure I'm feeling from the overflowing accounts pile...., now I could run away from this pressure, but I don't think that will release it any quicker!

 

(We are running another PSD clinic on 2/3rd June this year in East Sussex, get in touch if you would like more details, and I'm ready to accept new clients for this summer, with spaces coming up from around mid June, enjoy the sunshine while it lasts :) )