Today, I am going to take a bit of a stab at trying to name some of the high level ideas that are the essence of “training” in my view. To start- when I talk about training, I mean something that teaches or improves the horse and rider. This is not the same as preparing for shows, sales, or other competitive pursuits. I am mostly going to focus on the horse in this post, but the same things apply for riders. Now that we are closer to being on the same page, lets explore this a little more.
Training is such a multifaceted word that covers so much ground. It is the mental and the physical. Training addresses the horse’s responses, his world view, his emotional state, as well as his physical health and well being. It isn’t possible to totally separate the training from the horse’s health, mental or physical. Let’s get started.
What is training? Well, at a 10,000 foot view, training has these qualities (not an exhaustive list).
To start off with a bang: Training is corrective, it is not always “correct”. I heard that sharp intake of breath through the computer, so if you didn’t already close the page in horror, let me explain this more. Correct training is actually a series of principles that govern the things that you do, or do not do during the work. For example, in the French school, we have the principle of hands without legs and legs without hands. This is an important aspect of my work, and I follow it to the best of my ability. However, most of the questions I get about “ if this is correct” are not about principles, but about physical positions. It isn’t correct to hold your hands above your belly button, or it is correct for the horse to be on the vertical, not using a noseband isn’t correct, etc.
Well, training isn’t about trying to make things physically “correct” all the time. Training is about correcting the difficulties in the horse’s posture (or the rider), musculature, movement, attention or temperament to enable the horse to freely and easily produce work that is “correct” by that more physical definition. An interesting thing that is noticeable once you read a few hundred books about training by the old masters is that they didn’t start their own horses, or at least they didn’t write about it. They don’t really describe what they wanted their equine pupils to know before they came to the school, or what was done with them to get them there.
We know that the military masters, like L’Hotte, would have had their choice of the horses available to the cavalry officers. We also know that the noble masters, like the Duke of Newcastle, were probably breeding their own. How many of those horses made it into training with him is unknown. And one of the remarkable things about Baucher was that he had to work with the horses that were available to him. That was unusual enough for a master as to be widely commented on by others in his time.
These days, most of us are more like Baucher than the rest of the masters. Even if we can afford very expensive, high quality horses, individuals don’t usually have an endless stream of horses coming along to be able to pick and choose from on a constant basis, as one would in the cavalry or if you owned a sizable stud farm. So, you have to work with what you have, or whatever happens to it, more so than many of these people we idolize. Thankfully, we also have incredibly advanced veterinary technology compared to the old masters, making it possible to heal issues they could only dream of.
So given the state in which most of us purchase our horses (off the track, out of another discipline, a breed not originally intended for riding, not yet started, or with any number of physical problems that may or may not have been apparent when we purchased them, etc.) training must be more corrective than “correct”, especially in the beginning.
Dynamic. Training is a dynamic process. It should be filled with change. Those changes can be big, like collected to extended trot, or walk to canter, etc. Or they can be small, like working trot with the head 10 degrees lower than 7 meters ago, or with a 5% longer stride. Since training is corrective, part of what that entails is things like an extreme lateral bend in a shoulder-in sometimes, because that horse had a shoulder injury and tends to be tight on that side. Would you do that forever? Nope. But you might do a lot of momentary bend adjustments to help that horse regain the use of his shoulder properly, even if that takes you away from “correct”.
Additionally, dynamic comes up when thinking about movements. It isn’t part of best practices to try and maintain a steady state while doing something. There should be a fairly constant stream of changes- in posture, length of neck, length of stride, impulsion… rather than an attempt to keep the horse the same for more than a few strides at a time. This is important because it helps the horse be responsible for his own balance, and helps you and the horse find his optimal balance, rather than whatever you think it is supposed to be (and since the horse is doing the balancing, you should be asking him how it is working)
Creative. Good training is creative training. It involves a lot of thinking about what the horse is presenting, and how horses use themselves, and what things can be tried to see if they help. This requires the trainer to have a deep understanding of the biomechanics of how a horse works in theory, as well as how an imperfect horse compensates. Their principles of training must be deep and well understood. The trainer needs to be willing to try things that seem to make some kind of sense and see what happens, without trying to make it work. It is a constant state of problem solving.
Collaborative. The horse is an essential partner in training. I am a staunch believer in self carriage, and that the horse is the one doing the balancing. This means I need to ask him if we are actually balanced. So, if I am in a shoulder-in, I am constantly suggesting a change in posture, impulsion, angle, etc. and then softening the aids to ask him if we are actually in balance. And in this way, the horse understands what I am asking for, as well as becoming responsible for his self carriage. I am responsible for setting up the problems, but it is up to the horse to work on solving them. Nothing good happens when we simply expect the horse to let us manipulate him like a marionette.
Messy. Compared to most of what I see out in the world, where what is called training, I would call practicing for horse shows, training is messy. All of that dynamic, collaborative, creative activity doesn’t resemble half-pass across the arena, or a beautiful 20 meter circle. It is constantly changing, the rider’s hands may be very high, or the leg too far back. The horse may be not tracking up, or his nose may be poked out. As part of training, what is important isn’t that you do anything that will win at a horseshow, what is important is that you explained something to the horse, and/or strengthened and suppled his body. There are lots of breaks and praise, and small, incremental changes that lead us to great work, but on any given day, it may not look like anything you are accustomed to seeing.
About the horse. Training is working with the horse. Not the arena, or the test, or the figure, or the exercise. If I am training, and making a circle, and the horse finally releases at his poll, well, it doesn’t matter for a second that we didn’t complete the circle. That’s the place where we release and praise. If the horse becomes anxious, tense, distracted, or otherwise not relaxed and focused, that needs to be addressed. It doesn’t matter if I was in the middle of a serpentine, or planning a transition, what matters is that my horse is no longer with me in the work. That takes priority over everything. The horse’s mental comfort and well being is the number 1 thing, and all other things come after.
Builds success. Training is about building on success. Do a few good strides. Praise a lot. Move on to something else. If you want to do it again, come back to it after you ask another thing. Repetition is a subtle form of punishment. When the horse does well, even if it only a stride or two, praise and take a break. At least move on to something else. If the horse is struggling, don’t try and make him do more, ask him for less, and let him bask in the success rather than flounder in the difficulty. The more you show a horse that what you ask him to do isn’t going to lead to suffering and confusion, the more he will be willing to try what you are asking.
If you show, there is certainly a time and a place for practicing the consistency and “correctness” that showing requires. But, if that’s all you do, that isn’t really training.
Get your training principles in order, and then see what happens if you think about your training sessions in these terms. Let me know how it goes!
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