The Art of Natural Dressage

So many pathways in my life with horses! From 3 yrs of English riding lessons from hardened cavalrymen as a child to Western riding, racing, barrel racing, cutting and training my own horses in 20 yrs of competition to natural horsemanship in all it's varied forms in the last 13 years. Natural dressage will be a new venture for me as I am a Frank Bell accredited trainer, and studying Leslie Desmond's approach. As I have been using more feel/release, and less pressure/release in my own training, the natural progression has taken me in the direction of positive reinforcement. After several months of exchanges on the Classical Horsemanship forum, I decided to try clicker training one of my own horses. I chose my coltish, mouthy, aloof, opportunistic, playful horse, Mischief, to have the honor of being my first subject. I figure if I can learn from him what is needed to keep his manners in check, I will be able to help clients with their horses if they get a bit pushy. I enjoy other's feedback, yet know my horses are the best gauge of my progress.

My herd consists of 4 geldings, 1 mini stallion, 2 mares and a donkey. I board several horses, and offer riding lessons, training sessions with handlers and equine assisted therapy and workshops. I work with several rescue organizations and am most recently involved in the creation of a veteran's healing program using rescue horses. I'm really interested in exploring ways to create the best possible relationship between human and horse. I also know the value of teaching balanced movement and riding to keep a horse sound. I use some basic dressage movements now in building a foundation and advancing a riding horse. I am intrigued with training approaches that replace negative reinforcement with positive reinforcement. My background is in psychology and I was an elementary/gifted ed teacher for 20 yrs. I always enjoy trying new ideas and practices in psychology ("old" ones too!), education and horse training.
~Becky Strassner

Welcome Becky!

Sounds like you are having a nice adventure laid out for you, and I am curious to read what you will find while transistioning to a more positive reinforcement based interaction with your gelding.

I can imagine that this can be a bit tricky at times if you come from one of these methods that focus on all those big blurry concepts (like leadership or feel or other things like that). But then I guess your background in psychology and working with children make it easier to stay grounded in concrete (inter)action. Anyway, I am looking forward to reading more.

Best wishes,
Romy

Welcome Becky!
I'm also very curious about your experiences with positive reinforcement. I guess the cross-over process is very interesting (and challenging) for both horse and human. But then it depends very much on the former style of training - a lot of people using R- come actually very close to R+ in their work.

I'm also wondering - could you explain for me the difference between pressure/release and feel/release. I'm reading so much about the feel in horsemanship, but I'm still not sure what people refer to exactly. Is it just a very light form of pressure?

_________________
Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Volker if you want to read an old topic: Feel and release, and a little more discussion of the concept in here: Other rewards but food. You could also check out AndreaO's posts, who used that method with her horses Tammi and Ippa and discussed it a lot in her diary. Or in some parts of Hannah's diary of Maia she is writing about it, too. I must say I still don't get the difference, so I am curious as well.

Welcome here, Becky

Will be watching for updates from you and your herd!

Cyndi