The Art of Natural Dressage

Mmmh. I think I know what you mean Lena. It is impossible for me to look upon a horse ridden with bit and spurs and not compare it with the images of a horse free of constraints. But like Romy said, that's not what I focus on when I see that video.
When I wrote that Oliveira's passage is soft to me, I meant the flowing movement of the legs and the back of the horse (starting around 0:10). The opened mouth during the that part is another thing...
The flowing movement separates this video of the passage from others I see from videos of today's dressage competitions, where there's usually more jerky movements and a more distinct and separated phase where the legs wait for the next step.
Compare this video for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpcgFgYCNOg

I don't want to to use this particular video to malign the rider in the video, but to show how different the same exercise can be in terms of movement. I, personally, prefer the former image of the passage and I also think that a flowing quality like that can only properly be shown by a horse who is more or less in a calm and positive state of mind.

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Yes - exactly my reaction to the N.O. video.... I didn't know what I wanted "our" passage to be like, the "competition" one didn't look right,though. I love the "feel" of the passage and the training in that clip.

just a quick note on the open mouth. N.O. followed (among others) the teaching of Baucher - with his flexions. The open mouth is a sought after part of the horse's education. It is not necessarily open because of heavy pressure/pain/resistance. And - the fact that the noseband is loose enough to allow an open mouth ought to be praised too

...but mostly I look up to Romy with her idea of "looking at the good from others' work with horses"

Today's in hand session with Special:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRpCncOI-UU&feature=youtu.be

I notice he looks like he gets stuck over his forelegs when I ask for the passage-like steps and try to keep him from going forward too much. I need to be careful I am not holding my lead hand too low! I don't think there is any pressure on the halter - the rope should be loose, but I better double check that....

Gee, he looks so much better and softer when we work off body language cues... why on Earth do I not realize it during the work session?

I had a stereo out next to the camera - that's what he's spooking at

I am working more on the timing/cadence and the forehand lift, so we have lost some of the amplitude, which is ok for now. I really want to figure out the correct balance - I think he needs to have more of a shift towards the haunches... maybe I can play with SW, SH and then to passage...
today he looked like his balance was more horizontal... possibly he needs a longer rest between intense sessions (yesterday morning we did lots of canter...) - I didn't really realize it until viewing the video...

I love the (occasional) softness we get - you can't hear him touch the ground...

So of course I'm still jealous at your video camera...

When I look at your video (combined with the pirouettes), I wouldn't focus that much on movement for now, but more on relaxation. Because even though he has some very soft movements - the softness still seems to be mainly in the muscles and less so in the head.
I think that Special is an extremely sensitive horse, which is great for Haute Ecole training and playing with tiny cues, but the huge drawback of that is that those extremely sensitive horses are also very allergic to unwanted touches. And of course we call them 'cues', or even worse, 'aids' as our whip is supposed to 'help' te horse - but in reality it only helps us humans get what we want. It doesn't help the horse mentally or emotionally when coming to terms with an exercise, and that means that while we think we help the horse to understand faster what we want from him, with all our cues in fact we're putting him into a pressure cooker. And that often is not at all what the horse wants.

I love the fact that the leadrope is hanging through: he still managed to almost bump into it a few times, so I wouldn't shorten it, rather keep a better eye on your own position because that influences the length of the rope as well.
And I would ditch the whip - I'm sorry, but I can't make anything else of it. When I see you, I see a lot of myself, and I was very whip-orientated as well - as soon as I had it in my hand, I automatically found a way how to use it to 'help' the horse. Leading to the pony's learning all their stuff as planned, but also responding to every touch with the whip with a nice swish of the tail, and I see the same in this video with special. You point/tap and the tail swishes. You take the whip away and stop and the tail is down again. That really is a message.

I tried to use the whip a bit less for a while, but that turned out to be a real struggle for me (being a true addict) - and then ditched it completely for about a year. And lo and behold: all our precious haute ecole exercises and collection disappeared!

Apparently our collection was almost entirely based on the fact that I was using unpleasant whip-cues to push them into it.
So we had some 'retraining' to do, but most of all some rethinking, and then our training became even more @liberty and our collection became based almost 100% on bodylanguage and mimicry. About a year later I slowly started holding a whip again and not using it for touching but only for pointing, and by that time the unpleasant memory the pony's had of pointing whips had faded and they seemed to see it as just a stick/Tiger/part of my bodylanguage (for example when I ask them to turn the other way when lunging at liberty).

I don't know if it's possible for you in your training area, but because Special seems so sensitive I would actually love to see him at liberty, so that he has a chance to walk away as soon as it's too much for him - now he will always first has to refuse a request in order to get that point across. That automatically leads to internal conflict/stress.


Don't get me wrong: I really admire everything you've achieved in such a short period of time, and you're the only one who knows both your horse and your own goals and how you want to achieve them, but I would see this point in your training as a very good example of what you two will be able to achieve (and even more than this I think!), and now let the exercise-thinking go for a while and focus on the emotions of the horse instead so that he will learn to play with his movements and discover that moving like this is actually fun - not even because of treats, but simply because moving like this together with you is fun. And as Special is such an elastic, energetic horse, I don't think it will take a lot of time for him to discover that either!
That to me really is the basis of the art of natural dressage at liberty; the fact that the horse enjoys playing with you and is enjoying every second of the training process, not just the final result when the teaching is done, the whip is gone and the 'aids' have become more subtle.

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

oh thank you Miriam! I agree with everything you say

And I am getting closer to the point of being able to follow your (and Romy's) advice.

Special is the most sensitive horse I have ever met. By a long shot.
And yes, the whip's got to go. Well, the whip isn't the problem, I know I am... hmmm, pressure cooker... awfully accurate phrase...

I guess it's just a struggle because in a part of me I am not very proud of, I still have something to prove. But maybe now I can just take my photos and have that as "proof" and "work" on having a happy horse...

...funny the timing of your input - it seems like the world is conspiring to get me to "get it" and return to a different way of being with the horse...

so I am going to start easy and "give you guys" 3 days. 3 days starting now - no halter, no whip.... I will do my best to document this too.

Thank you all!

Three whole days!
If you're anything like me, then after one day without whip you will start smuggling by using the leadrope a whip-cue, after two days you will get frustrated by the fact that that the horse has decided to stop doing all the difficult stuff because the whip taught him to dislike them, and after three days feel completely torn because now you're doing something that's good for the horse - But Where Is That Instant Reward??? The big Click from heaven?


So if you're going to give it three days, then I would expect things to go downhill, simply because they probably wil at some point in timel. Of course what we dream of is that when we take the halter off and set the horse free so that he finally has a real choice, he turns around and says 'Thank you for giving me this choice - and because of that I will stick to you forever!' (instant reward for good human behavior, yay! . But of course in reality that doesn't happen, because if you give your horse more options, he will explore those options in order to see which one suit him best. So he will walk away, or stay with you and ignore your cues, or come to you when you call but leave as soon as you ask something from him - and that is when your role is going to shift too, because now that you can't push your horse into anything anymore, you need to pull him towards you by becoming more an more interesting, a great person to be with, with a positive outlook on training stuff and lots of crazy and fun ideas (and not crazy in the sense of asking for the same circle ten times in a row of course ). And because you're such a wonderful person to be with, he will start to do more and more for you, show off, mimick you etc in order to play with you and catch your attention.
So instead of a trainer, you become an inspirator: the best thing that ever happend to your horse

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

Or you might get the opposite pattern, which is what I often see when people start with free choice and positive reinforcement. Initially, the horse is ever so motivated and willing to do whatever you are asking, even when it's the tenth time in a row and the choice of the exercise has not been made by taking his perspective into account. And then after a few weeks, when the initial excitement has washed off, the period of saying no to everything starts. Suddenly, your exercises needn't even be that bad, or just a well-meant suggestion with the opportunity for the horse to change them, and still he leaves. That's when the majority of people decide that free choice is not for their horse because he just is that kind of horse who needs a strong leader (note that again it's the horse, not anything that may have to do with the human or the interaction ). That period is also one with an abundance of learning opportunities, simply because you have no other chance but improve your manners and become inspiring if you still want your horse to stay with you and be a motivated partner. But it sure is a hard time, especially if before it your focus has been more on exercise results than on the psychological side of the training process.

Therefore, for me personally the choice of whether I want to push my horses or not cannot be based on whether in some predefined or retrospectively chosen period I still achieve one or the other result, or on whether things are going downhill. Instead, I have to base that choice on who I want to be as a person and on what I want to be for individuals I am interacting with. If that is clear to me, then I will be able to solve whatever problems come up in these less easy periods, but then in the context of the interaction dynamics I have chosen and not by switching between different ways of interacting.

Maybe the difference with what you describe is that the extra clingy period often happens when a human starts with free choice and positive rewards at the same time and the horse then decides to stay nice and close for a while.
That effect I know very well from the clickertraining clinics I gave years ago, which I always did @liberty (and actually the human outside the paddock for most of the time to lessen the pressure even more). Having the liberty added to the new idea of receiving foodrewards you could really see the (previously traditional trained and restricted) horses blossom and become extremely human-focused, even though they were now completely free to do whatever they wanted.

What I wrote in my previous post however was simply about doing liberty/undemanding training instead of demanding training (@liberty or not), and not the effects of adding foodrewards to the mix, because in the video I noticed she's using them already?
The ponies and I for example already had been training on and off at liberty in the paddock long time before AND and had been using foodrewards for over ten years, but combined with a traditional amount of cues and 'stimulation' in order to get them to work/play with me. So for them foodrewards were nothing special anymore when I decided to try to work completely without pressure, and that caused them to walk away more freely when I first stopped demanding/being a one-way trainer, while I do remember that when I started using foodrewards, they would absolutely die/kill for them, no matter what I asked/how I asked it.
Veeeeery strong training glue.

However, of course I do hope Zusana will have your kind of experience of pure horse-honeymoon bliss for some weeks, because that's a wonderful thing to experience - no matter where you are in your training!

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

Thank you so much ladies...
I am pretty sure we are getting off topic , but my thoughts at the moment are:

I would like to find my own way. I am actually not wild about clicker training/dopamine/food driven interaction. Not criticizing in any way, just not for me . I want to keep using negative reinforcement (touching) in my interaction. On the whole picture, I am happy with the path I am on. I will certainly change things as I learn more and more, but overall, things are good.

I probably don't fit into this forum 100%, but if you are ok with having me here, I appreciate it very much and the information and inspiration is amazing!

I hope to be influenced by you guys more and more! Like I said, I go too far one way sometimes, I suppose I shouldn't be resistant to go too far the other way!

My horses don't really seem to bee too food oriented - they take the treat, but I think it's more a marker of "yes, that's what I was looking for"...

And that is an interesting point - about working at liberty with pressure... because I bet that is exactly what I was just going to do! I actually do a fair bit of free work with the horses - out in a 160 acre field in the herd - just not gonna take my camera there

Deep in thought....

so this is where Special and I are with our passage attempts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pef1gVt4E-w&feature=youtu.be

It's interesting to see how the more tense tries produce a more straight legged, hovering, un-collected "passage", while when more correct, collected and calm(er) beginnings produce a step or two of what I am looking for...

Any input is very much welcome!

I would like to get better at my body language/timing - for some reason I attempt to hold my own leg up for many strides, before I even harmonize with the horse... and the small circle is likely not a best idea either, it just kind of happens....

Special and I on a cold day...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzJ-DiV_RP4