Romy wrote:
Quote:
I sometimes wonder how important consistency and clarity really is... or what kind of clarity it is that really matters.
Oh, Romy, I think that's a fabulous point! And really intriguing.
I'm finding that the more my horses and I do together, the less important it is to have one, specific, consistent verbal or physical cue for something -- it was really helpful when we started, I think for both me and Circe and Stardust.
And it still is really helpful when we're just starting to learn something new.
But as they're figuring out that I'm going to be asking something, and I'm figuring out how to use body language/energy better, the clarity is starting to come in the intention, rather than the specific word or gesture. It's all getting more fluid.
In some ways, I think the language fluency metaphor is really helpful. When we start to learn a new language, we learn specific words. Then we start to slowly string them together, having to think fairly hard about grammar. As we gain fluency, we start to think in phrases, then in sentences, then in paragraphs.
(I actually used to use this metaphor a lot when teaching harp to people when they were learning to read music: first you look at the little black dots (words), then you looked at the chords (short phrases), then you looked at the arc of the musical phrase (sentence), then the whole piece (paragraph) for meaning.
I'm just starting to get glimpses with my guys about how this is like making music -- even mostly like jazz, where you start with the theme but aren't caught in the literal reproduction of specific notes (or words or gestures in this case).
And it's like improvising with a partner in dance -- there is a common language of movement, but it becomes about reading and reacting to each other, rather than doing a prescribed, fixed set of steps...
Sorry Ivy, went off on a wander!
But I think Romy is ultimately right, that it's more about clarity than literal consistency.
Best,
Leigh
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