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HORSE ATTITUDE
If you've ever had kids, then you know exactly
what I'm talking about here: Let's say your sons had waited all week to
go paint balling. They'd waited all week to do this and they really had
their hearts set on it. So, Saturday morning comes around and they run
downstairs. They're headed for the door when you call to them and ask if
they couldn't clean their rooms before leaving. We'll how do you think
they'd handle that? They might get mad and throw a temper tantrum. They
just might turn and stomp their feet on every stair all the way back up
to their rooms, down the hallway and slammed their doors.
Now there's two ways you can deal with that.
One, you can go up there and whip the snot out of them. Say "I said
clean your room and smile when you do it." The other way is to say "I
understand you don't want to clean your room. But now you're going to do
the dishes and you're going to vacuum and you're going to dust and
you're going to clean the garage and when you're done with that you're
going to fold laundry and you're going to put the laundry away. Then
you're going to clean your room. After that's done, you're more than
welcome to go do exactly what you want to do.
I treat the horse the same way. If I ask him to
standstill, that's cleaning his room. I say "Clean your room." He says
"No." I say "Fine." Now, what can I do that requires movement? I can
work on change of directions. I can work on his headset. I can get him
working better off my legs, so we can work on that. And I can always
work on speed control. I could do all kinds of different things. All
those things give me an option of stuff I can work on when and if my
horse wants to move. If my horse wants to move, I say, great, let's do
it. Let's work on breaking at the poll, softening up your neck or
following your nose; let's work on your leg speed; let's work on you
moving off my legs. Let's do all these different things, and then, when
I'm done, I'm going to ask the horse: "Do you want to clean your room?"
"Do you want to just stand still?" There's only two things that can
happen. He's either going to say yes or he's going to say no.
If you do this about four or five times, the
attitude you're going to build in your kids or your horse is the same
thing. It's going to be, "Is that it?" The next time you ask them to
clean their room, they're gonna say "Is that all you want?" And that's
what I'm looking for from my horse. All I wanted him to do was
standstill. He didn't want to standstill and I said fine, let's move.
But I promise you, after about four or five times of doing this he's
going to say "Great, is that all you want?" Now these are all things I
need to work on anyway. I don't look at it as punishment. I'm going to
want this horse to move eventually. I'm going to want him to soften up
his nose.
The more excited, the more nervous the horse
is, the more you want to do. You don't want to be riding around, waiting
for an accident to happen. There are two types of riders, active and
reactive. An active rider does what I've been describing. An active
rider is always asking the horse to do something. He's not giving the
horse a chance to react to a situation or the environment around them.
He's always ask his horse to do something. A reactive rider is one who
sits up there and waits. He waits for the horse to do something he's not
supposed to do. He waits for the horse to spook at the red banner. He
just knows he's going to spook and sits there waiting and waiting and
waiting. And yes sooner or later the horse spooks. And then he corrects
the horse. The horse spooks at the banner and we get after the horse: "I
can't believe you spooked." Well, he told you he was going to do it. A
better thing to do would've been to pick up the rein and start working
your horse. Ask him to do something before the situation escalates.
Don't react to what he does, become an active rider. Ask him to do
something.
Power of the Mind
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