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Waldo
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:17 am |
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Tutora, you are a very nice and plite lady. Sorry I couldn't get back any sooner, but we are stuck in remodeling our house, and my day was rather full and exhausting. Unfortunately, I have never watched the video you are inquiring about, so I won't be able to offer any comments. All I can tell you is that I have started learning under xxx in 04 (I think), all my horses were rescue horses with extreme issues. One was locked in his dark, dusty stall for 5 months after weaning (no turn-out at all) - that's when we bought him. The other one was locked in her stall for 11 months (no turn-out at all) after a horrible accident that caused the loss of some visual functions. Another one had a 2-year old foot injury that has never been tended to and resulted in proudflesh the size of a baseball, and also the loss of most of her frog tissue and the loss of part of her hoofwall. JoDi was supposed to go to slaughter. And little Munchkin was dumped at the vet to be put down - poor little guy (he's a Mini) couldn't even walk, his hooves were so long and painfull - and he was skin and bones and his eyes were blank, just waiting to die.
All I can say is that thanks to XXX's program, all our horses have overcome their issues. I don't care what the future brings, just as I don't dwell on what happened to those poor animals in the past. I cannot change the past, and I cannot forsee the future. All I can do is live in the 'now' and do what I think is best for the horses. So far, XXX has turned out to be the best, and if you would see my horses, you would agree.
Dave, as for this comment:
Here are some statistics on domestic abuse. You will see that nearly a million women a year are being abused. How much of that is being done in the name of love? Does the fact that over a million people a year are attracted to this type of behavior mean that it is good?
Counter question: Does it mean that all relationships are bad? Only those that are filled with abuse are bad. Sorry, Dave, there is absolutely NO abuse going on in XXX's teachings. If students make mistakes, it's them who make the mistakes. If a student messes up a math test, that doesn't mean the teacher doesn't understand math, it only means that the student didn't get it.
Enough said, I'm outa here. Enjoy the rest of your discussion.
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Waldo
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:27 am |
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Carey wrote: ...... but these young inexperienced instructors that they have with no life experience prance around forbidding anything of the sort. That has been one of my main concerns with the whole thing.
Oh, I forgot to comment to this: Carey, I have a hard time believing that anybody can forbid anything. After all, this is a free country, and you can do whatever you want to, as long as you don't harm anybody or anything else in the process. XXX has no policy whatsoever that would kick you out of the program, if you were to go against some of the recommendations they make. Their recommendations are that you shouldn't start colts until you are at a certain level. I am a very inexperienced rider, and I started JoDi myself. I experienced the 'green on green makes black and blue' many times (before XXX) - I'm not going to get a well trained horse just because it is recommended. But nobody has ever said anything that would make me feel uncomfortable about it.
'Forbidding' is a very strong, dictatorial word, and I bet that in your heart you know better.
Waldo, this is Dr. Deb. Well, if you ever attend one of my clinics, you will find out that I can, and do, forbid some things. On the list of forbidden things would be running martingales, standing martingales or tiedowns; tack nosebands and/or tack breastbands, tacks in the saddle pad; chains, caustics, or stacks; any type of tight or restrictive noseband, especially flash or dropped nosebands; riding horses in halters in the horsemanship class; use of bits that are designed to work by hurting the horse. You are also forbidden to ignore or disobey instructions during the time the class is proceeding.
You see that there are some things forbidden in this Forum, also -- such as naming "Clinician XXX" -- and you're OK about obeying this, just as I expect you would be OK about obeying anything on the above list, at least after asking me 'why' and receiving a cogent answer.
The difference between the sort of 'forbidding' which I can, and do, engage in, and the sort that Carey is mentioning, is that in my forbidding there is no intention to co-opt a person's loyalty, or to indoctrinate. -- Dr. Deb
Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2008 03:12 am by DrDeb
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Leah
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:53 am |
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Tutora I have given a little more thought to your uncomfortable feelings about the video...and actually your question has spurred a question from me to Dr Deb that is on the same topic.
I have never asked before because I did not want to appear to be challenging the elderly teacher-but now I realize I need to understand the answer as do you.
I purchased a video of the teacher a few months back. It is a multi dvd pack that shows a clinic. In one part the rider is trying to get the horse to cross a tarp.
The horse is not ok with this request. He is so not ok with it he is very emotionally torn by it. Things get really really bad....or that is how I interpreted it.
The horse gets pressed more and more through the process. He is not given time to adjust, moved away from the object to become ok with it at a distance or any other option I was thinking.
It felt so bad to me I had to stop the DVD several times and it took many watchings to get through.
The good news is by the end the horse gets it and finally crosses the tarp.
Now, it seems to me I was misreading something because...well...it is the only answer that can make sense. I still don't know what I am missing from that DVD.
So I guess I am wondering if the same thing happens often in videos when the viewer is not there in the moment.
I hope Dr Deb has a chance to address this-I will be very interested in her response!
Leah, this is Dr. Deb. The answer to your question is contained in this quote from Ray Hunt: Leah, you can't go through something bad and come out good on the other side.
"Not giving the horse a chance to adjust" and "pressuring him" are exactly the same thing as the handler/rider not understanding what their approach and actions mean TO THE HORSE.
Our elderly teacher used to tell this story: Once upon a time there were two brothers. This was about 1917, when automobiles were still rare. One of the brothers was quick and capable, while the other brother was slow.
They were out on their property one day building a barn. About mid-afternoon, they heard a noise out on the road, and there came a model-A Ford, chugging its way along. Both brothers stopped to look. After a few moments, though, the quick brother went back to work. The slow brother just stood there gaping.
Pretty soon the quick brother says to the slow brother, "Come on, Billy! Hurry up."
And Billy slowly turns his head around, with a kind of sad look on his face, and he says, "but ah caint."
Do you understand this story, Leah? You must NEVER "push through", at any time, for any reason. You must instead learn the difference between Rough and Firm, which story I have told in another thread some time ago. -- Dr. Deb
Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2008 03:20 am by DrDeb
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Apples
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 08:12 am |
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| Isn't that an example of where the destination becomes more important than the journey? That is why I'm more prone to be drawn to clinicians who provide the rider (or the horse) with a small light to give them direction and show them the next few steps of their journey, than the one who comes in with flood lights and cattle prods (figuratively speaking) to get them to the "end". The unfortunate thing is that so many consumers only feel their money is best spent if they get the latter. Last edited on Mon Oct 27th, 2008 08:16 am by Apples
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Waldo
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 08:18 am |
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| Murderer, rapist, abuser ..... and now cattleprods? Watch out xxx, people here sure are on to you. Can't hide the fact anymore that you are the worlds cruelest human being. Waldo, this is Dr. Deb. Try not to get honked off here. I have deleted Dave G.'s more extreme posts because they were, in fact, inappropriate. Nevertheless, I also want you to go back up above and read all the boldface replies that I have placed in individual posts, including those by Dave G. and Blue Flame. -- Dr. Deb Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2008 01:49 am by DrDeb
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Tutora
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 09:13 am |
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| Thanks for your reply, Waldo. It sounds like your horses have been lucky to come to you. I doubt my troubled reaction to XX will go away, but if it's helped you and your horses, as Dr. Deb said in an earlier reply to you-- that's fine. I must clarify one thing that started my day off with a good laugh before I need to get to my work-- Tutora is actually my rather bossy ( to other horses if her hay pile rights are questioned) mellow but hot, sweet yet sharp, Lusitano mare. She's from bull-fighting lines and I think if she did cow work she could stampede a herd through a fence with just a look. She's a great but tough lady; "polite" doesn't quite describe her complexity. ---Elynne
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Tutora
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 06:09 pm |
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| Hi Waldo-- I'm not sure if you know this-- "the elderly teacher" that Leah spoke of and XX are not the same person.
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christie
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 06:14 pm |
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I remember Leah telling this story. This kind of thing is what gets me confused between 'backing' off or pushing the horse through things in a more demanding way.
BTW, I think we can mention the elderly teacher since Dr D approves of him. :-)
Christie, I mention our elderly teacher's name here as seldom as possible. This was his expressed desire. -- Dr. Deb
Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2008 01:53 am by DrDeb
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Tutora
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 06:43 pm |
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| Hi Leah-- I'd like to hear Dr. Deb's view on your question, too. Bettina Drummond was a student of Nuno Olivera for many years. They each respected each other a great deal, I believe. However, Bettina told a story of a time when Nuno Olivera did not live up to his own ideals: Bettina's horse was reluctant to learn to bow; a 12 year old (I think) Bettina returned from school to her horse in Portugal and found him with rope burns from being roughly taught to bow. She walked into the arena and told everyone (including Nuno) they'd better not hurt her horse again. Then she taught her horse to bow herself- with sugar, I believe. The masterful horseman and horse lover- Nuno- apologized to her. This story was in "Horse of Kings" magazine as part of an interview with Bettina about 5 years ago. Whether or not there was a good reason for what you saw in the DVD, I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't expect perfection from anyone nor lose respect for them from isolated incidents of real or apparent callousness. I and my generous horses have to live with my own thick-headed self, after all. But I am also always responsible for being my horses' voice even to those whose authority I accept. -- Elynne
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Tutora
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 06:56 pm |
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Hi Christie -Your confusion is familiar to me, too. I'd like to hear Dr. Deb's view on this even more. I've previously done the "pushing through" but now thanks to Dr. Deb I'm finding the "backing off" gets us places in a much more truly accepting state and the horses and I like that. But maybe there's a balance between the two that I don't get at this point. - Elynne
Elynne, yes; and backing off does not mean that you give up your objective, note well. But you present yourself to your horse in a way that the horse can understand. And if he doesn't understand the presentation you make the first time, then you reach within yourself to find another way to present it, until you find the way. -- Dr. Deb
Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2008 03:24 am by DrDeb
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Leah
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:18 pm |
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These questions are all related to my question but you all used the better phrasing.
What *I* saw on the video was pushing through...and it seemed *to me* that backing off would have been better.
It was very confusing!
Leah, they "push through" because their real objective is to have the horse PERFORM. Or I should say -- PERFORM ANYWAY. This is despite whatever highminded philosophy they pitch to customers whom they hope to retain. Their real intentions are bodied forth in their actions.
One of the hardest tasks I usually have in clinics, when I first meet a group of people, is to get them to stop PERFORMING for my benefit. They do this, of course, whether they have been with Clinician XXX or with any of the conventional types of Western or English instruction. It is a habit they acquire, first, because they have always been praised in riding lessons when their horse finally PERFORMS (the turn, the shoulder-in, the canter departure, or whatever). They do it secondly because nothing better has been offered them.
This is the proof that there is no meaningful difference between Clinician XXX and any "conventional" type or style of riding -- you would be lucky to find an instructor in the "conventional" horse world who approaches going across the diagonal as the sum-total of the individual steps which compose the diagonal, or who presents himself to the horse and then is content to let the chips fall where they may -- knowing that this process, too, is, on a larger scale, exactly the same as stepping across the diagonal. One cannot GO anywhere on a horse, but you may find that you ARRIVE some places.
Can a person spend a half hour, or three minutes, alone with their horse on the ground and effectively get something across to him, calm him, render him confident, render him motivated? Yes, so long as you never ask him to perform! The horse knows nothing of performance! -- Dr. Deb
Last edited on Tue Oct 28th, 2008 03:37 am by DrDeb
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Blue Flame
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:36 pm |
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I think it could depend on what he was looking for - the elderly teacher's objective might have been something different than any of us might think it was.
i.e. Maybe it wasn't about the tarp . . . . maybe that was merely a useful prop for setting up a situation.
Last edited on Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:37 pm by Blue Flame
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christie
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:42 pm |
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Well, I had a situation like this come up last week because they fixed the pastures around the gates and they had laid out black material on the ground. I had to get my horse over this to get out the gate! We started by getting 2 feet on(the usual routine)and then she ended up 'leaping' onto it and then off and getting her feet all caught up on it(yes, my horse can PROVE that all things like this are so dangerous.) :-) I often wonder how assertive I should be and if I was not more assertive already..or all this time, that perhaps she'd be better about all the different things under her feet that she despises.
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Leah
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 07:48 pm |
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Blue Flame, would you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts that you shared with me elsewhere?
I think you hit the nail on the head :-)
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Alex from Canberra
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Posted: Mon Oct 27th, 2008 08:47 pm |
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Blue Flame wrote:
"i.e. Maybe it wasn't about the tarp . . . . maybe that was merely a useful prop for setting up a situation"
Having just been in a clinic with Ray where there was a mule in the class, I had to realise that the problem wasn't the mule it was me and my relationship with my horse. I can still hear Ray chuckling! I had never had an experience with my 19 year old horse that had bought that kind of reaction to the surface before.
As far as getting through it goes, I think it is very much about timing and being able to read your horse. When you can say forward, when you can stop for a moment, when you can go back, when you can say 'job well done' and finish. I personally find this much easier on the ground as I can see the horses face and that helps me no end. I find the horse harder to read under saddle and go more of instinct and feel and probably get it wrong more often. Especially when there are mules around! For me I only started understanding this from having someone help me by telling me the moments when the horse was subtly giving, resisting, about to move etc. It was having someone explain to me when the horse was having a thought about doing something and getting me to be able to catch it before the action.
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