The Principles of Training.
Principle verses Technique.
A technique will work in one situation.
A principle can be applied to multiple situations.
There are many many techniques out there, you only have to look on social media to see how many variations there are.
Some will resonate with some of you, others may not.
Over the years, I have seen various techniques being used, sometimes really well and very successfully and other times the same technique may not be working due to the principles not being grasped.
I have many technique tools that I use and I will vary the tools that I use depending on the horse and handler in front of me.
Principles however, can be applied to multiple situations so this is what I plan to share over the coming weeks…..
Safety First!
The first Principal of training has to be Safety!
Horses can be unpredictable, even the quietest of horses can react with flight/fight if stimulated by fear, excitement or confusion and those reactions can be incredibly quick when they feel the need!
This is why I feel it is important, when training, to keep yourself, the environment around you and the horse as safe as possible.
There are no guarantees, we have all been caught out at one time or another. However stay safe by minimising the risks, helping to prevent accidents and injuries.
See https://www.karenwhiston.co.uk/safety-first for recommendations to help keep you safe when training your horse.
Please feel free to add your recommendations to stay safe!
…………..
Location, Destination, Direction
If you decide to go on a journey you initially look at a map or sat nav.
The first step is to see where your location is or from where you are starting your journey, then you need to know where you want to go!
There may be many ways to get there so you have to choose how you travel depending on many personal factors.
The time to get there and the route that you take will vary from person to person. You may have to break the journey up……..
The same applies to each combination of horse and trainer. ….
It pays to have a plan of where you wish your training to go in the next 6 months, 5 years or whatever.
However in order to stay on track I recommend that before each training session you check you and your horses location, to see where you both are in the moment, then you can decide your training destination for the day and the route.
Some days the route may need a detour, be subject to delays and alterations or even a moment when you hear the sat nav in your head say “please turn around “!
Happy Travels, happy training!
…………
Boundaries.
We all need boundaries, rules and limitations in our lives, without them the world would be chaotic and dangerous!
Keeping clear boundaries and rules when training horses, allows both you and your horse to feel more confident, to build trust and helps with safety. Enabling the horse to learn with ease.
Consistency
Being consistent helps to bring clarity, speeds up learning and avoids confusion.
Consistency with your boundaries, all your cues and encouraging anyone handling or riding your horse to do so in a similar way to help prevent worry or misunderstanding.
Timing
However you train your horse, the timing of the reward for the horses correct ‘guess’ is crucial, whether you are communicating with a food reward (or another positive reinforcement) or perhaps a release of pressure, for example releasing the pressure of the bit in the corners of the mouth, when the horse slows or stops. The helps to prevent confusion and worry.
I often think that the horse considers themselves training us!
For example if I press my hand on a horses ribs to ask him to move his hind legs away from me, the horse is thinking ‘how can I stop her touching my ribs?’!
I must only release the pressure the moment the horse gives me the right answer; he may step towards me, pushing into the pressure, maybe wave a hind leg in the air, I take it as a ‘wrong guess’ and continue to hold my hand on his ribs until he gives me the right ‘guess.’.
As he steps sideways away from me and in that moment I release my hand from his ribs.
After a few repetitions, he will think that he knows how to train me to remove my hand pressure from his ribs!
The timing of the release of pressure is crucial, if I release the pressure as he waves a hind leg in the air, I have trained him to kick…not a great idea!
Skilled timing takes focus and practice to perfect but it is essential for clarity in all your training of the horse.
Patience
Patience allows the horse to grow in strength, fitness, confidence and understanding of what we require of them.
Giving the horse time to think and work out how to navigate their way through a human world with as much ease and as little pressure as possible will help to keep both horse and human safe.
If we are impatient the pressure can be intense and very stressful for the horse, making learning tricky and the horse will be more likely to react in flight, fright or freeze.
Communication
Communication works two ways; transmitting and receiving!
To transmit, you need to know what you want to say and how to say
As the horse understands very little of our verbal dialogue, your energy, body language and intentions need to be clear to the horse. (More about this later)
Receiving has to be the initial part of communication with a horse.
Noticing how they are in the moment;
📍What is their body language and energy saying?
📍Where is their focus?
📍Are they comfortable?
📍Are they relaxed?
📍Is the horse acting normally?
✅This will help you to transmit the information that you need for the horse to understand.
✅Enabling you to set the horse up for success in your training.
…………
Energy regulation
Horses are very sensitive to energy, they use it for both communication and survival.
In a herd, a spook or a jump from one horse will create a ripple effect within the herd like a pebble hitting water on a pond. This helps to warn all members, like a telegram, to be vigilant, looking out for predators or danger.
They also use energy in their body language to draw horses towards them or move them away.
Knowing how to regulate your energy is a useful tool when training horses.
Horses often misread our intentions due to our energy being too high or low.
It takes self control and awareness of your thoughts and feelings to regulate your energy well.
When energy regulation is good, it is like a well tuned instrument, going up and down as required. 🎶🎺
Positive Emotions
In order to be constant and congruent, we have to try to allow our emotions to stay positive, which can be quite tricky for all of us at times, after all we are only human!
Being angry, annoyed or scared are examples of negative emotions. If we feel this way when schooling our horses, they will pick up on this and it can taint what we are really trying to teach and often muddle the horse.
Have you ever felt pain from an injury, venerability, frustration or fear?
Maybe unsure about the challenge that you have set for your horse?
Or just struggling with your confidence?
Perhaps you carried emotional baggage from your day into the stables or schooling arena?
If you are overwhelmed with negative emotions here are a few ideas that may help;
📍Step away for a moment to reflect before proceeding.
📍Enable yourself to stay in the present moment, instead of worrying about the past or future.
📍Keep your ego under control.
📍Listen to what your body and mind have to say as it may be just trying to look after you!
📍You may need to take a different direction.
📍It may help to break your challenges down into smaller chunks.
📍If it is all getting too much, there is always another day!
Do you have any other ways of keeping emotions positive when schooling your horse? Please drop us a line and let us know.
Calmness
A lot of the principals of training that I use overlap, this follows on well from the positive emotions.
Staying calm in mind and body can help you and your horse to observe, think, learn and react well in all situations.
If you need help finding calmness, work on your breathing technique, your thoughts and be sure that your goals are broken into bite size chunks to prevent either you or your horse becoming overwhelmed.
Remember just like the English weather, each day is different, some days you or your horse may feel very unsettled, like a hurricane inside 🌪⛈ other days like a calm, warm summer day! ☀️🌈
Choose your goals depending on the weather inside you and your horse!
Clear Intentions
Having clear intentions helps your horse understand the task that is required of them in the moment.
To give clarity to your intentions, you need be aware of what you want to achieve and believe that it can happen and then throw your thoughts and energy in the direction of intent but still keeping balance in the moment.
In this photo, my intentions are focused on landing and turning towards another jump on our left.
I am looking left and my energy & focus is on that next jump but my body and balance is still supporting the horse at the present jump.
The horse (Pippin) has his left ear towards me, working out what my intentions on landing will be.
To create clear intentions, you need good focus on the task ahead and belief that it will happen.
Before you ask your horse to do a task, make a plan;
What is your intention?
How you are going to achieve it?
Is it achievable for both of you?
Do you need to brake it into smaller steps first?
From the example in the photo, I would have walked the course and planned the route to both fences, knowing that Pippin hadn’t seen the course before and requires me to be clear and guide him. He has to trust me and that comes from training, building things up step by step.
In your schooling, be sure to break the goals down into small enough steps to allow the horse to trust your intent and for you to be confident enough to be congruent.
Whatever your intentions are in the moment for your horse, whether it be jumping over a skinny cross country jump, going sideways in half pass across the arena, riding past a spooky obstacle on a narrow path, schooling in hand or anything else, the horse is unlikely to know what you want unless you are clear and specific.
The clearer you are of how and where you want to take your horse, the more confident your horse will be to understand and follow your intent.
A technique will work in one situation.
A principle can be applied to multiple situations.
There are many many techniques out there, you only have to look on social media to see how many variations there are.
Some will resonate with some of you, others may not.
Over the years, I have seen various techniques being used, sometimes really well and very successfully and other times the same technique may not be working due to the principles not being grasped.
I have many technique tools that I use and I will vary the tools that I use depending on the horse and handler in front of me.
Principles however, can be applied to multiple situations so this is what I plan to share over the coming weeks…..
Safety First!
The first Principal of training has to be Safety!
Horses can be unpredictable, even the quietest of horses can react with flight/fight if stimulated by fear, excitement or confusion and those reactions can be incredibly quick when they feel the need!
This is why I feel it is important, when training, to keep yourself, the environment around you and the horse as safe as possible.
There are no guarantees, we have all been caught out at one time or another. However stay safe by minimising the risks, helping to prevent accidents and injuries.
See https://www.karenwhiston.co.uk/safety-first for recommendations to help keep you safe when training your horse.
Please feel free to add your recommendations to stay safe!
…………..
Location, Destination, Direction
If you decide to go on a journey you initially look at a map or sat nav.
The first step is to see where your location is or from where you are starting your journey, then you need to know where you want to go!
There may be many ways to get there so you have to choose how you travel depending on many personal factors.
The time to get there and the route that you take will vary from person to person. You may have to break the journey up……..
The same applies to each combination of horse and trainer. ….
It pays to have a plan of where you wish your training to go in the next 6 months, 5 years or whatever.
However in order to stay on track I recommend that before each training session you check you and your horses location, to see where you both are in the moment, then you can decide your training destination for the day and the route.
Some days the route may need a detour, be subject to delays and alterations or even a moment when you hear the sat nav in your head say “please turn around “!
Happy Travels, happy training!
…………
Boundaries.
We all need boundaries, rules and limitations in our lives, without them the world would be chaotic and dangerous!
Keeping clear boundaries and rules when training horses, allows both you and your horse to feel more confident, to build trust and helps with safety. Enabling the horse to learn with ease.
Consistency
Being consistent helps to bring clarity, speeds up learning and avoids confusion.
Consistency with your boundaries, all your cues and encouraging anyone handling or riding your horse to do so in a similar way to help prevent worry or misunderstanding.
Timing
However you train your horse, the timing of the reward for the horses correct ‘guess’ is crucial, whether you are communicating with a food reward (or another positive reinforcement) or perhaps a release of pressure, for example releasing the pressure of the bit in the corners of the mouth, when the horse slows or stops. The helps to prevent confusion and worry.
I often think that the horse considers themselves training us!
For example if I press my hand on a horses ribs to ask him to move his hind legs away from me, the horse is thinking ‘how can I stop her touching my ribs?’!
I must only release the pressure the moment the horse gives me the right answer; he may step towards me, pushing into the pressure, maybe wave a hind leg in the air, I take it as a ‘wrong guess’ and continue to hold my hand on his ribs until he gives me the right ‘guess.’.
As he steps sideways away from me and in that moment I release my hand from his ribs.
After a few repetitions, he will think that he knows how to train me to remove my hand pressure from his ribs!
The timing of the release of pressure is crucial, if I release the pressure as he waves a hind leg in the air, I have trained him to kick…not a great idea!
Skilled timing takes focus and practice to perfect but it is essential for clarity in all your training of the horse.
Patience
Patience allows the horse to grow in strength, fitness, confidence and understanding of what we require of them.
Giving the horse time to think and work out how to navigate their way through a human world with as much ease and as little pressure as possible will help to keep both horse and human safe.
If we are impatient the pressure can be intense and very stressful for the horse, making learning tricky and the horse will be more likely to react in flight, fright or freeze.
Communication
Communication works two ways; transmitting and receiving!
To transmit, you need to know what you want to say and how to say
As the horse understands very little of our verbal dialogue, your energy, body language and intentions need to be clear to the horse. (More about this later)
Receiving has to be the initial part of communication with a horse.
Noticing how they are in the moment;
📍What is their body language and energy saying?
📍Where is their focus?
📍Are they comfortable?
📍Are they relaxed?
📍Is the horse acting normally?
✅This will help you to transmit the information that you need for the horse to understand.
✅Enabling you to set the horse up for success in your training.
…………
Energy regulation
Horses are very sensitive to energy, they use it for both communication and survival.
In a herd, a spook or a jump from one horse will create a ripple effect within the herd like a pebble hitting water on a pond. This helps to warn all members, like a telegram, to be vigilant, looking out for predators or danger.
They also use energy in their body language to draw horses towards them or move them away.
Knowing how to regulate your energy is a useful tool when training horses.
Horses often misread our intentions due to our energy being too high or low.
It takes self control and awareness of your thoughts and feelings to regulate your energy well.
When energy regulation is good, it is like a well tuned instrument, going up and down as required. 🎶🎺
Positive Emotions
In order to be constant and congruent, we have to try to allow our emotions to stay positive, which can be quite tricky for all of us at times, after all we are only human!
Being angry, annoyed or scared are examples of negative emotions. If we feel this way when schooling our horses, they will pick up on this and it can taint what we are really trying to teach and often muddle the horse.
Have you ever felt pain from an injury, venerability, frustration or fear?
Maybe unsure about the challenge that you have set for your horse?
Or just struggling with your confidence?
Perhaps you carried emotional baggage from your day into the stables or schooling arena?
If you are overwhelmed with negative emotions here are a few ideas that may help;
📍Step away for a moment to reflect before proceeding.
📍Enable yourself to stay in the present moment, instead of worrying about the past or future.
📍Keep your ego under control.
📍Listen to what your body and mind have to say as it may be just trying to look after you!
📍You may need to take a different direction.
📍It may help to break your challenges down into smaller chunks.
📍If it is all getting too much, there is always another day!
Do you have any other ways of keeping emotions positive when schooling your horse? Please drop us a line and let us know.
Calmness
A lot of the principals of training that I use overlap, this follows on well from the positive emotions.
Staying calm in mind and body can help you and your horse to observe, think, learn and react well in all situations.
If you need help finding calmness, work on your breathing technique, your thoughts and be sure that your goals are broken into bite size chunks to prevent either you or your horse becoming overwhelmed.
Remember just like the English weather, each day is different, some days you or your horse may feel very unsettled, like a hurricane inside 🌪⛈ other days like a calm, warm summer day! ☀️🌈
Choose your goals depending on the weather inside you and your horse!
Clear Intentions
Having clear intentions helps your horse understand the task that is required of them in the moment.
To give clarity to your intentions, you need be aware of what you want to achieve and believe that it can happen and then throw your thoughts and energy in the direction of intent but still keeping balance in the moment.
In this photo, my intentions are focused on landing and turning towards another jump on our left.
I am looking left and my energy & focus is on that next jump but my body and balance is still supporting the horse at the present jump.
The horse (Pippin) has his left ear towards me, working out what my intentions on landing will be.
To create clear intentions, you need good focus on the task ahead and belief that it will happen.
Before you ask your horse to do a task, make a plan;
What is your intention?
How you are going to achieve it?
Is it achievable for both of you?
Do you need to brake it into smaller steps first?
From the example in the photo, I would have walked the course and planned the route to both fences, knowing that Pippin hadn’t seen the course before and requires me to be clear and guide him. He has to trust me and that comes from training, building things up step by step.
In your schooling, be sure to break the goals down into small enough steps to allow the horse to trust your intent and for you to be confident enough to be congruent.
Whatever your intentions are in the moment for your horse, whether it be jumping over a skinny cross country jump, going sideways in half pass across the arena, riding past a spooky obstacle on a narrow path, schooling in hand or anything else, the horse is unlikely to know what you want unless you are clear and specific.
The clearer you are of how and where you want to take your horse, the more confident your horse will be to understand and follow your intent.