FOLLOW THE FEEL
Teaching a Horse to Follow the Feel
(This could also be called "why your horse spooks, gets worried about the world or is just difficult)
I rate "follow the feel" as one of the most important ideas to understand when you work with a horse.
What is "feel" and what does it mean?
To understand this you need to understand that the way we get to interpret the world and how horses get to interpret the world is very different.
We get to interpret the world via physical experience AND language. So our sense of reality and meaning is created from experience but also words that can helps us understand things via descriptions, explanations instructions etc. without having to experience them first hand or at all. We can even know about things that you cannot even see, hear, touch or smell.
Horses mainly only get to interpret the world from their physical experience. Physical in the sense means it can be touched and seen etc. Therefore, horses learn to navigate the world from what they perceive from their senses from physical experiences.
Bill Dorrence explains "feel" really well. He explains that horses are influenced by two types of feel - indirect and direct feel. Indirect feel is how a horse interprets your presence and intent. They will observe and react to your body language, position, movement, smell etc.
Whilst direct feel is created by us physically touching them with our bodies or via lead ropes, reins, bits , seat etc.
Bill Dorrence explains the following in his book True Horsemanship Through Feel:
"When it's effectively applied, either direct or indirect feel from a person can influence the horse's mind and body to match up with the person's plan of how they want that horse to be doing things for them. Using feel, a person can shape the horse's desire to stay with them, and they can determine the horse's direction and speed and frame of mind when they want him to move."
People get the idea that horses have to understand what our cues/aid are...and can get good at eaching horses how to respond to these. However, if you have a horse that just responds to cues and only cues, it is the same as someone who only responding to phone calls. So the phone ringing, listening to instructions and then hanging up. Not staying on the line in a focused and connected in a conversation.
When horses just take "phone calls" and "hang up", these are the horses that are not connected. They get easily distracted, worried about the world, spook, can't handle change in the environment or are resistant or lazy. They have to be constantly corrected, micromanaged and forced because they have not been taught to stay on the line and follow the feel.
We are always presenting one or both types of "feel" to a horse depending on the situation (working at liberty, in groundwork or in the saddle) and you have to teach horses to respond to cues/aids but to stay connected to you and they do that by following your feel!
In my courses and program I teach a process and exercises but ultimately I am teaching people how to train horses to follow their feel. It is the invisible hidden important ingredient that is commonly missed and poorly explained.
To find out more about my courses see the link in the first comment.
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