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I would ask, how's your stimulus control with the "leg means
go" cue?
I have no idea what your instructor teaches, but a common
problem with dressage
lessons these days seems to be this idea that the rider
uses the leg almost constantly.
The idea of "forward" is all important to the exclusion of
everything else.
Consequently, the aid or cue for forward stays "turned on"
all the time,
instead of being "turned off" the moment the horse adds
energy,
and consequently the leg aid becomes conditioned to be
ignored,
or "mean nothing" to the horse. It just becomes noise.
If you spend a little time with clicker and work on clicking
the response to the leg –
"leg means go NOW" and then "leg means go MORE",
and keep your reinforcement rather close to the marker,
this should help considerably,
IF you cease the action of the leg the absolute moment the
horse responds.
There are only 2 possibilities for a cue - on or off.
There are only 2 possibilities for the leg aid - on or off.
This does not mean physically taking your leg off the
horse,
it means a passive neutral leg.
Turning off the aid ALLOWS the horse to go forward.
A leg aid that remains "turned on" actually inhibits the
horse FROM going forward.
This is just learning theory, which I'm sure from your
experience you already know :)
But it's also good equitation.
JA/CR
I would like to add to Jord-Ann's excellent point regarding
people
not letting up off the "gas" pedal.
Another aspect related to this is how this becomes a cycle
of blocking the horse
and thereby making matters even worse. People keep the leg
and driving seat "on"
making it necessary to get stronger and stronger in order to
be 'heard'.
The stronger the aids get the more "rigor mortified" the
seat becomes.
So, now you are demanding (well begging really) that the
horse MOVE
but you are so full of tightness yourself that the horse
simply can NOT move.
And so the cycle goes and goes.
SF / CR
If I'm sure the leg aid is understood,
I'll look to see where I might be blocking the horse FROM
giving me go/now/more.
Or looking closer at what happens when I say GO –
did the horse fall on the forehand?
When I said NOW – did I prepare the horse to do that so that
he didn't just lose his balance?
When I said MORE –
is the horse physically capable of GIVING more at this
moment?
If the horse says no to these requests,
I don't find it useful long-term to train a "yes" if the
problem is in my presentation
or is more than the horse is capable of doing to begin with.
I think that "no" is part of the feedback loop that tells me
I haven't set the horse up
TO go-now- more with a just a touch of the leg.
ja/cr
Take a forward walk for instance. Every instance of
sluggish walking I've encountered
was due entirely to the person riding preventing a forward
walk with the way they sit.
So to discuss how to use clicker training to teach 'forward
walk'
with this person is a bit premature.
Their perception of the real problem is off base.
FIRST I need to stop the rider from punishing the behavior
in the first place
thereby cancelling the clicks. So, I work on getting them
to find the horse's rhythm.
Once that is taken care of we can use c/t to further support
the behavior—
though it shouldn't be required for long.
Basically to inform the horse that harmony CAN be found.
Generally horses want to get along. They want to get in
sync. They like harmony.
So, if we can show them how to get to harmony --that we will
show the way—
they will make an effort to find that place.
sf/cr
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