Learning Horse Skills

Horse Skills: Refining your Feel to improve your Communication

A major challenge for many horse enthusiasts is that there is SO much to learn in terms of understanding horse behavior and communication, never mind refining self-awareness, and then combining that with trying to learn how to offer a "common language" to communicate with the animal.
Of the many horse-related skills to learn, the concept of "following a feel" can be incredibly challenging. In many interactions, people focus on how a horse is moving, without acknowledging that "how" the human is asking will influence the outcome.

My definition of "Following a feel" is when one uses pressure on either a lead rope or rein to direct the horse to move in a specific manner with a certain energy mimicking what is offered by the human's hand.

One must understand that "how" the lead rope is used will influence "how" effectively they will communicate to the horse with the rein. There should be consideration of whether they "clamp down" locking their hand on the rope, or if they maintain what I call "piano fingers" to vary the specificity and energy used. When communicating with their hand, they need to assess if there is an unintentional increase of tension in their jaw, neck, and shoulder, causing their elbow to lock, their hand to drop, and if there is bracing in their knees. If so, this leaves one unable to stay physically balanced to offer specific, adaptable communication based on real-time feedback from the horse. Meanwhile, are they consistently breathing while focusing and assessing what their hand is doing?

 
Think of Following a Feel similar to turning the steering wheel on a vehicle; if there is limited wheel rotation, how would that affect the car's tires to turn?

 
Example: If a driver wanted to make a U-turn but had limited steering, the car might follow 1/4 of the originally intended "route." Without recognizing that the wheel was affecting the path of where the car traveled, and instead, the person tried to "fix" the car's route by adding pressure on the accelerator, what would ensue? The car would go faster on the undesired route, rather than moving toward the originally intended location. The same thing often happens with human and horse interaction. Going "faster" does not fix anything. Ever.

 
Skill Building Activity: Start to break down "how" you differentiate directing the horse's thought and focus, separate from when asking for his movement. Assess if you have specificity and varying energy in your communication. Do you address the animal's counteroffers? How often do you evaluate for a brace or tension in either of you? Do you offer time for the equine real-time mental processing? This can be a great "starting" point in developing your skills to help the horse clearly understand what and how you would like him to respond to your requests while addressing him in a manner that has value to him.