IMPULSION

IMPULSION

For a little over a month, we’ve been training a beautiful little black mustang mare named Sweet Water ( for the canyon she came from). She’s super sweet, but previously had a couple of bad experiences with saddling where the saddle ended up underneath her. As a result, she was highly cinchy and had an explosive bucking reflex.

Task Analyzing

              As Nate started to work her, he began to talk about something called “task analyzing.” Task analyzing is figuring out what all the individual parts of an action are and working on each one specifically, to simplify it. The worse something is, the more you simplify the task.

Sweet Water was overstimulated by the saddling process, which is often considered a smaller “task” in riding. However, when you take saddling by itself, you see how you can simplify even further. First, you put a saddle pad on the horse’s back - that is one step by itself. Then, you approach the horse with the saddle. Next, you place the saddle on the horse. Then, you go around to the other side to let the girth down. After that, you return to the side you were first on. Then, your reach under for the girth, and finally tighten the girth. So even though saddling is just a small part of riding, we broke down the task into smaller bites.

Because, to the mare, being saddle seemed as daunting as an elephant. And how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time., We took the time it takes to work on each and every step individually. The first day, Nate simply played a game of approach and retreat with the saddle, waiting until Sweet Water could stand still while he walked up next to her with the saddle on his hip.

The Right Wrong Answer

              As we continued with the training, Nate started talking about appropriate ways for the mare to show that she was uncomfortable with what was happening to her. Her instinctual reaction was to explode into bucking fits, which was a pattern that needed to be interrupted. Not only was it dangerous, but the thinking side of her brain would shut down, and she would go into survival mode. Nate wanted the mare to be able to feel the perceived pressure and look to him for instructions on what to do, instead of turning to Mother Nature.

              The two reactions which Nate allowed were the mare moving backwards or sideways. The reason why he wouldn’t interrupt those responses was because horses will only go backwards and sideways for so long before they try something else to find relief from pressure. If a horse is going backwards or sideways, they have to turn on the logical processes of their brains. This means that they are actually thinking through what is happening. Eventually, a horse going one of those two directions will try something different, whereas they can move forward all day without looking for another option since they are designed to move this way in the wild.

              These responses are what Nate calls a “right wrong answer.” Even though what we truly wanted was for Sweet Water to stand still, we didn’t want to shut her down for thinking in a more appropriate direction. This is seen similarly, for instance, when you ask a horse to speed up their walk. If they break into a trot, you don’t want to punish them for that, since they were thinking in the right direction. A “right wrong answer.”

Impulsion

              As Sweet Water progressed, the haying season forced Nate to step away from the mare’s training and Amy replaced him. Once the mare began to truly accept the saddle with fewer moments of inappropriate reaction, Amy started testing the boundaries of how far she could push the mare without warranting a reaction.

              She moved her sessions from the round pen into the arena. Working on a line, she would speed Sweet Water up and see how long it took her to slow back down on her own. The test was to see whether she could regulate her own worriedness and return back to Amy for further instruction, or if she would start listening to her instincts again.

One of the most encouraging moments was when Amy sent Sweet Water out at liberty (with no halter or line for Amy to control her). As the mare was cantering around, Amy stepped back to ask her to change direction. During the maneuver, Sweet Water got an adrenaline rush of playfulness and threw a few bucks in. However, she didn’t scare herself with the action or how it made the saddle feel on her back. She simply brought her energy back down and quickly connected back with Amy in the center of the circle.

Learned Response

While Nate was still working with the mare, he told me that the most important things in a session with a horse are the first and last thoughts. With the first thought, the horse tells you what it knows. With the last thought, you tell the horse what it should know. When you get to the place where the first and last thought are the same, it becomes what is called a learned response.

In the first weeks of Sweet Water’s sessions, her first responses clearly told us that what she “knew” was that the saddle was dangerous and that she needed to protect herself. After a while of ending on notes of accepting the saddle, she started to have that as her first thought as well.

Final Thoughts

              Each individual’s responses to hard situations can be so unique. Often, we become explosive over something that seems so daunting it feels like eating an elephant. It is important to learn to task analyze and take those hard things one small piece at a time, knowing that there are appropriate and inappropriate responses. Trying to fix things the same way, over and over again, with no resolution is often the pattern that needs to be interrupted. However, it’s completely reasonable to voice concerns and discomfort while you’re actively and logically looking for a solution.

              The tempting thing to do is just to walk away from hard situations, however that doesn’t help you grow either. It is important to be able to go to those places and learn how to appropriately handle your innate reactions. Just because your personality tends to react one way or another, does not mean that you can’t choose to respond more appropriately. Being able to recognize that impulsion – to go faster and self-regulate, to slow yourself back down – is key in being able to handle each and every situation that life throws your way.