Weekly Lesson Neep: Hypersensitivity
Jul. 10th, 2004 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseWord of wisdom for the day: Never forget you're in your browser instead of your mailer, and click where "Check Mail" usually is, and end up Refreshing a quite long page of lj entry.
Pause for primal scream.
Thank you.
Now for your regularly scheduled insanity.
The monsoons have finally arrived. Mornings start off hot and humid. The heat rises and rises and rises, and the humidity right along with it. About midmorning, clouds start to pile up over the mountains. By early afternoon, thunderheads are starting to form. With luck, these will keep piling and piling until they break with a boom and a crack and a gush of rain.
On Thursday, the area around![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
casacorona got an inch and more of rain. We only got a tenth of that, being on the fringes of several thunder cells, but even that was the first measurable rain in three months. It felt wonderful. Washed out the day's horsework, but nobody minded.
Yesterday the rain held off to the south. I was able to get Capria out, ponying ze keed, then take da Pook for walkies--he was Mr. Perfect even when we ended up downwind of every mare in the neighborhood. It was a challenge, but he met it. He's a good stallion.
This morning was lesson day, and I had the "hot slots"--we take turns with those, spreading out the pain. It was fairly hideous with humidity and heat. Joni rode keed as usual, bit of a short ride but a good one. He's still in a parlous growth phase and tends to go hollow because his back is weak, but he's moving free and supple through the body, with a good overstep and a free shoulder--he's making good progress.
Then because I need to not do lessons on da Pook for now--I get too hung up on being perfect and end up screwing us up--and it was too hot and nasty for Capria, we brought out a very happy Camilla, saddled her up, and took her for walkies. I wanted Joni to see how she thinks, and I wanted Camilla to get used to having Joni in the mix. It worked out really well. Camilla had to take extra time to process all the new data--Joni's truck in the drive, Joni following us out, me going back to get a halter when she kept trying to chew on the reins--but once she'd thought it over, she went right on out. It was most amusing to see her reacting in the exact same way to the exact same things that got Pooka going when he was her age. She stops where he used to beat it out of there, but the brain shutdown is the same.
We talked about that--how these horses have some of the same issues as autistic humans: too much data comes in too fast and with too much intensity. You have to approach them very carefully, dish out the data in as small doses as you can, and keep the pressure down as low as possible, while still encouraging them to progress. Their being so physically talented is actually a a problem, in that they're capable of so much but need to be brought along so slowly. They'll panic if pushed too hard, or get locked into a fugue state--such as when a truck came up behind Camilla and then made a three-point turn in a driveway. She eeked, spun, and went into hyperalert mode--lost her ability to focus on us and glommed like a laser on the departing truck. It took a few moments to peel her off the ceiling and get her brain back in gear. Once she reconnected, she calmed right down and carried on, but the moment of brain-lock was striking. It's a very Lipp thing--I've seen it in every one of them--and it's weird because they don't do the usual kinds of panicky things that horses will do when their brains shut off. Lipp brains don't have an off switch. And that's the problem.
The up side of that is, if you can unlock the brain, you have a strongly focused horse who will, if she respects and trusts you, do absolutely anything for you. Warhorse.
It was good to have Joni see this, and she had some excellent suggestions for making it work better. We agreed that for now, this groundwork is essential--just as it was with Pooka when he was this age. It builds trust and establishes a partnership, and makes the eventually return to ridden work go Much more smoothly.
Further discussion involved the difference between handling a stallion--where one becomes the alpha mare and whups his butt (judiciously) when he gets fresh--and handling an alpha mare whose position in the universe is, basically, top of the pyramid. The trainer's job in that case is to become just slightly more alpha. You won't dominate her, but you will make her your partner--and she'll be obedient because she chooses to. She becomes your "alpha second," the universal ruler's favorite.
We agreed that all of this is tremendously challenging, but it's a trainer's dream: a brilliant horse who is anything but easy. "It lets you be creative," Joni said gleefully. Joni's a trainer, she's nuts.
But then so am I. I went through a long period of dreading training the War Mare, but it's hit me lately--it's one whole hell of a lot of fun. Scary, sometimes, and very challenging, but finding the keys to the way she thinks, then applying them to making her safer, happier, and easier to handle, really is great stuff. She's having a wonderful time; even when she's all worried and scared, she's happy. She loves to work.
Pause for primal scream.
Thank you.
Now for your regularly scheduled insanity.
The monsoons have finally arrived. Mornings start off hot and humid. The heat rises and rises and rises, and the humidity right along with it. About midmorning, clouds start to pile up over the mountains. By early afternoon, thunderheads are starting to form. With luck, these will keep piling and piling until they break with a boom and a crack and a gush of rain.
On Thursday, the area around
casacorona got an inch and more of rain. We only got a tenth of that, being on the fringes of several thunder cells, but even that was the first measurable rain in three months. It felt wonderful. Washed out the day's horsework, but nobody minded.Yesterday the rain held off to the south. I was able to get Capria out, ponying ze keed, then take da Pook for walkies--he was Mr. Perfect even when we ended up downwind of every mare in the neighborhood. It was a challenge, but he met it. He's a good stallion.
This morning was lesson day, and I had the "hot slots"--we take turns with those, spreading out the pain. It was fairly hideous with humidity and heat. Joni rode keed as usual, bit of a short ride but a good one. He's still in a parlous growth phase and tends to go hollow because his back is weak, but he's moving free and supple through the body, with a good overstep and a free shoulder--he's making good progress.
Then because I need to not do lessons on da Pook for now--I get too hung up on being perfect and end up screwing us up--and it was too hot and nasty for Capria, we brought out a very happy Camilla, saddled her up, and took her for walkies. I wanted Joni to see how she thinks, and I wanted Camilla to get used to having Joni in the mix. It worked out really well. Camilla had to take extra time to process all the new data--Joni's truck in the drive, Joni following us out, me going back to get a halter when she kept trying to chew on the reins--but once she'd thought it over, she went right on out. It was most amusing to see her reacting in the exact same way to the exact same things that got Pooka going when he was her age. She stops where he used to beat it out of there, but the brain shutdown is the same.
We talked about that--how these horses have some of the same issues as autistic humans: too much data comes in too fast and with too much intensity. You have to approach them very carefully, dish out the data in as small doses as you can, and keep the pressure down as low as possible, while still encouraging them to progress. Their being so physically talented is actually a a problem, in that they're capable of so much but need to be brought along so slowly. They'll panic if pushed too hard, or get locked into a fugue state--such as when a truck came up behind Camilla and then made a three-point turn in a driveway. She eeked, spun, and went into hyperalert mode--lost her ability to focus on us and glommed like a laser on the departing truck. It took a few moments to peel her off the ceiling and get her brain back in gear. Once she reconnected, she calmed right down and carried on, but the moment of brain-lock was striking. It's a very Lipp thing--I've seen it in every one of them--and it's weird because they don't do the usual kinds of panicky things that horses will do when their brains shut off. Lipp brains don't have an off switch. And that's the problem.
The up side of that is, if you can unlock the brain, you have a strongly focused horse who will, if she respects and trusts you, do absolutely anything for you. Warhorse.
It was good to have Joni see this, and she had some excellent suggestions for making it work better. We agreed that for now, this groundwork is essential--just as it was with Pooka when he was this age. It builds trust and establishes a partnership, and makes the eventually return to ridden work go Much more smoothly.
Further discussion involved the difference between handling a stallion--where one becomes the alpha mare and whups his butt (judiciously) when he gets fresh--and handling an alpha mare whose position in the universe is, basically, top of the pyramid. The trainer's job in that case is to become just slightly more alpha. You won't dominate her, but you will make her your partner--and she'll be obedient because she chooses to. She becomes your "alpha second," the universal ruler's favorite.
We agreed that all of this is tremendously challenging, but it's a trainer's dream: a brilliant horse who is anything but easy. "It lets you be creative," Joni said gleefully. Joni's a trainer, she's nuts.
But then so am I. I went through a long period of dreading training the War Mare, but it's hit me lately--it's one whole hell of a lot of fun. Scary, sometimes, and very challenging, but finding the keys to the way she thinks, then applying them to making her safer, happier, and easier to handle, really is great stuff. She's having a wonderful time; even when she's all worried and scared, she's happy. She loves to work.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 07:43 pm (UTC)'s funny. That brain-lock is exactly what the boy does these days, more often than not. But it's not natural for him...it's the result of lots of work at moving away from the runawaaaaaaaaaay! spook. It almost sounds in a lot of these posts like you're dealing with a whole different animal. Really neat.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 11:27 am (UTC)Key points with them are: Balance. If they're off balance, they can't hack it. Seriously can't. "Normal" young-horse on-the-forehand movement drives them shrieking bananas. They will not canter until they can collect the walk and trot--kind of a problem for the "normal" dressage tests. Rider has to stay smack in the middle or Things happen. As I've learned the hard way. (Ouch.)
Partnership's another one. They do not take orders. They will not just do it because you said so. You had better negotiate and you really had better explain before you start. They honestly believe they're smarter than you, and actually they're right. They have a sense of self.
(Oh my word. Starz Family has a movie on--"The White Pony." That's Pooka!)
Also, Intelligence. They don't think like horses in some key ways. They analyze data. Their flight reflex is not as highly developed as you might expect--they may charge the object instead of run from it.
And finally, Movement. Strongly connected to Balance. They don't feel like other horses to ride. There's this sense of power that can be scary, and the way they balance is not the same. It's uphill and the back is round and they may sit down behind. It will feel as if they're going to buck or bolt--but they're just moseying. "Lipp seven-league boots," one friend of mine calls that. If you're used to TBs, it's terrifying--because they send the same signals in default mode that the TB sends when he's ready to blow. (See above re. sending signals that mean the opposite of the usual.)
All in all, they're not really horses. They're Space Aliens. In horse suits.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 09:27 am (UTC)I need to find out what the daily ride schedules are--then we can figure out whether we'll be able to bop down the highway of an evening, or whether we should stop by on Saturday en route home. Which works better for you?