Teaching: The Art of Allowing Failure

Horses are some of the best teachers. They seem to have an innate ability to understand what it takes to learn.

Way back when, I had a teacher (of the human persuasion) who was enamored of that well know, oft used phrase attributed to Vince Lombardi: "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect."

Wow. I challenge you to think of a better way to discourage anyone from trying to improve. He certainly scared the desire right out of me at the time.

When I defied his particular lack of inspiration and became a teacher I noticed a couple of things right off the bat (pardon the almost-pun). One, people learn when they're actually ready for the information, and two, I learned more from my students than they did from me--neither are unusual epiphanies.

Then one day I noticed something else. My students' horses consistently provided the lesson plan. Not only did each horse perform to the exact level of the rider, but they did exactly the things wrong that were my students key issues. Bless their hearts, they were showing me what needed to be taught.

But could I teach it? Sure I could talk my students through the steps to correct the problems, but that's not teaching. The real question was, could I impart an understanding of the process well enough for them to handle it on their own when they practiced between lessons?

And right about here is where that old saying falls flat on its pompous tutu.

Pretending to be perfect, so one can practice perfect generally ends up with the grand delusion disintegrating into a million depressing pieces. One needs to know as clearly as possible what the goal is, sure, but to get there one must seek out the problems and be determined to fail as many times as it takes in order to get it right. When I see a student let go of their insistence to avoid failure and accept and embrace that fact, progress follows. Always. And each time I've seen one of my students make a little progress I've seen their horses respond precisely to that improvement, even when it's serendipitous. Their consistent, accurate feedback makes horses wonderful teachers. And there's rarely one that won't generously allow his rider to make mistakes over and over in their quest to get it right. My job, as the human side of the teaching team, is to prevent mistakes from being too grievous and set up the goals. Then I must make sure my student understands it's okay to try and fail repeatedly. If I can do that, the horse can do his job. And he will. Every time. No matter how long it takes.

It's unflagging patience, accurate feedback and forgiveness of failure that are qualities the best teachers share. Horses have it in spades.

Talking Horses

When my kids were toddlers they would go to the barn with me in the morning to feed the horses. My son (who is going to hate me for telling this story), although insisting on going, didn't like all the whinnying that greeted us despite my reassurances that it was happy noise. He'd cling to my leg and wail, "Mommy, horsies talk, horsies talk!"

Horses are chatty things. Bless their hearts, they don't seem to be without something to say--ever. Most of their language is body language, of course, but hey, most of ours is, too. Ninety-three percent of what we communicate is non-verbal (so I've heard). That should make it a slam-dunk to communicate with a horse, right?

Not exactly.

We don't speak the same body language, so we have to reach a compromise. That's what training is all about--teaching a language that is native to neither the horse or rider. When we ride we make use of our hands, legs, seat and voice--the natural aids--to mean specific things. Each of our aids has two functions; either work in harmony with the horse or step out of harmony. When we function in harmony with the horse we're like the "yes-man." When we use our aids out of harmony it's because something needs to be changed either by restraining or driving--our only two choices.

It seems so simple. Yet for an animal who can react when a fly lights on him, every breath the rider takes is capable of carrying meaning. That's why riding is hard. We can be communicating without even realizing it. And the horse will be commenting on what he thinks we're saying.

When they can't figure out what we want, they'll guess--some of them anyway. Others will tune us out, since it's obvious to them we have nothing important to say. Still others will overreact, bluster against us and argue.

Sounds like daily living with a completely human cast of characters, doesn't it? People and horses will tell us what they understand of the current situation by demonstrating it through their actions. Any way you cut it, it takes practice to communicate effectively.

Oh, and it doesn't bother my son anymore when horses whinny for their food. He can relate to their eagerness for a meal (and I'm going to hear about that comment, too!).

Hey, Mom and Dad, Look at Me!

Every three or four months I ride my horse Eddie in a dressage clinic. I love it. We get cleaned up, dressed up, and chase improvement like it was a year-end award. Henrik Johansen, the clinician and the man whose picture is in the dictionary next to the word "patient," does his magic and viola! Eddie and I have refined our skills, and added to our knowledge. It's a great confidence boost to be challenged and at the same time make positive strides toward my goals. Except this time....

It was a breezeless, 90+ degree, July day. At 4 o'clock I was wringing wet and the lesson had just started. Ten minutes into our session Eddie was radiating heat like my husband's barbecue grill turned up to burn-the-gunk-off level. Even worse, instead of showing Henrik how much we'd improved, I showed him how really awful we could be. Eddie lugged on my hands and was dead to my aids. In essence, we were barely speaking.

I was not looking forward to the second day of the clinic. But lucky me, Henrik rode Eddie first. Good, I thought, he can fix my horse. Instead, he showed me how easy my horse was to ride. Hmm.... Okay. I needed to work harder. I could do that, even in the heat.

Apparently not.

I pondered this on the way home, which is to say I thought up all kinds of excuses why Eddie worked so well for Henrik and so poorly for me. Hey, I tried really really hard, and I toughed out the near-heat-stroke conditions. I deserved something for all my sweat, didn't I? Did Eddie just like Henrik better than me?

(Yes, I was feeling pretty darned sorry for myself) Then I looked at all the pictures my friend took. Eddie looked fairly decent when I was on him, but surely I looked better than that. Why did I look like a boneless bag of lumpy Jell-O? Appalled doesn't even begin to cover my reaction.

Further reflection had me wondering why the things Eddie and I did at home worked well, but fell apart at the clinic. I neatly ignored how well Eddie worked with Henrik and blamed the heat. Had to be the heat. We'd come far in the last four months, and I'd wanted to demonstrate it. I whined to my friend the picture-taker, fellow clinic-rider, and heat-sufferer. She shook her head.

"You were trying too hard to be perfect," she said.

Easy for her to say. Her rides were amazing. But she was right. I should have realized. And I should have listened to Eddie. He was doing exactly what I was telling him to do--all the disjointed, unbalanced stuff I was doing. I'd lost touch with him because I wanted to prove how good I was. I rode him differently than I did at home and lost the focused communication I usually shared with him. Then when things went badly, I just made them worse. I didn't stop to think, I just reacted.

Next time I'll pay closer attention to all the skills I skipped past while trying to prove how close to perfect I was, and less attention to trying to impress. I guess I learned something after all. I hope.

If It Wasn't For My Horse, I Wouldn't Have Understood Hegel

(Or, The Walk Can Fix The Canter)

One of the things I noticed early on in my riding career was that if I had problems getting the canter I magically knew it before hand at the walk. Using that ah-ha, I started paying more attention to my horse's walk asking myself, "if I want to canter right now, could I do it?" Through trail, error, and success I developed a feel for a walk that was sufficiently balanced for the horse to produce an obedient transition into canter. Problem solved...so I thought.

Then I started paying attention to the canter--mostly after seeing other people doing lovely canters on their horses and beating me at horse shows. With a better picture in my mind of what I was trying to achieve, I set to work to improve my horse's canter. This wasn't easy. Rocketing around the arena is not as conducive to thinking and analyzing as is the more sedate pace of the walk. Repeated efforts brought little improvement. Besides, it's freaking scary.

To preserve my life, I decided to shorten the duration of each foray into canter. Better--but not great. I shortened the duration further, with some slight improvement. Then I noticed the transition itself. If my horse tossed his head up for the transition, the canter and subsequent downward transition to walk was mediocre at best. Instead, if he raised his shoulders in the transition the canter was soft and lovely and the downward transition effortless. The solution was to have my horse raise his shoulders in the transition...but how could I make it consistent? I tried to keep his head down, hoping the shoulder would rise. Are you surprised things got worse? I didn't think so.

One day I happened to be reading a reference to a German philosopher by the name of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Besides being touted as the last man on earth to know everything (I seriously doubt that particular boast), and quoted as saying something like, the lesson of history is that man learns nothing from history (what a card), he (reportedly) said something I found useful. Paraphrased, for my use, it goes something like: You can't achieve a goal by doing the goal. I ruminated on this for a bit. Could it be I was trying to fix my horse's canter with the wrong approach? Next time I saddled up, I brought along my powers of observation. Within my fumbling around I noticed my horse's balance, straightness, and acknowledgement of each of my aids. When I addressed each of these items at the walk, and saw that my horse understood what I expected, the canter transformed.

Wow.

Hegel was right. You CAN fix the canter by improving the walk.

Pay Attention

The arena where I ride has a magnificent view of Mt. Pilchuck. On days like today, when the sky is misty and a few clouds flirt with the summit, it looks enchanted. The forest between me and the mountain appears uninterrupted, inviting. It appeals to the romantic adventurer in my soul, despite the fact that to make a hike through the woods to the summit I know I'd have to hack through the underbrush, ford streams and rivers, and climb impossibly steep, rocky inclines. Dreaming about it is definitely better.

Closer by is Rocky, Eddie's friend, who enjoys being a horse and

has an active imagination. Apropos of nothing, he will scamper around, buck magnificently then look around to see who noticed. Eddie doesn't care. He sees him do that stuff every day for hours and hours. Besides, he's--not so secretly--more impressed with himself. I enjoy watching, though. Rocky is good for a laugh or two. He's such a happy horse.

And then there's the feather that's been lying in the arena for the past few days.

I think it came from a hawk, and I keep meaning to pick it up. Not sure why--it's just cool.

And, oh yes, riding. Which is why I'm sitting on Eddie's back. He'd probably rather

be eating treats over the fence, but we have a clinic to prepare for.

If I don't make an effort and come to the party, I'll not only fail to make progress, I'll regress. I know full well if one doesn't pay attention when one rides all sorts of little things creep in to sabotage one's efforts--a little "crooked" becomes a bigger "crooked," a little "on the forehand" becomes a sincere balance issue with the horse leaning on one's hands. Even when one is concentrating, small issues will slip under the radar until they grow into large, ugly problems.

It's no good beating myself up over it. Since I ride without constant supervision I have to expect it. No, that doesn't mean I get to stop trying. If I stopped trying, stopped paying attention, I'd miss the sheer bliss of those moments when it all comes together, the joy that rockets my attitude into the stratosphere, and makes every cell in my body understand why I ride dressage.

And I'd probably appreciate that view of Mt. Pilchuck, Rocky's antics, and random feathers a little less. What a shame that would be.

Small Expectations, Secret Handshakes, and Magic

Tell me it doesn't frost you to have your instructor, or clinician, or anyone else get on your "Old Pokey" and viola! He transforms into a heart-achingly stunning dressage horse. Tell me you don't long for that level of skill, talent, or whatever magic they possess. Tell me you won't lay awake nights fantasizing about it.

Why is it that without the expert seeming to do anything at all the very thing you thought impossible happens?

Experience.

And training.

Well, duh. We all know in order to understand the nuances of horse body language, one needs training and experience. The horse has to understand what an aid means and the rider has to be able to be consistent in the application of that aid, as well as the ability to interpret the horse's response.

And, of course, know the secret handshake.

So does the expert know more aids than you? Is that the "secret handshake"? Probably not. What they know is what to expect when a small aid is applied. A really small aid. The kind of small aid that comes from thinking and breathing, from knowing the subtleties of "feel," from knowing the importance of knowing the expected answer to a small request. And that is hard. Really hard. That kind of awareness can only be born through diligent trying, enduring the frustration of failing, and trying again--staying ever-alert for each small flash of ah-ha.

If we try not to make it all happen at once, the horse can become the teacher. He will show us his understanding, and then we can proceed according to that specific understanding, without losing sight of what we want. To lead, to teach, we must look forward and back and inside--simultaneously.

Yeah, it seems ponderous, and there are times when it seems like it would be so much faster to force the issue. But learning to communicate is difficult, and happens in small steps when the parties involved listen to each other. Even if you're the one who has to start listening first. Even if you're the one who has to stay faithful to the small expectations.

That's the secret handshake. And at some point someone will tell you you're magic, and you'll smile and tell them not to give up. The magic takes a while to learn.

You'll go where you're looking.

The first time I butted heads with this lesson was when I was a teenager and trail riding with a friend. Part of the trail ran alongside a road, and on the shoulder was a discarded pop can. I didn't want my horse to step on it, so I kept my eye on the thing, trying with all my might to move my horse away from it. Sure enough, we kicked the can. The incident dismayed me enough to stick with me these many years. At the time I couldn't understand what happened. I was a good rider, I used the right aids to move my horse to the side, yet the very thing I was hoping to avoid happened. What went wrong?

It was a little while before I really understood what is essentially a maxim for all riders. Hunter and jumper riders know well the saying, "throw your heart over the fence and the horse will follow." When I was jumping I kept that in mind, since I knew if I looked at the ground in front of the fence I would end up laying on it.

It's a physical thing. We've been balancing on our two feet for a number of years by now, and don't give it much conscious thought. We look in the direction we intend to go and shift our balance accordingly. When we ride, that shift affects the horse's balance far more dramatically due to our center of gravity being higher than the horse's.

Funny that an action as innocuous as looking at something can set your course with such certainty. And you know what? I've learned more magical things about direction of gaze, too. I've learned that if something is scary, you're far better off if you concentrate your vision on where you're intending on going than the terrifying object. I've learned if you stop looking, you lose track of what's happening to your horse, and that starts a snowball of frustration rolling down hill.

I've learned to apply this little technique to the aspects of my life that are separate from what I try to accomplish in the saddle. It goes hand in hand with having a goal--kind of like a support technique. You just have to be careful to look where you want to go, because you'll surely go where you look.