Episode 14: Muscle Memory: habits & experience can improve your horseback riding skills

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Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses in last week's episode. I talked about physical strength and how that will help you be a better rider this week. As promised, I'm here to talk about muscle memory. I'm going to share with you my two different views on muscle memory and one way that you can fast forward your learning. That's a good one. Last week I talked about muscle memory being different than strength or your fitness level. And I think the reason that people get confused about this is because in the beginning, both of these come together, the muscle memory and the strength. For example, if you are learning to ride a horse, you will be simultaneously developing new muscles. Those are the ones that get really sore and developing new skills. I think it's interesting if we separate those two ideas. And so this week, we're going to focus on muscle memory. And the first thought that I have about muscle memory is the idea that muscle memory is a type of habit. Listen to this description of muscle memory that I pulled off from the Internet. Quote, Individual motor elements are grouped together into one action sequence or chunk that is then performed with decreasing variation as learning progresses. A widely understood example of this is when a person first learns to write.

Each stroke of each letter requires a conscious effort. After practice and chunking, the action sequence becomes stable and a person can quickly perform the sequence of strokes that correctly constitutes a letter effortlessly with little variation. I love this example because when we were writing, it matters that you put enough time in to your writing to acquire this type of muscle memory. The other thing that is needed are repetitions. So it is possible to ride, but not necessarily write in a way that's repetitive. I'm encouraging you to consider to develop muscle memory. You would need to not only put in the time, but also a certain number of repetitions. And the reason this is important is because you can create a feedback loop if you create a feedback loop. Then you have something that you can modify, something that can give you feedback day after day. It's funny when you look on Facebook or social media and you see the little the little cartoons where the horse is on a psychiatrist couch saying circles, circles, more circles and they're never round enough. And this is from the horse's point of view, because what is true in that is that when riders want to get better at something, a lot of repetition helps, especially when you're trying to work on honing or sharpening or really refining a skill. So if you give a small child a pencil and let them just scribble everywhere, they are learning a certain stage.

But that is far different than being able to learn the motor skills to write something legible. And then that's even different than learning to write something like calligraphy. I find a lot of riders are uncomfortable with asking the horses for a lot of repetition and sometimes they'll put it on themselves and they'll say I get bored too quickly. And other times the rider will kind of put it on the horse and say things like he just doesn't like it and I'm afraid he'll get bored or I'm afraid that he'll think that I'm punishing him. And we will explore some of those thoughts when we get into the season discussing the horses mind. Some of those thoughts are valid. There are definitely ways to work around and to educate the horse as well as the rider, to understand that repetition is not punishment. But first, it begins with you believing that repetition is not punishment. When we go back to the muscle memory example of learning handwriting, there is a certain amount of time and a certain amount of repetition to be able to improve that skill. In the quote that I read you, which all linked to the longer article in the show notes. I think an interesting phrase that they brought up was performed with decreasing variation as the learning progresses.

And the reason this phrase stands out. Is decreasing variation as the learning progresses? I see this all the time with writers who are trying to figure out how to get more skilled and basically their movements are inefficient because they're not highly refined. They move their hands further than necessary. Maybe too fast, maybe too slow, maybe not exactly in the proper sequence. And what happens with a lot of repetition is you get exactly what this says as you get more skill. It is performed with decreasing variation as the learning progresses. Basically, you just get more and more efficient at how you are signaling, which is a great description of really clear communication. Before I move on to my next thing with muscle memory. Let's just close this up by saying time plus repetition will create a feedback loop that you can then modify. So go out there and try those circles. Circles and they're never round enough circles. The next section of muscle memory that I want to talk about, the next way that I look at it is something that falls more into experience. And for an illustration, I would like to use the feeling that you get in your body when you get on an airplane and the airplane is taking off or that airplane is landing. This is something that you can read about in a book and people can try to describe to you.

But it is also something that until you experience it, you don't actually have that feeling inside of your own body. The way that this works is that once you fly for the very first time, I flew for the first time when I was in high school, so I can remember it clearly. Interesting side note. My mom flew with me because we were going up to a college in Ohio that had equine program and we both flew together. It was her first time flying when I was in high school and we both flew to Ohio from Maine. That feeling of flying was something that as soon as you feel at once, you can identify it. This is very interesting because this type of muscle memory. This type of experience, memory where you feel something like that is important because this is how you could possibly fast forward your learning with horses. The way that I have done this in the past is by riding horses that are well-trained. I had the advantage of working for some different raining horse trainers when I was in college. And the neat thing about that was that my primary job was cleaning stalls, saddling, grooming, getting on, warming the horses up, walking, trotting. But the great side benefit was that they would have me perform some of the maneuvers so they would have me spin on this really well-trained horse or do a sliding stop on this really well-trained horse.

And in that moment, the first time that I felt the horse slide 20 feet, I instantly had that muscle memory of the experience in my body in the very same way that getting on the airplane would give you that muscle memory of that experience, that physical memory in your body. The reason this is so important is because when we are training horses that don't have a lot of experience, we all know how important it is to reward that correct movement. But the trick is these horses, these younger, greener horses that were training often only get into this very correct position for brief moments when I am teaching somebody how to feel very good collection, for example. And their green horse only gets into that frame for two or three seconds at a time. It's a challenge to get that person to register that feeling in their body so they can reward more accurately in the future. When I want to fast forward that, what I do is in my clinics, when people repeat and come back, I give them an opportunity to get on to a well-trained horse. And when they get on that well-trained horse, that horse has that muscle memory in their body and they're able to hold that position much longer and much more consistent.

And this then gives the rider the opportunity to feel that body. Position and feel that experience like the airplane taking off or landing, and as soon as you feel that in your body, it then makes it easier when you get back on to your greener or less experienced horse and you briefly feel that feeling. You can then reward more accurately. I would personally pay two to three times more for a lesson on a well-trained horse. To give you an example. I've been taking some dressage lessons, traditional dressage lessons, dressage saddle, and if I go for a lesson, they typically are 75 to 100 dollars an hour. I would pay double or triple that to get on to a well-trained horse to feel some of these movements very solidly, even if that meant that I had to save my money and skip some of the regular lessons so that I could save up my money to go take that one lesson on that really well-trained horse, because I understand the value of having that awareness in my body and how that will fast forward my training of my own personal horses. As I wrap up here, I want to tell you again how important it is and encourage you to embrace the idea of repetition. I am all about having fun on my horses. I go trail riding.

I mix it up by doing equine CrossFit training where I'm out there jogging with them. I ride bareback. I ride in the western saddle. I ride an English saddle. I love mixing it up. But I also understand the need and the results of riding with repetition. So build that into your program and see if you notice a difference. If you take riding lessons right now, another thing you could consider is asking and seeing if you would be able to take a lesson on a well-trained horse. Doesn't have to be super frequently. Just one lesson on a well-trained horse can put some really cool feelings into your body that will then make it easier for you to translate that and transferred over onto your own horse. And if you're giving lessons and you have a horse. This trained well enough that you would be able to give some of these riding lessons. Consider offering that even if you want to charge a little extra to the clients that ask for that. Let them know this would be a possibility because it legitimately has a high level of value. I have a quote that I want to close this episode with. Aristotle said and I quote The things we have to learn before we do them. We learned by doing them again. Aristotle said, quote, The things we have to learn before we do them. We learn by doing them.

I don't know. But this sounds a lot like make mistakes in the right direction. Thanks for joining me today, guys. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please consider giving them a rating or review in your podcast player or better yet, share them with a friend. Thank you. And talk to you again next week.

If you enjoy listening to Stacy podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall dot com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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