Ep 298.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
You can mimic behavior before you understand what it means. Lefty did not understand what ear pinning meant, but he was able to mimic it.
Speaker2:
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.
Speaker1:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In last week's episode, I explained how people accidentally mark mistakes. Remember, this is different than making mistakes. You will make mistakes. I can still feel mistakes in my timing at different moments, but I don't mark them and they're not the majority of the time, so making mistakes will happen. Marking mistakes draws attention to them. In today's episode, I want to talk to you about a related subject. Today's subject is a part of learning, but it's just the beginning. And if you stay here, you won't get the best results because your timing will be off. Today I want to talk about mimicking and more specifically, mimicking versus understanding. When I look at the process of learning, especially learning a physical skill, the process of learning involves mimicking. We all have seen children learn through imitation. Either we've seen it or we've been it. Children watch and then they copy or mimic. This is how they learn to speak, by mimicking sounds that then become words that then have meaning. It's how they learn to do physical skills by copying what they see adults and other children do. So the process of learning involves mimicking. And this is true with horses too. Little lefty, the orphan foal that we have been raising this spring, was with his mother for 12 days before she passed and when lefty was with his mother in the stall, if other horses were led by, she pinned her ears at the other horses that were walking by the stall.
Speaker1:
And then when I brought lefty home and I introduced him to another adult horse that happened to be Willow, she looked at him and then pinned her ears and turned and walked away. With these interactions, lefty began mimicking or trying on this behavior. He began imitating it. For lefty, his understanding of what ear pinning meant was not developed even when he was able to mimic it. You can mimic behavior before you understand what it means. Lefty did not understand what ear pinning meant, but he was able to mimic it. Our stalls have low walls in between them, so adult horses can actually hang their heads over into the other horse's stall. And when lefty was little, less than a couple of months old, I saw him march boldly, straight up to an adult horse's head hanging over the wall, ears pinned, strong marching energy from this tiny little 150 pound horse. But because he had no ability to follow through, the other horses didn't move. But he was still mimicking the behavior that he saw other horses do. Now that Lefty's a little bit older and he is being turned out with other horses, I told you about him being turned out with Gabby first, and now I've been turning him out with my two year old Ember.
Speaker1:
Now that he's actually been out and interacting, he's not speaking quite as boldly now. Now nothing has happened. But when he goes out, especially in the pasture with Amber, because she's only two, she's much more energetic. And although she hasn't been aggressive with the foals, Stormy or Lefty, Amber is very willing to run fast. She's willing to get behind them and poke at them with her nose, and she pins her ears when she pokes at them with her nose, and she swoops by them, running really fast and startles them into movement. And because Ember brings a lot of energy and a lot of movement, lefty is learning even more about what the ear pinning means and how it's not the full story. So when Ember is running around, sometimes this energy is directed at the foals. She's never offered to kick them, and right now she moves them by pinning her ears and bringing up her energy. I haven't even seen her follow through with biting or nipping, because they're actually responding to the ear pinning and the high energy. But what she also does is she brings up a lot of energy that's not directed at them. For example, she runs for fun or she starts bucking when a giant horsefly lands on her rump. And because all of this energy is happening, and because sometimes it's directed at them, the foals, and sometimes it's not, it gives the foals a lot more body language to study.
Speaker1:
It gives them a lot more information. So instead of just mimicking one isolated behavior like ear pinning, lefty is watching this and he's beginning to see a much bigger pattern at play here. Stormy is fascinated with Ember. She follows us out into the field when I bring Ember out to turn them out, while lefty tends to hang back and watch more, and he'll even hide behind stormy. So even though lefty was the ear spinner in the stall, and then if you watched the video that I posted last week with him being introduced to Gabby for the first time, and you could kind of see he looked almost bold. Now he's actually kind of hanging back and watching and catching on to the idea that there's a lot more nuance going on than just the ear pinning. Basically, what he's learning is mimicking isn't working anymore. He's going to have to learn more and understand on a deeper level. Now let's switch back to a human example. When I see people learning, it's very common for them to begin by mimicking or imitating a technique, and a lot of times I will see people who have a decent technique. It's pretty good, but if they lack the understanding of why they're doing it, it actually has a completely different meaning with the horse. So a great example of this is if you've ever seen groundwork being done, it's a pretty popular technique now to whip the ground around the horse.
Speaker1:
And if you want to see an example of this, you can go to my YouTube channel and you can look at Stacy's Video diary Jack. And you will see lots of examples of me doing groundwork early on, and you'll see me whipping the ground around Jack. So just in case you haven't seen this, just imagine that the horse is standing there facing the human standing about, let's say, six feet away from the person. And the person is able to whip the ground on the left hand side and the right hand side of the horse without the horse moving. And it's basically showing that the horse is not afraid of the noise or the motion. That's one layer of it. But here's a great example of the difference between mimicking the technique where you see it and you think, okay, the horse is standing there facing the human, and the human is hitting the ground on the left and on the right. Okay, I got it. I'm going to mimic that. You can have a decent technique doing this, and you can create a horse that doesn't run away from the noise, but without the understanding, you won't get the horse focusing their attention on you despite the noise. So with the timing of mimicking, you will probably be able to convey the idea. Don't run, but without the understanding of how the technique really works, you won't necessarily convey the idea that they also need to focus their attention on you.
Speaker1:
So if you simply mimic the technique of facing the horse and whipping the ground on the left and right without the horse moving, you may get the body to stand still doing that, but without the more nuanced understanding of the technique, you won't get the horse to focus on you while you do it. You can actually have the horse standing there, not moving, but looking at somebody else, leading a horse, or looking at a horse running around in a pasture, or basically not paying attention to you despite the fact that you're whipping the ground when you do have the understanding, the full understanding of using a technique like that, you can actually not only get the horse to understand that it means stand still, but it will also begin to show the horse how to read your body language to understand the subtle differences between stand and go, as well as the more nuanced movements between okay, move a little bit and now stand, move a little bit and now stand. And all of that can be done inside of the same technique, but you have to have a different level of understanding. You can't just mimic or imitate and find the nuances. The same thing happens when writing, mimicking or imitating a technique is the beginning point.
Speaker1:
There is nothing wrong with starting there, but to develop the understanding and the nuance you have to mimic, you have to have the experience, and then you have to look deeper. You have to begin to examine the experience. So you need to have the experience. And that might involve mimicking. You've got to do it. And then in order to understand the experience you need to begin to question it, examine it, think about it. Listen back to the example I gave you with lefty. Horses are doing this all the time. Horses are great at detecting patterns of behavior. When Stormy and Lefty go out with Ember, they're noticing the difference between when her energy is up and they can't figure out why. But I can see it's because a fly is on her butt and she's trying to buck it off, versus when her energy is up and she wants to move them. They're getting better and better. They've only been out with her seven times, and they're getting better and better at detecting those patterns of behavior that are much more nuanced than what they originally were seeing. So let's go back to the example of you. Let's say that you go watch that YouTube video and let's say that you mimic me and you begin whipping the ground around your horse. And let's say that you even get as far as your horse looks comfortable with it. Are you able to answer these questions? Why are you doing it? When is this a useful technique? Can this technique be overdone? How does this technique tie together with 2 or 3 other concepts or techniques that you're using? Have you been in a situation outside of training this where it was useful? Have you been in a situation outside of training this where the technique didn't seem to work? Or if you want a really simplified version of these questions, it would be what are the pros and the cons of this technique? All techniques have pros and cons.
Speaker1:
That's why you need to have several techniques so you can balance things out. Back in episode 296, I called the techniques your tools in a toolbox. But in order for you to know what tool you need, you're going to have to have an understanding. Beyond mimicking horse training and interacting with a horse is very physical. It's why I talk all the time about the rider's mind, the rider's body, the horse's mind, the horse's body. There's a very physical element to being with a horse, and mimicking or imitating is especially useful when you're learning a physical skill. But to understand that physical skill, you're going to have to spend some time thinking about it also. So little left, he might look like he's simply hiding behind stormy, but when I watch him, I can see the little gears turning in his mind. I can see that he's watching how Amber behaves.
Speaker1:
And even though he's on the receiving end right now, when she's moving him, instead of him being the one pinning the ears, he's on the receiving end of the ears being pinned at him, and he's moving away from that body language. This is actually how he's learning the nuances, not just in her ears, but in all the other things too. The things that let him know if Amber is directing her attention at him or not. If you watch the early video of Stormi with Gabby, you would have seen Stormi jump out of the way when Gabby just wiggled her nose. That was stormy, misreading a tiny bit of energy from Gabby. Now that stormy has a lot more experience being around a high energy horse like Ember, she's not making that mistake anymore. Now listen to this. This is a bit of a subject change, but it's a big deal. Pause for just a moment and think about what the foals have been experiencing. When I'm describing putting them out in the pasture for an hour a day with a two year old, that's very high energy and moves them around. I want you to think about what that experience would be like for the foals. It's not all warm and fuzzy. It's not Withers withers being scratched and green grass and low energy. It's almost a little scary for them. When I first put them out there and Ember started running around just for fun, they huddled up in a corner and then when she slowed down and was eating grass, they tiptoed out of the corner and they followed her around, mimicking her eating the grass because they were drawn to her, wanting to know more.
Speaker1:
But then as soon as the energy level went up, they tried staying away, running to the corner. Now that they've been turned out with her seven times, and each of these times was roughly about an hour. It's fascinating when I go to turn them out with her, what I do is I lead Ember through their paddock, so I enter their paddock leading Ember, and then I go out the back side of their paddock into a pasture, and then I lock them all out into that pasture, because I don't want them using the run in to the smaller area together. And when I very first started doing this, I would lead Ember through. I would put her out, and then I would have to go get Stormy and Lefty and lead them out there. Seven days later, seven days of big energy. And we could even call it some of the toughest lessons that they've learned, because it's been bigger energy than they've ever been around. Seven days later, when I lead Ember into the paddock and I go through the paddock, headed to the pasture, they follow me. So even though it's high energy, it's also the most stimulating and thought provoking part of their day.
Speaker1:
And horses like learning. It's fascinating because Stormi, who was the most timid one, is the one leading the way. She's the first one behind Amber following on Ember's heels. She's catching on to the behavior and she's fascinated by this older horse Stormy's no longer applying that blanket answer of jump and run away to everything. She's asking why? Why is Ember doing that? What could it mean? What else could it mean? Is this directed at me? How is this tied together with the other things I've seen Ember do? Stormy is using this technique of thinking through what she's been experiencing and she's understanding. Now, there's a hidden lesson in here because there is something that people do that horses don't. Sometimes what I see with people is that they will try to mimic harder, copy harder. And when I see this happening, it's most often because the human is trying to create safety through copying. It can feel safe to copy or mimic because in a way, you're not making the decisions. It can feel risky to make decisions because they're not all going to work. But I promise you this your timing will not be accurate. When you stay in mimicry or copying, your timing won't improve until you move to understanding and you won't move to understanding without trial and error. You will hit limits with mimicking that will cause mistakes in your timing.
Speaker1:
It'll work for a little while and then it won't work well. So when you reach that point and mimicking is holding you back because of the timing being off, lets at least move to making mistakes that you can learn more from. It will feel a little bit risky, but you've got to start putting the understanding together of why you're doing certain things at certain times. If you've been a longtime podcast listener, you'll remember that I frequently encourage riders to record themselves when they're riding or working with their horses. Watching your video back will allow you to begin asking why. It will give you the chance to slow things down and to see your horse's behavior, and to see your behavior more clearly. Mimicking or imitating or copying is a normal part of learning. But don't stop there. Keep going. Ask why. Identify the pros and the cons. Study how this fits with the other things you're doing, and especially watch for the moments when you're doing something you saw someone else do, but you're not quite sure why they did it because you might be able to mimic it at a clinic or at a lesson. But if you don't understand the purpose, you'll have a tough time of transferring it into real life situations. That's what I have for you this week. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.
Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall. Com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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