Episode 329: Misdiagnosed? A New Way to Diagnose Riding Challenges

Episode 329.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 329.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Speaker1:
An accurate diagnosis is the beginning of any plan. Without it, you're just treating the symptoms instead of getting to the root cause.

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 this episode, I want to revisit a tool that you can use to help you diagnose exactly where to focus next with your horse. Do you ever wonder what you should do next? I'm going to solve that for you by the end of the podcast. Today, I want to focus on how important it is to correctly diagnose what's happening. Here's an example. If you listened to last week's episode, I went into detail about Amber and her current challenge with the sliding stop. Last week I took my horses to a farrier clinic. I'll have to do a whole episode about that sometime. And at this farrier clinic, I was standing there holding Amber, and I was explaining at one point how she was working on finding her balance in the sliding stop, and I mentioned that the side effect was that she was walking out of it at the end. And one of the farriers asked me, would someone punish them for that? And I answered without hesitation, yes, all the time. Because technically, if you're just looking at the horse's body, what you're going to see is that they begin the slide and then they walk out of it. If you treat it like the horse is walking Out because they don't really want to stop, then you're going to heavily back. Them up, which will put them more over their hawks and decrease the chance of them walking forward.

Speaker1:
But a lot of times when you do that on a horse at this stage, they're going to raise their heads more. And in raising their heads and getting their hawks even deeper, it's going to compound the balance problem. So it really matters whether you diagnose this as she's finding her balance, and that's why she takes a step or two out at the end versus she's not really committed. She's not really trying. The diagnosis changes. The treatment plan when walking out is assumed to be the horse isn't trying versus the horse is losing their balance. We actually change how we handle it. And then I think it gets even more interesting if you look another layer deeper If I allow Ember to stay fluid in her front end, essentially let her make that mistake right now, then she's going to have a better trot rhythm in her finished slide, because she never accidentally got the message of locking up her front end. So when a horse gets that message of stop with all four feet as hard as you can, just don't walk forward. It will impact them later on. Because we're never just training their body, we're always impacting their mind. One more layer deeper because I just can't resist. I actually love to play devil's advocate and question my own observations. So why might it appear that someone could just back the horse up and the horse could just figure it out? My answer to that, when I question my own thinking is because if you watch videos of people training or riding elite athletes.

Speaker1:
So let's stick in the reigning example. Now, what often doesn't get spoken when you're watching those videos is that the top 10 or 20% of elite reining horses don't need this kind of help? I have been around these elite horses and they're like elite human athletes. They are gifted. Things come easily. They don't need the extra help. But here's where the problem begins. If you pretend all horses are gifted athletes, then a lot of average or good horses will fall through the cracks because the average horse that's struggling is more likely to get scared. Using the exact same approach that the elite athlete can quote take. And the reason it looks like they can take it is because they actually don't have the same problems. Again, the elite horses are just talented enough to figure it out on their own. Here's an interesting twist. Again, if we give all of them the support that the average horse needs, then they all benefit. The elite horse will always just move faster because they're more gifted and talented, but they're not damaged. If you slow down and you're thorough, but the average horse who is much more likely to need help.

Speaker1:
A little more explanation, please. If you've ever been that student, that horse will greatly benefit if you slow down and treat them like individuals. So if you've ever heard of a horse quote failing out of an elite program, my translation of that is that that program was built for the elite, and they're not going to modify it to fit the average horse. And I actually don't have a problem with a trainer telling an owner this. That would be very much like an elite human coach saying This college athlete isn't going to make the cut into the next level up. However, I do have a problem when trainers apply methods that fry the average horse and then say it's a horse problem. So back to Ember. When I'm riding a horse, I do start making guesses about what category she might fit into. Is she average? Is she above average? Is she elite? But I'm always going to train to support her where she's at. And the longer I train her, the more clear it will become what category she's in. But I don't pretend she's in the elite category and just fry her and then say, oops, that didn't just work. Okay, back on track. This type of misdiagnosis is something that I've observed throughout my career. It could be the misdiagnosis of why the horse is walking out of the stop, or the misdiagnosis when a horse simply says they need more support, more explaining and somebody makes it a horse problem.

Speaker1:
Both of those, in my mind, are a misdiagnosis. My brain has always seen things as individual pieces and a whole. It's something that I do whenever I approach learning something new. I've always got this. Like, I want to see the big picture, I want to see all the pieces, and I keep going back and forth like that. So I naturally break things down and want to understand all the separate elements. This really started to stand out to me in college, when I drove my instructors crazy with questions about why and how things might be connected or things might be contradictory. And then when I graduated from college and I first started training horses and teaching people about their horses that they sent in training, I did what had been modeled to me, and I primarily focused on the horse's body because that's what we all see. We see the visible behaviors. But I was always obsessed Tasked with teaching that the body is always doing what it's doing because of the mind. I credit this to my mom because my mom didn't have a lot of techniques, but she had a lot of understanding, so she always made that very clear to me that the mind is what's causing the dog or the horse or the bird to behave that way. This connection is crystal clear to me, and that's why I can train horses.

Speaker1:
Like when you see Roxy in the bareback Bridleless ride or any of those other videos. If you jump on my YouTube channel and you watch me training Jack through the Colt Starting series, when I see the horse's thought process and change that, the training happens faster and is solid because it addresses the root cause, not just the symptoms. When I look back 20 years ago, I actually started seeing patterns like this in the riders I was coaching. I noticed that some riders got stuck and some riders kept moving forward. And that's when I realized that the same principles apply to humans. We've got to get inside their mind in order to permanently impact their body. Then seven years ago, when I created this podcast, I started trying to put this into words, and that's when I created the Foursquare model. So it's one thing for me to be able to use these principles myself, and then it's another thing to be able to demonstrate these principles when someone's physically with me. So let's say that I'm with them. They're watching me ride my horse and I'm giving them a riding lesson. And then it's a whole other thing to be able to teach you how to take these principles and apply them to yourself. Over the years, my own knowledge of how to use this as a training tool has grown, and that's what I want to share with you.

Speaker1:
So the very first thing I want you to understand is that the four square model is a diagnostic tool. Think about visiting a doctor. They collect information, they look at the symptoms, and they make a diagnosis before they create a treatment plan. The more clearly we understand the symptoms, the better the diagnosis will be. Understanding the problem and getting a diagnosis actually feels like progress before the treatment even begins, because now you can actually come up with a plan that will work even better when there are multiple challenges that all coexist. A good diagnosis will give you a clear starting point, and a clear starting point will make it easier to break it down into small, manageable, doable steps. Over the last several months, I've done a deep dive into how to make this more clear for you. I've spent hours and hours writing and rewriting and figuring out the best way to explain these individual pieces and how they're interconnected. And then once I completed that, I created a quiz that will do the work for you so you can answer a few questions, and the quiz will diagnose for you which area you should focus on first. But before we go there, let's look at the four individual quadrants of the four square model. Remember, they're all interconnected, but in every horse and rider team there will always be a weaker area.

Speaker1:
The four quadrants are the rider's mind. The rider's body. The horse's mind. The horse's body. Let's go a layer deeper. The rider's mind. That's your information and your perspective. The rider's body. How we physically communicate and influence the horse. The horse's mind how they are thinking, interpreting and seeing patterns. The horse's body. What we see in their behavior and physical responses. Let's do it again with another level of detail. The rider's mind. What we're looking for here is clarity and focus. The challenges in this quadrant tend to be a true lack of information, or a mind that's racing and making you feel like you never have enough information. The rider's mind area focuses on managing information and not overanalyzing. It helps you learn to stay present and intentional. Sometimes you really do need more information and sometimes you actually have enough information. But you need a perspective change. The rider's body. Are your views clear? Or are your emotions affecting them? Your queue system, your rein aids, your leg queues. Those things are important and your horse will absolutely benefit when your queues are clear and applied consistently. But there's another layer that riders often overlook or hope will just go away. And that's the physical expression of your emotions showing up in your body and influencing your horse more than you think. I'm going to talk about that again in a minute with one of my own examples.

Speaker1:
So when you learn to refine your physical awareness, what will happen is your horse will begin to get clear messages. The horse's mind. I labeled this one trust and understanding. Does your horse need help developing emotional elasticity, or is your approach reinforcing your horse's current responses? So some horses need help developing this ability to regulate their own responses to energy in the environment. So maybe another horse takes off running in the pasture and you're riding your horse and you start thinking, oh no, this is going to be bad. That's because your horse may have a habit of responding to the energy in the environment. So developing your horse's ability to stay calm and to look to you for guidance is something we can train. But sometimes what will happen in this quadrant is that your horse is actually reacting to you, because riders often overlook that you or me, that the rider themselves is another external energy source. And the final quadrant, the horse's body. Is your horse confused because he's learning something new, or does he actually lack the strength or balance to do the new thing? I think it's really easy to view our horses as big and strong, so when they're learning something new, many riders assume that the resistance is mental. But I often find that horses resist when they're confused, so they're unclear. And when things are physically challenging, when the horse is physically challenged, it will show up as bracing and tension or imbalance.

Speaker1:
And so those things that could be taken as resistance could also be taken as you need to figure out how to be more clear in the communication and how to build their strength. Now this is just a really quick overview. If you take the quiz, you'll get your unique result area, and then you'll also learn what this means for your journey. What's really happening inside that area? The good news about getting that result and some quick win steps that you can apply immediately. I think many training programs fall short because they primarily focus on the horse's body. That's what I experienced when I was being trained. And what happens is, when you miss those connections between all four areas, you might be strong in one or 2 or 3 areas, and it just takes that one to throw everything off. So there's value in breaking this apart so you know where to begin. And again, you could have multiple challenges. When I went to college I came straight from Maine. I'd been riding horses, mostly bareback and on the trails with some barrel racing thrown in on the side. And then I went into college into an equine program. I had a serious lack of knowledge. My first breakthrough zone would have been in the rider's mind and the actual need to acquire knowledge. But then many years later, and I've told the story here before.

Speaker1:
The first time I rode Bridleless in the freestyle reining, I failed completely because of the level of tension in my body. So outside of the show environment at home, I had all the skills, but in the show environment, my tension was so high that my cues were unclear, so my horse was confused. So while it's true that you're going to start in one area like I did with the actual need to acquire more knowledge, the real value comes in learning about all four of the areas and how they're going to impact each other, because in the same way, that one area can cause problems in another, positive changes in one area will cause positive changes in the other. So what does this mean for you? Maybe you've listened this far and you're just curious. So you want to go take the quiz. Or maybe you've listened and you think you can guess which result you're going to get. If that's you, make the guess and then go over to my website, take the quiz, and then email me and let me know if they matched what you thought your result would be and what you actually got for a result. Or maybe you've listened this far and you recognize that something's really missing in your training. Maybe you keep trying different approaches, but you just can't get lasting change. You feel like you're starting over again and again, or maybe you're just getting started and you just want a clear starting point.

Speaker1:
Those are the reasons I created the quiz. I wanted to be able to help people identify which of these areas to start in. So if you go over to Stacy Westfall. Com, you can take the quiz totally free. And you can either sign up to get more information on how the quadrants work together, or you can just skip it and just get your result right there. What I know for sure is I've seen riders make sustainable progress once they understand how these four separate elements work together, and accurate diagnosis is the beginning of any plan. Without it, you're just treating the symptoms instead of getting to the root cause. When you watch an advanced horse and rider team, their communication appears effortless because they've mastered the balance between all four squares. But everyone starts with wobbles, just like I did in college. And just like I talked about last week, when I'm training Amber, in the next episode, I'll dive into the horse's body, which is often what riders focus on first because it's what we can see. The quiz is over on my website Stacy Westfall. Com so if you want to take it, check it out and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you. That's what I have for you this week, 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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