APPLY: There’s no limit to the things that don’t work, so it’s best to talk about the things that do work. Like feel, and how to apply it.
To get good at applying feel, there’s always a place for a little experimenting to see if the animal, and we’ll say a horse in this case, can follow the feel that you have presented. If he can, then he would be ready to move up the line a little to learn the next thing you needed to teach him. As he progressed up the line, the foundation he was working from would get bigger, and set in place real solid, so it would be there for him to fall back on.
That foundation is real important, because if there’s trouble spots showing up in his future, that foundation is in place for him to rely on. And that takes place right at the bottom, on the start of it, when he had no idea of what a person had in mind for him to do. If a person takes enough time to develop the horse’s understanding of each thing they wanted him to know about and be able to do, through feel, and if they were consistent in the way that they applied each particle of feel, there would be no need to progress that horse any faster than he could understand — because he would understand. And any horse will understand it, if he’s brought along with this preparation part worked into his mental system right from the start.
If that person who’d been doing the experimenting was getting feel applied in a way that fit the individual horse, then he’s understanding what he’s supposed to do maybe more than before and that horse would start to develop some confidence in himself. That’s what a person would build on and then, just a little bit at a time, that horse and the person could move up the line together.
When you learn how to feel of an animal, and we’re speaking about horses now but this could take in all animals, then you’re in a position for that animal to learn how to feel of you. Then, when he does learn how to feel of you, how far you can go on from there just all depends on how knowledgeable you are about feel and how to get it applied in a way that he can understand what you want. We wouldn’t say there’s a limit to that.
I really appreciate these weekly postings. Bill's words so simple, so true but you don't know what you didn't know until you know it. You may know something is missing and are seeking. Sometimes it takes a long time with a person (me) and sometimes it take a long time with a horse. It takes the time it takes. The longer I am on the journey the more I know you have to be right with yourself to get right, do right with a horse.