Be true to yourself ...about yourself

I recently finished Kathy Pike's book Hope... from the Heart of Horses and found one part in the book in particular caught my attention and held it:

"A human who is in an incongruent state of being - thinking one thought while feeling a different emotion, or carrying an agenda and trying to hide it - gives off the same vibration or stress signals as a predatory animal in the wild. ...Horses couldn't care less what you are trying to appear to be; horses sense what you are feeling, who you are, even if you are unaware of it yourself." (p 49)

It's true. A horse won't care what your agenda is or who it is you're pretending to be - they only care about the true self. That's what makes horses so great to work with when it comes to therapy: you know pretty much immediately if someone is hiding something based on how the horse reacts to them.

Take my last group demonstration for example: I was having a bit of a crappy day and tried to fake it with my group. I wasn't able to get my demonstration done initially because Jamie, the Standardbred horse in the photo, was anxious and a bit fidgety, sensing my emotions. After taking a minute to sort out my feelings and show Jamie that everything was okay, he responded well and did everything I asked him to do.

I guess I, and pretty much everyone else out there, need to take a minute and remember that you can't lie to a horse so you might as well be honest with everyone in the first place.

Lessons from Monty Roberts: Teaching vs. Learning

I finally got around to reading Monty Roberts' book "The Man who Listens to Horses" and I must say that I'm very impressed. The book is part biography and part tantalizing hints about horse behaviour, all wrapped up in a neat package.

If I try quoting each part that has stuck with me, I'd probably need to write a book of my own, so I'm just going to quote one:

"Knowledge, she told us, ...needs to be pulled into the brain by the student, not pushed into it by the teacher. Knowledge is not to be forced on anyone. The brain has to be receptive, malleable, and most important, hungry for that knowledge... To use the word 'teach' implies an injection of knowledge... there is no such thing as teaching, only learning." (The Man Who Listens to Horses, p87-88).

Now the great thing about this statement is that it can be applied to both people and horses. In fact, Roberts uses it as part of his teaching philosophy with horses. I'm in the same mindset as him; it's impossible to teach either a horse or a person something if they don't want to listen or learn. The trick is to get them interested and wanting to learn. Usually this will involve making learning fun, rewarding (either in the physical sense, with praise or treats, or mental sense), or easy. Or it could be a combination of all of the above.

What I'm really getting at is if you find yourself as the teacher getting frustrated with your students, be they two or four-legged, take a step back and ask yourself "Am I helping to facilitate learning or am I forcing knowledge right now?"

Call it a hunch, but some of my sessions with my students will probably go a lot easier from now on.