Do You Understand What Ray, Tom, Buck, and Pat teach?

cynthia peterson · Do You Understand What Ray, Tom, Buck, and Pat teach?

We got way off course a few times on the "Buck" thread (sorry, I am to blame too!.) But, it reminded me about something someone said about a well known Parelli Star Pro (among others) who has been attending Buck Clinics. Please don't ask, who or what they said, b/c that isn't the question. The question is: (and no bashing, just what you as students of Pat or Buck, think MEANS by what Tom and Buck taught.) Pat has said many times he is caring out Tom and Ray's concepts. So what have you learned and how do you carry it out? Maybe you can help someone else grasp those concepts,- maybe you didn't get the concept right and someone can help you there. Concepts like feel and timing, getting to the feet, etc. How do you get feel? What do you think they mean, and how do you do it? You could even do it by saying what you think the concept of each 7 games teaches toward those Tom and Ray concepts. If it is Pat Parelli's mission in life to teach you those, as he has said many times, lets give a test to see how well that is going. Who knows? Maybe Parelli. com will check in and see how things are going for them?

PasoBaby_CarolU

Don't forget Ronnie Willis, a lot of what Pat teaches came from Ronnie and he really should be included in that list.

It is a great question Cynthia - or I should say set of questions. Although if I was to boil it down to one answer, I would say it is to realize that the horse is just being a horse; we'll have a lot more success with horses IF we realize that one simple fact.

Humans assign horses so many attributes, both good and bad, that it is obvious few people take time to really KNOW and UNDERSTAND their horse.

In my book (slow work now that it's summer) I point out that horses only do two things, they do what is natural (instinct and breeding) and what they've been taught. If you remember THAT, then there is no reason to ever be upset or frustrated, angry or mad at your horse.

PasoBaby_CarolU

On the concept of getting to the feet, I find these two statements are pretty true:

"The supreme secret of good Horsemanship is the control of the horses feet...knowing how, when, and where to place them." Jack Brainard.

"Buy controlling the movement of the horse you control his mind." Robert M. Miller DVM

(more horsemen to add to your list)

AlythLong

Very interesting - but imo Robert Millers quote should be the other way around. By controlling his mind you control his hooves......

I haven't read or listened to Pat for the past few years but in the early days when I was he always referred to Ronnie Willis, not to Bill, Tom or Ray.....although he does acknowledge them at the front of his book

Imo the best thing Pat has done is simplify the teachings into the keys, principles, responsibilities and his many pithy sayings. I found the Dorrances book VERY hard going, with fellas this and fellas that. Nothing was clear or concise but a lot of innuendo and beating about the bush!!! Pats book was a bit like that, but more easily read.......But it's the doing that teaches us, not the reading.....

joti26

Over the last two or three years since having Del I have dipped in and out of many varying approaches to NH. Parelli, Rashid, Nevrov, Hempfling, Monty, Resnick Anderson Dorrance etc and the list goes on. I have concluded that 'feel' is only something you can grasp if you throw away your ego and focus totally on the horse and understand what it needs at each moment. It cannot be 'taught' as such it can only be learnt through doing once it's existence has been pointed out.
They all have their merits in different ways and have all taught me something, even if it is not to use a particular method with my horse. I think Parelli is by far the most comprehensive and the 'Horsenalities' the best way to understand the concept of 'feel' in that it makes you become more aware of how your horse reacts and why and how to change what you are doing to suit your horse. Dorrance refers to horses personalities quite a bit and seems to be one of the few. To most others it seems horses are just horses who might be spooky or stubborn etc.
Pointing the different personalities in different situations has made me far more aware of his reactions and this has taught me 'feel'.

cynthia peterson

Pat once said he didn't understand what Tom was saying. (Not the only one on that) But Ronnie Willis was a very good friend of Tom's (introduced Pat to Tom in fact, as Pat had heard of Tom and what he was doing.) Everybody has their own "turn" on what they learn, but, I believe what Pat was saying Ronnie tried to explain and teach Pat those concepts.

The posts are good. Keep them coming. And if you could, kinda' get down to not just huge concepts but how you do it. What you think Pat, Ray, Buck, or Tom would have done that and what they were aiming at when they did it. Like getting the horse to turn. Or the circling game. And I'll stay out of this so nobody feels someone is going to judge them right or wrong on it. It will be interesting to see if any of us were thinking the same thing, or way different understanding!

PasoBaby_CarolU

Cynthia, I think they all teach/taught basically the same thing, just using different teaching methods and styles. They are more the same then they are different. Pat starts at the beginning with new horse owners, but you still get to basically the same place with all of them.

bit

No. I do try to find people that are able to teach it, though. Brent Graef is a good teacher and has a good understanding of a fare bit of it. Honestly, the more I learn about feel, timing and foot fall, the more I realize how very far I would have to go to even come close to having a clue. I don't beat myself up too much. I wish I understood more.

thebundychick

Really great questions!

"What have you learned and how do you carry it out"

I have learned about timing & feel. I have learned that the horse is never wrong. I suppose I learned timing and feel, as a process of having really bad timing & feel. It wasn't just a case of learning "what happens before what happens happens." from the horses point of view.. that statement rings true for the human as well. If I know that a particular request is going to get a particular negative response from my horse, then i have to learn to ask a different way. If I ask to soon, or quit to late, my horse tells me straight away - so I LEARN timing. I think FEEL is a result of timing.

"how do you get feel"

For me, personally, I "got feel" through "feeling for the horse". You know that saying pat has.. "Feel of the horse, feel for the horse, and feel together". When i heard that I thought it was the biggest load of bovine faecal matter I'd ever heard. I scoffed and said "Ok grasshopper, what does that mean?"

But its so true. I interpret that saying " Put yourself in your horses shoes, understand where he's coming from and how he feels, and work together to succeed / improve"

I keep putting myself in his shoes. And as a consequence, I have developed "feel", I feel that moment in time pass where I know "enough of that game onto something different" and am rewarded when his ears prick and he follows my lead.

I guess ALL those guys have taught me that the horse is never wrong, that you don't need fear and mechanics to make a horse do something.

coveredbridgefarm

Cynthia, I think your question should not be answered by an absolute "yes" or an absolute "no" for most or all of us, but rather, it should be answered in terms of what level of understanding do we think we have of what those guys are teaching. For instance, just to put it in quantitative terms, if an absolute answer of "yes" equates to 100, then what level of understanding do you think you have attained? 20? 50? 90?

Of course, your answer will be highly subjective but a grading scale would be more meaningful that a simple yes or no, I would think, because probably none of us will put in enough time or effort to learn everything and hence, an absolute "yes" would never reflect our actual level of understanding.

Actually, thinking back on it, I believe that each of those guys would tell you that they have more to learn as well. We are all simply pursuing a higher level of understanding in all things, whether it is horse-related or not, are we not? I'm afraid that once we answer with an absolute "yes"(or "no" ), our pursuit will end.

Larry

merle

cynthia peterson

"Feel of the horse, feel for the horse, and feel together" is indeed a saying Ray Hunt said (Pat says it, but that is the source, which brings me back to Pat teaching Ray Hunt/TD.) What does that mean? What answer did those of you get out there from your Parelli Pro, or when or who did you "get" this? And what does it mean? Try to get it past a gross view, but what it is that it specifically means. Or like Larry said, do you think you "get" it 20% ( the meaning of it) not at all, or something like 100%? And the reason you know you get it is b/c of what your horse does with your knowledge. Give a specific. If that is too hard, just jump in there with what you can, we appreciate it all.

cokey

I remember hearing my Parelli Pro saying "Feel of the horse, feel for the horse, and feel together". I thought it was weird, and technically meant nothing. How can you feel "of" anything? Being a pedant, I just thought it was odd..

But now, I get it. I get it more than most people I meet, but less than I'm happy with. And knowing it cerebrally, and living it, are two completely separate things. Again - I see people who understand the concept, but will never "get" it..

I guess if I was putting a % on it, I'm somewhere over 50% - I think I get it enough to be on the downhill slope, but enough to know that there's SOO much more to know!

cynthia peterson

Cokey, glad to see you post. Ah, yes, I like your answer. Did a Parelli Instructor ever tell you what it meant? B/c I sure think they get a high % of understanding (hope!) You get those Pat/RH sayings, and I really want to know what the answer was. Some have said Pat explains TD/RH better. And right there is a good start, explaining those RH sayings.

Interestingly, I got on Ebay for something else and put "Ray Hunt" on the search. It came up for a his book as, "Parelli mentor, "Ray Hunt", as a description selling point title. Interesting....

joti26

Hi Merle, I find it difficult to put this into words so forgive me if it comes out wrong. I will do my best.
I found it really difficult to do Dels chart as he is a complex character, RBI/LBI was as near as I could get. When i had his chart done he turned out to be close to the centre of the RBE quadrant, almost on a cusp with RBI. They said he was hard to read in the report as he switches all over the place. Sometimes in a nano second.
I was trying too hard to categorise him and deal with that category instead of trusting my intuition, which I now see as 'feel'.
I see all of them in him far more and where he is at much more clearly now and when it switches.
So for instance the other day he came out of his stable very LB nice and calm wanting to eat the nice grass. Had a mosey, letting him eat. After a while he looked at me, this was feel for me, he wanted to do something interesting. So went to the school area, he used to hit a threshold here, so watched for it. He looked at that point, but, it wasn't a threshold this time, just a look through the fence. Feeling that we walked on, had it not been I would've retreated. Although still on grass he no longer wanted to eat but 'do' so a bit of driving game over poles and figure of eight. Then the challenge of the mounting block, I knew he needed to stop and think a while after what we had been doing, again for me that is 'feel' so used this as an opportunity to just let him stand next to the block until he came round, he had gone introverted. Now I needed to slow right down. After some time of just standing while I sat on the block he started grazing. Me getting on the block has been an issue and something we are working on, we cracked it in another part of the yard but not here. So I got on the block and he went RBE before I even got onto the second step. He needed to move his feet so went for the circling game around the block until he relaxed. As he was RBE I needed hardly any pressure to move him, the slightest move, whereas when he is LB mode I need to use far more to get his attention. I no longer need to think about this I do it intuitively moment by moment, it just seems to come naturally. This to me is what 'feel' is about. It has also helped a lot having someone else at the yard who is into Parelli as I see the differences between our two boys so clearly now. Both are in the same RBE quadrant but her horse is further out, he spooks far more easily and is far less complicated, rather more LBE than mine. I treat him differently as a result.

joti26

To add to that, I consider my farrier has 'feel'. We had been moseying waiting for him to arrive. Del was fine as he drove up, no problem with the truck. However, as soon as he had got out and walked towards us Del switched from a nice chilled LB to RBE, his head up body tense, not a big extreme but enough for the farrier to comment on how chilled he was and how tense he became. Del is a huge sceptic and needs a lot of contact with someone before he trusts. He has had this guy four times now but still not enough for him.
This guy has never been harsh or impatient with him, but, his previous one was. Del would've been ok to shoe but not comfortable and relaxed. So, my farrier asked if he could do something with him, what he did was nothing but half an hour of undemanding time and moseying. Only when he felt he had really relaxed in his company did he start to shoe him.

merle

joti26

Yes, I agree. They are closely related and perhaps a question of semantics. However I think of connection as slightly different, for me connection is more to do with something even more intangible, that magic when we walk side by side at liberty and he goes where I go. Whereas 'feel' is kind of sussing out the best way of doing something with a particular horse in a particular moment. They do go hand in hand same as focusing thought.

PasoBaby_CarolU

Merle, what you describe is more/less what I think of as 'feel.' And an interesting subject - although Cynthia's list doesn't include Bill Dorrance, and he wrote the book on it. True Horsemanship Through Feel, for those of you wanting to add to your reading list. I think you can also search this forum and find an entire thread that is a book review of the book while several members read it.

I am reminded of Pat's saying about the four stages of horsemanship, and once you're unconsciously competent with horses, knowing what to do, when to do and how to do, then you have "true feel."

bit

Brent Graef said that this goes so deep as to be a spirtual experience. He has more feel than anyone I've ever seen, and he said he was just scratching the surface. I know Tom Dorrance never thought he knew it all. It seems to me, our willingness to give what we are asking for, means a great deal to a horse.

Clarissa

I have not studied Buck or Ray in detail but what I know of Pat is that on the surface he seems to be teaching the mechanics of his method when in fact he is practicing the philosophy of his method. So that when people try to follow his teachings in that same superficial way, they usually fail because they never get to grips with the philosophy of it.

I imagine the same would apply to all of these main practitioners.

For me personally it wasn’t until I began to understand what was driving my horse’s mind, that I got to grips with what Pat (or Ken) were trying to teach me.

The thing about feel is that you will never have feel until you understand why the horse won't give you feel & that is a psychological process.

However having said that, I do believe feel & timing to be the most significant physical components of any form of NH. Actually it is the most significant physical components of ANY form of equine training.

Blue Flame

I don't have much to add to this discussion regarding the practitioners mentioned - however 2 things come to mind of things that I specifically do in my quest for beginning to understand feel.

The first is that sometimes I make an exercise of waiting until a horse is just about to move a particular foot, then I ask for that foot to move. More specifically, the horse was going to move that foot anyway and I try to just add my cue to it as close as possible to, but not late, the moment when he commits to the step. I do this even when in-hand grazing, focussing on the inside hind and fore and trying to leave my cue until the last possible moment before the foot breaks over.

The other thing is a tip that used to be posted on Jenny Paterson's website:

rotate88

Stole this from Martin Black.

Feel=receiving information from the horse (feel of).

Timing=delivering information to the horse (feel for).

Balance=feel together.

Blue Flame

cynthia peterson

Let me add a bit more from Dr. Dave's Martin Black (and the whole article is in this month's EXCELLENT Eclectic Horseman Magazine, something I always like to encourage people to get!)

From Martin Black in Fell, Timing And Balance.

Are you leading or following? We can enhance or inhibit the horse's movement, simply by being in time or out of time with them.

Gotta' go ride. But we will get into MB more...

coveredbridgefarm

Clarissa wrote:

rotate88

coveredbridgefarm

Dave, I think there are at least 2 factors at work here. One of them you have already mentioned, that the horse consistently does show us what works. The other factor is the perception of what the horse shows us that man more or less consistently expresses regarding that behavior. The problem comes in with the possibility that those two consistencies are less than identical. Or if people like Brent Graef are correct when they say that they have only scratched the surface of understanding horses, perhaps I should say the "probability" that they are markedly different.

I'm simply suggesting that one of the reasons for this alleged discrepancy may be the fact that it is often very difficult for these very good horsemen to find the words to describe what they observe. I see that difficulty arise in the clinics I go to, in the books I read, in the dvds I watch, and, of Course, on forums such as this one. Concepts like "feel", "timing", and "balance" are elusive(to us) insofar as they relate to horses.

We are talking about nonverbal communication on a fairly high level when we talk about a search for true unity with our horses. That is a serious challenge all by itself. And then we add to that the challenge of translating all of the parts that true unity would consist of into our language with its inherent limitations. We have much more work to do.

Just so there is no doubt, I am questioning man's selection of a verbal/written language as a path to total comprehension and as a way to perfectly communicate certain concepts. Man is already committed to his language so we're not going back to a pre-language existence. I wouldn't want to do that anyway because the language has given us many advantages over other species.

But maybe we cannot go back. Maybe we have largely lost the ability to communicate effectively in a nonverbal manner. And maybe that's why, or part of the reason why, the very best horsemen think they have merely scratched the surface. Maybe our language tends to get in the way of a true understanding. Maybe everything cannot be translated perfectly into our language.

Or to put it another way, when we search for the right words to express our thoughts about all things of an equine nature, do we allow ourselves to be satisfied with the way in which we have used our own language, or do we search even further for the words that might describe how the horse behaves? I'm thinking there might be a difference. I'm betting that Brent Graef thinks there is a difference. I'm thinking that Ray Hunt did too.

Larry

PasoBaby_CarolU

It may be called different things by different people, but I think Feel is a common trait among good horsemen...I found this in Frederic Pignon's book, Gallop to Freedom..

thelmanelle

Hertha

It's getting a bit late tonight for me to be thinking straight, but I feel [

] that the concept of 'feel' in relation to horses (plus of course in relation to all other living beings in our lives) has a variety of forms.

I don't think the variety is either a continuum or a layering. Maybe more like a star diagram.

A different type of 'feel' in different situations. I will sleep on it and hopefully post again.

Two or three of the varieties have already been discussed so far.

coveredbridgefarm

Carol wrote:

PasoBaby_CarolU

coveredbridgefarm

Carol, I have always thought of the 4 phases as varying levels of communcation through body language but I suppose you could view the 4 phases as 'phase 1=thought' and the other phases being some form of body language. I have no idea if that was even a consideration of PNH but that would be a possible interpretation.

I have been fortunate enough to have reached a relationship with a horse where it seems like the horse was occasionally reading my thoughts and I would find myself wondering what sort of body language signals I had been sending of which I was unaware. Maybe the communication instead involved some sort of thought transfer and did not really involve body language at all. I still suspect it was body language but completely discarding the possibility of thought transfer might not be wise. The mind, both horse and human, is such a mystery. Almost anything is possible.

Larry

PasoBaby_CarolU

Yea. Actually I was thinking that Phase 1 is focus. I found that all the work I did on focus worked both ways...it taught my horse to read my thoughts...but it also taught me to pay attention to what I was asking my horse to do. I think riding at this level is a great responsibility on the part of the human. I admit to not giving my horse my full, undivided attention a lot of the time.

Hertha

Here are the different aspects of FEEL as I'm able to distill them at the moment.

It seems to me that there are subsets of FEEL which are obviously related to our focus and intent of the moment.

My plan is to expand on each subset as time permits.

PasoBaby_CarolU

I'll have to look at that with morning eyes Hertha...looks awesome so far.

AlythLong

LOL Hertha - I have saved it, now to print it out and look at it without wine tinted glasses!!

Hertha

I'll start with the EMOTIONAL/SPIRITUAL thread.

I've had a large number of critters in my life and I was a zookeeper before becoming a teacher (not much difference

), so I can't really pin down where I learned this, but it does link to something from Parelli:

"When you can see the horse, the horse can see you and that's when the relationship starts."

For those of us fortunate enough to have our horses living on our own property, the spiritual connection is much easier to keep. When I first see the horses (often looking out the window) it is automatic to get a feeling for their well-being.

Are they looking in the window because they want their hay or are they out grazing? Are they standing naturally, resting in a relaxed pose or is something out of kilter?

I watch them walk over when I go out and observe to notice anything out of the ordinary.

And now I know that they pick up on my mood and feelings in a nanosecond.

It's a feel thing that goes both ways. With a better understanding of just how sensitive horses are, with experimentation and with experience, I've been able to gain more consistent emotional neutrality and continue to express emotional joy when my horse does something we're working on really well.

Studying Carolyn Resnick and Alex Kurland and reading Hempfling and Frederic Pignon has enabled me to 'listen' to what the horse is trying to tell me much more than I ever could before.

coveredbridgefarm

Hertha, your outline looks extremely intriguing.

Larry

PasoBaby_CarolU

I downloaded your chart and enlarged it this morning. Very intriguing...it reminds me of Linda's early charts getting the Horsenality chart laid out.

Starting with Spirituality and Emotions is interesting. To me it is probably THE thing most horse people miss. It's like they overlook probably the best part of owning a horse - which isn't riding it, winning with it, doing sporting events - it is sharing your life with it. It's the quiet time while they're eating. It's their going almost catatonic while you brush their favorite spots. It's the funny things they do to get your attention. It's their eagerness to go to new places and see new things - a curiosity that should never be taken out of the horse. It's there hugging you when you're having a sad day.

You are quite right that horses read your intent very well - much better then we realize.