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Post by horseguy on Jun 26, 2017 19:16:03 GMT
If you are building a house 100 feet long and placing roof rafters or trusses at the standard 16 inches apart you will erect 77 trusses including the eves. If you make a 1/4 inch additional spacing error placing each truss, which is easy to do, from one end to the other, you will be off by 19 1/4 inches at the end of the roof. That is a very large error and it is the nature of cumulative error.
Likewise, if you make errors in teaching horsemanship from one generation to the next from the last version of the Fort Riley American Seat from the 1920's/1940's era until now, and assess the current new young professionals teaching and training, you see the results of cumulative error of generations in time, which is also a substantial cumulative error. The result is a current generation of instructors and trainers who don't know what they don't know. In the ignorance that is the result of the time cumulative educational errors in horsemanship, and combined with a cultural phenomena called the "Millennial", we see "we have a problem Huston". The examples of the contemporary cumulative error result are everywhere. For example, at the barn I have been boarding, run by such a young "professional", bridles must be hung up in the Hunter/Jumper styles all twisted and wrapped in the throat latch, an equipment form that for me has no apparent purpose. But while these bridles are hung in the prescribe manner, you will see the bits covered in crusty greenish brown mushy disgusting stuff that when mixed with airborne yeasts and microbes creates a petri dish for colic inducing organisms. I have reported this danger to the "professional" in charge, and received counter remarks of what I call "Millennial reasons", which are a mix of excuses, non sequiturs and superior tone. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that not only do they not know what they do not know, they also do not want to know. This insures further ongoing cumulative error in the horsemanship educational process.
This is the 1932 Olympics when the Fort Riley seat was the American Standard. The rider is Capt. Earl "Tommy" Thomson and his mount is Jenny Camp, an Army remount Station Standard bred mare with no breast plate, no knitted ear protector, not figure 8 nose band only Army issue tack, winning an Individual Silver Olympic Medal
This is a contemporary rider with a trendy Gopro, huge eventing wrist watch. The horse has the now unspokenly required breast plate, figure 8 nose band, knitted ear protector, etc. at the Beginner Novice level (by the size of the jump), a level that was nonexistent in Jenny's day and is two levels beneath entry level eventing then. In other words, the entry level of the sport has been moved downward twice by the creation of two levels below Training during this period of cumulative error.
This rider, who appears to know exactly what to purchase to "be" an eventer but does not know how to use following hands. This poor horse has his rider "water skiing" off his mouth, jamming up his energy and corking him up in to a stressful landing position. This picture was offered online as an example of someone's good riding. They don't know what they don't know and are proud of it.
I have commented on the decline of dressage and Stadium Jumping. Eventing has managed to catch up with these in a very short time.
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Post by rideanotherday on Jun 26, 2017 19:27:37 GMT
It's like playing "Telephone" when we were kids. Drift from the original message occurs.
Some of the error is input into the message by the educators (your favorite - George Morris).
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Post by jimmy on Jun 26, 2017 20:45:50 GMT
Interesting topic. On a personal level,even on a day to day basis when riding and training, the results of cumulative errors become evident fairly quickly. Troubled horses are the result of cumulative errors that are hard to erase. Just as consistency is the only way a horse can progress, the only way to fix errors in training, is if the errors were at least consistent. Sometimes the way to improvement is to simply stop doing whatever it was you were doing poorly, so consistently. The really messed up horses are the ones subject to random and conflicting handling.
Another way to look at it is if the premise is wrong, the conclusion will be wrong. Because of modern media and social media, there is so much conflicting information out there, that I don't know how there is any form left to anything. Western pleasure is one example of cumulative errors, when you see what they looked like in the seventies up to today. And reining horses are not far behind. What is now considered normal, forty years ago would have been an aberration.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 26, 2017 22:25:19 GMT
Interesting topic. On a personal level, even on a day to day basis when riding and training, the results of cumulative errors become evident fairly quickly. Troubled horses are the result of cumulative errors that are hard to erase. Just as consistency is the only way a horse can progress, the only way to fix errors in training, is if the errors were at least consistent. Sometimes the way to improvement is to simply stop doing whatever it was you were doing poorly, so consistently. The really messed up horses are the ones subject to random and conflicting handling. Another way to look at it is if the premise is wrong, the conclusion will be wrong. Because of modern media and social media, there is so much conflicting information out there, that I don't know how there is any form left to anything.Western pleasure is one example of cumulative errors, when you see what they looked like in the seventies up to today. And reining horses are not far behind. What is now considered normal, forty years ago would have been an aberration. Yes, the internet has contributed a lot to confusion about what is effective in terms of contemporary training and riding in the sense of "they don't know what they don't know". One specific loss is what used to be called "the eye of a horseman" (not to be confused with an eye for distance).
We have one very timely example of this confusion posted on the forum today from what appears to be our first real troll here, who I will call UC (Ungrateful Child). UC posted a picture of me training Beaudant several years ago over one of his first down hill xc jumps. UC compared this picture to the one of the water skiing BN novice eventing rider above.
UC is an aspiring rider and professional hopeful, not yet old enough to secure a learner's permit, who sought to do a pot-calling-the-kettle-black about me by implying I am equally at fault as the eventing rider I compared to Capt. Thompson in the original post.
Here is my take on this photo. First, I did not and would not post it as my main profile picture anywhere as the so well equipped eventer did. The Beaudant picture is a training photo and training horses, like making laws and sausage, is messy business. Pictures of the training process can be imperfect and this one is. This is a small horse a tad over pony size, so the stirrups were short to keep my legs on him in the approach. The downside of this stirrup length is it raises the rider's upper body balance. (Pay attention UC, you want to be a horse trainer and their is a lot to learn.) If and when a horse gives you any zig or zag in the approach, your lateral balance can be effected. Mine was.
If you look closely with an experienced horseman's eye, you will see a couple unique things in this photo. One is the left rein is tight and the right is very loopy long. This could imply the rider does not know how to even his rein length, or perhaps an alternate explanation is evident. Next look at the rider hands and arms. You will see they are not resting on the neck, but rather both are on the right side of the neck and forward so as to be down past the crest of the horse's neck halfway up the rider's forearm. What you are looking at is a rider who apparently got both his arms on one side of his mount's neck in the jump. As I recall, at the end of the approach the horse zigged left and my upper body went right, thus the odd one side of the neck positioning of my hands and the very uneven rein lengths.
What I did correctly was balance in my feet, countering the force to the right on the upper body by weighting the right stirrup. The result is a rider mostly centered over his prospect with in the jump. My hips and shoulders are pretty square in spite of my hands being unable to return to the correct, one-on-each-side of the neck usual position. The horse does a nice jump in spite of my uneven reins, having been legged correctly into the takeoff and held on the approach line during his attempt to duck left.
Additionally, you see the rider/trainer employing his voice as an imperative aid in order to hold the prospect's attention in this early training attempt at a downhill jump.
My summary point is that in a compulsive attempt to discredit yours truly, this former student accidently posted rather good documentation of the kind of skill necessary to prioritize a prospect's focus in training. In this case, the priority was that the horse had to learn that refusal of a scary situation is not an option. Completing the task and overcoming fear, doubt or other negative motivations while trusting the rider's judgment that it can be done is the lesson. And lastly, a horse benefited from a rider's ability to isolate muscle groups, such as hands and arms, from the rest of the his body when things went a little wrong. It is the riders ability in this body part isolation process, keeping the majority of his muscle mass as centered as possible so as to not impede his horse's balance in a jump, that makes it work in this picture.
This level of knowledge of horsemanship, much less its understanding, of how rider body balance impacts a horse in training and how to optimize this even during difficulty is one very clear example of a specific I see being lost through this cumulative error process. Few young rider reach this point today because the focus on forms and sort horses culling out challenging mounts with ability. If UC had this knowledge, this eye, then it would be obvious to UC that a comparison to the water skier eventer picture is extreme apples and oranges, and under the heading of "they don't know what they don't know and they don't want to know", this is a welcome and perfect example of that contemporary mindset of ignorance. But, now you know UC.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 27, 2017 0:14:50 GMT
It's like playing "Telephone" when we were kids. Drift from the original message occurs. Some of the error is input into the message by the educators (your favorite - George Morris). Most of the cumulative error in teaching horsemanship since the 1970's has been the result of laziness and the ignorance that comes with it. But with Morris and Parelli I think the motivation was greed combined with an insight that people wanted simple superficial instruction and would pay dearly for it.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 27, 2017 10:50:27 GMT
The really messed up horses are the ones subject to random and conflicting handling. Yes, nothing is as difficult to fix than a horse that has random conflicting handling. I consider this a large part of what has been lost over time, in small increments, one generation of instructors to the next. The H/J people have some things the do consistently and others that are unimportant to them. As a result the aspects they consider inconsequential take on a randomness. They love to count strides. You will see very early beginner lessons where the instructor dutifully has the rider perched in a "two point" going over ground poles or very tiny cross rails, counting strides. A the same time the student might be swaying left to right, bouncing up and down perched to saddle pounding, and all kinds of other disruptive weigh shifts. Horses try so hard to figure out what all these shifts mean, and they mean only that the riders are unbalanced. Some are big heavy women, some small kids, each with a different set of unsettling movements above the saddle. But these random movements are not addressed as a priority. Instead the focus is on the number of strides. This consistent inconsistency has one of two results. The horse shuts down and closes off to all rider stimuli and you get a dead head lesson horse that is not very useful in teaching riding, or secondly you get a nasty complainer that you can't safely use in lessons. Both are avoidable. Both types can be found in many H/J barns. But since each generation since the Fort Riley Seat was the standard has incrementally distanced themselves from the military/working horse effectiveness set of priorities, and instead adopted artificial priorities based in visual forms, by now the instructors just don't know, and they don't know that don't know because to them they are continuing what they learned, but with each generation a little less of the original is in their teaching. It's difficult to put a percentage on how much they have lost but by now I'd say 75%, which means that the degree of resulting randomness in the riding and training is making a lot more horses dull or disturbed.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 27, 2017 18:01:43 GMT
In training prospects I always remember my first paid training job where I was told, that training is not so much doing anything right as it is not doing anything wrong. I think that is what Jimmy was saying when he commented that if you are doing something wrong, small as that wrong might be, in accumulates in the horse and you need to stop doing it. One simple example is having a horse stand still to mount. This is something I see fewer and fewer people demanding or even expecting a horse to do, stand still. The rider gets ready to mount and the horse moves, making it difficult to mount. So people change where they were standing, moving to the horse's new location and they try again, and the horse moves again. You also see riders moving a plastic mounting block to the horse's new place over and over until the horse gets tired of the game. At my farm I had a heavy Locust tree round for the mounting block by the arena. It always made me smile when someone would try to move it to the place a horse had moved to. A pickup backed into is once and it hardly moved. The point was, make you horse stand still.
I think many riders don't take this sort of detail seriously. I also think people are more prone to enable their horses these days and think it is helpful to move a mounting block until the horse is "ready". I admit it is a small thing but the cumulative error over time results in a horse that never stands still, and that is a huge issue for a horseman. Also, because we no longer have working horses, the consequences of this moving when mounted issue being a chronic problem is not important to many riders. However in a working Staff hunt horse it is imperative that the horse stand still for mounting, not only at a mounting block but anywhere you tell them. When you are alone working stray hounds out on the perimeter of the hunt and you find a hound caught in a fence or trap you have to free them, sometimes laying them over your pommel. To accomplish these kinds of tasks, the horse has to help by cooperating. You might be on a steep slope, in deep mud, difficult places and the hunt is moving away from you at speed. You have to stay in the hunt not dilly dally trying to mount up and there is no one around to help. This used ot be important in cross country too, but since the amount of permitted falls for a rider went front 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 to zero by now, the ability to get quickly back in the saddle on a course is no longer needed. (It just dawned on me that in the USEA rules committee meeting that went to zero permitted falls, I wonder if the fact that today's riders have difficulty remounting on a xc course was a motivator to make the zero falls rule.)
I think this is a multi level cumulative error problem. For one you have a difficult horse to mount. Secondly, you are building a cumulative low expectation in the horse and that effects general training and performance. Horses get sloppy minds for not having to execute tasks precisely. There are many more examples of how letting a horse off the hook of a demand over and over creates broader and deeper issues. We used to be much more demanding of details, now not so much. There is a time to be generous with a horse in training and let them fail without big consequences and there are many more times when precise execution of the cued task is the most important thing. Knowing the difference of when to do either is real horsemanship, and this is the third level cumulative issue today. Few trainer can make the distinction of when it is best to let it go and when not to.
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Post by jimmy on Jun 27, 2017 23:19:41 GMT
HG said: "I think this is a multi level cumulative error problem. For one you have a difficult horse to mount. Secondly, you are building a cumulative low expectation in the horse and that effects general training and performance. Horses get sloppy minds for not having to execute tasks precisely. There are many more examples of how letting a horse off the hook of a demand over and over creates broader and deeper issues. We used to be much more demanding of details, now not so much. There is a time to be generous with a horse in training and let them fail without big consequences and there are many more times when precise execution of the cued task is the most important thing. Knowing the difference of when to do either is real horsemanship, and this is the third level cumulative issue today. Few trainers today can make the distinction of when it is best to let it go and when not to."
The accumulative effects of low expectations.
Boy, ain't it the truth!
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Post by horseguy on Jun 28, 2017 13:33:11 GMT
HG said: "I think this is a multi level cumulative error problem. For one you have a difficult horse to mount. Secondly, you are building a cumulative low expectation in the horse and that effects general training and performance. Horses get sloppy minds for not having to execute tasks precisely. There are many more examples of how letting a horse off the hook of a demand over and over creates broader and deeper issues. We used to be much more demanding of details, now not so much. There is a time to be generous with a horse in training and let them fail without big consequences and there are many more times when precise execution of the cued task is the most important thing. Knowing the difference of when to do either is real horsemanship, and this is the third level cumulative issue today. Few trainers today can make the distinction of when it is best to let it go and when not to." The accumulative effects of low expectations. Boy, ain't it the truth! The problem is the new young trainers do not know that their training expectations are low. This is another level of horse world cumulative error and deterioration. You see in Hunter/Jumper barn horses that on an objective scale from 1 to 10, 10 being a very tough horse to train, horses that would be a 3 or 4 treated as outlaws. I rode one such horse, a Connemara, that was "trained" by a young "professional" that was a 2, that is just a stupid bluffer of a horse. I rode him once and he was good for two weeks until he reverted. Another similar horse there is now 8, having been at the barn for several years that is a witchy mare now past worthwhile redemption for lack of clear direction. What it would require to fix this horse is not worth the end product. ALPO time there, but now this wasted horse is a pet. I have trained Connemaras and they are a willing breed. But if you do not know what the baseline level of expectation is, you cannot train even an easy horse. These are horses spoiled that will cause these young "trainers" to move the mounting block to them all day long, and they continue to move the mounting block.
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Post by jimmy on Jun 28, 2017 14:00:46 GMT
You would think that over time, the accumulative errors would hit a wall, since the end often disproves the means. There is no fruit on that tree, so to speak. You would think we would abandon things that don't yield good results. But then we see the accumulative power of popular thought, telling us what is acceptable, what passes as great when it's barely any good at all. What are you going to do?
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Post by horseguy on Jun 28, 2017 17:43:14 GMT
You would think that over time, the accumulative errors would hit a wall, since the end often disproves the means. There is no fruit on that tree, so to speak. You would think we would abandon things that don't yield good results. But then we see the accumulative power of popular thought, telling us what is acceptable, what passes as great when it's barely any good at all. What are you going to do? What am I going to do? This. I am speaking to the equestrian public here. I also wrote an email to every Board Member and Officer of the dressage organization that does not like to be disturbed, and over the years I have started both hunt and polo clubs, had programs, given clinics, and more. I hope from these efforts some riders will maintain some level of riding and training standards above the "barley any good at all" contemporary level.
It's not easy but I feel it's my work. Some people get it and some don't. I don't look for conflicts but I am not opposed to them because they wake people up. A symptom of waking someone up is they get grouchy, as we've seen here lately, personal attacks, etc. All we can do is hope that one day after these self determined "trainers" have been feeding that no good horse, probably for years, that really doesn't work for them but keeps costing them money to keep, some reality will seep in. However, it rarely does because equestrian participation has become increasingly expensive and the people in it by now "have money" or know how to suck up to money. Their parents buy them a farm so they can be a "professional" or their husband supports their hobby for tax deductions and to keep his wife happy, and they get to call themselves a "professional", but they are not a professional in any traditional sense. It's real for them and pretend our older standards. Again, I have to fault the USEF for not being on par with The British Horse Society, The German National Equestrian Federation and other national organizations that govern equestrian standards. In America virtually anyone can "be" a "professional" if they can get enough financial support to enter and maintain the charade.
Did I mention we keep dropping in international competition and hunt clubs now hire European Staff to work their hounds?
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Post by horseguy on Jun 28, 2017 18:40:10 GMT
The link took me to a google page with a picture of a mushroom. There are some colored icons above right. The 3rd from the left from the first colored one is for posting pictures.
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Post by jacki on Jun 29, 2017 12:56:29 GMT
Welcome, Madison - nice pic. I like your leg position, open shoulders, relaxed elbows, and your eyes/head are up. Very nice. It's hard to tell from a static photo, but it looks like your horse has pushed off with both hind feet (rather than "striding over") - again, good job. I also like the absence of the trendy figure-eight nose band. The only question I have concerns the bit. It looks strange -- is it too big or pulling through the horse's mouth or something, or is it just a weird photo angle? Keep riding, and keep posting!
*Note: I am neither a rider nor a trainer.
Jacki
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Post by rideanotherday on Jul 5, 2017 11:17:12 GMT
Welcome, Madison - nice pic. I like your leg position, open shoulders, relaxed elbows, and your eyes/head are up. Very nice. It's hard to tell from a static photo, but it looks like your horse has pushed off with both hind feet (rather than "striding over") - again, good job. I also like the absence of the trendy figure-eight nose band. The only question I have concerns the bit. It looks strange -- is it too big or pulling through the horse's mouth or something, or is it just a weird photo angle? Keep riding, and keep posting! *Note: I am neither a rider nor a trainer. Jacki It looks like there is an O-ring snaffle with a drop noseband of some type.
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Post by Sup on Jul 5, 2017 12:49:50 GMT
Welcome, Madison - nice pic. I like your leg position, open shoulders, relaxed elbows, and your eyes/head are up. Very nice. It's hard to tell from a static photo, but it looks like your horse has pushed off with both hind feet (rather than "striding over") - again, good job. I also like the absence of the trendy figure-eight nose band. The only question I have concerns the bit. It looks strange -- is it too big or pulling through the horse's mouth or something, or is it just a weird photo angle? Keep riding, and keep posting! *Note: I am neither a rider nor a trainer. Jacki It looks like there is an O-ring snaffle with a drop noseband of some type. It's a corkscrew full cheek on a micklem bridle
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