The Art Of Lightness; Utan Negativ Förstärkning

Without Positive – And Negative Reinforcement ..

For most of my life I have searched for ease and harmony with horses but I did not find it in Horsemanship methods of today – I found a certain part of it in the old classical art of riding. But a glimpse of it comes from the late Bill Dorrance who did not work horses with traditional pressure and yielding methods, but with feeling!

And something that goes beyond Horsemanship – The Language of Horses who taught me to work with horses free from the beginning without equipment, round corral or pressure. A horse communication completely based on the relationship with heart contact and the horse's free will. The horses always had a voice.

HOW WE TRAIN HORSES

Horses are trained positively with reward and praise, but also negatively with consequences and punishment. Normally they are trained based on the science of operant learning, which means using consequences to shape a behavior through reinforcement or punishment, whether this is positive or negative.

Negative reinforcement is removing something undesirable to make the behavior more likely to happen again. It gives a consequence to an action that results in the action being performed with greater frequency. A negative consequence is removed to encourage the horse to respond to the request again and again.

Punishment is a consequence to an action that results in the action being performed with less frequency. A negative consequence is added to prevent the horse from repeating the behavior.

Most training methods are based on motivating horses by minimizing or avoiding discomfort or pain. Most systems base training on negative reinforcement to motivate a horse to perform what is requested. An example of negative reinforcement is starting with a light pressure and then escalating the pressure, making it harder and reinforcing it until the horse does what it has been told. Then the pressure is removed to tell the horse that it has done the right thing.

For example, if you are teaching the horse on the ground to move its hindquarters and you use light pressure with your hand. When the horse does not react, the pressure is escalated and made stronger until the horse moves one step in the right direction. Then the pressure is removed as motivation and reward. And then the same procedure is repeated again.

In horse riding, for example, pulling on the reins until the horse turns its head in that direction and then giving in. To ask the horse to move forward, you press with the legs. If that does not work, the leg pressure becomes stronger. If that still does not give a reaction, the rider kicks with the legs or takes the stick. The horse's reward is that the uncomfortable pressure or pain caused by the rider ceases when the horse moves forward.

The method is based on making the unwanted behavior difficult and uncomfortable by increasing the pressure, and rewarding the desired behavior with concessions by releasing the pressure. This works well because horses learn quite quickly to start responding to lighter and lighter pressure to avoid the consequences of discomfort or pain. But pressure is no help. Pressure goes against the nature and instincts of horses and produces resistance and fear, because the method is based on discomfort and coercion.

When horses do not respond, you think that the aid was not strong enough, but in reality the help was probably not light enough.

In this method of horse training with pressure and negative reinforcement, you do not benefit from developing a deep connection and contact between horse and human in training the horse. The horse does not escape the demand that the trainer has created until the desired result is achieved. This approach does not take the time to shape the horse's behavior to have a desire to do something that it initially does not want to do.

The reinforced pressure is a threat that is based on fear and forces horses to submit to our will in order to do what they have been told. It does not matter that you start with the lightest pressure. It is still a threat to the horse that something worse will come if it does not listen. Every time the horse gives in to pressure against its will, whether subtle or out of aggression, it is diminished.

Not allowing a horse to escape the trainer's request and having the right to say no to guide its trainer, builds insecurity in horses. If you persist and force the horse to do what it is told, it is treated as a subjugated creature, no matter how gentle the approach.

Giving a horse the opportunity to have a voice and to respond positively or negatively without consequences is valuable in building connection and trust between horse and human. Being able to express its feelings and participate voluntarily is life-enhancing for the horse and creates a sense of well-being and enthusiasm for life, as well as an optimistic attitude towards cooperation.

In this freedom, we offer time to pause and allow evolution to do its part. Horses also need an ability to influence the trainer's understanding to better structure the idea and lesson or to drop it altogether in order to further develop the training of the horse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKS2R-lNOsk

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Most training methods are based on motivating horses by minimizing or avoiding discomfort or pain. Most systems base training on negative reinforcement to motivate a horse to perform what is requested.

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