How To Position Yourself for Perfect Communication
Key points to remember about how to position yourself:
Communicating clearly is vital.
How successful your communication is can be attributed to how you can best influence the horse.
How to best influence the horse can be achieved not only with
crystal clear communication but where you are positioned in relation to
the horse to affect the manoeuvre or task.
Where are you directing your communication and what you are focussed on with your mind and body? This will give you a response right or wrong.
Using the information from the horse’s response will tell you exactly
where your focus was and how it was directed.
This is a valuable tool
to bring awareness to how you used your body and where you focused your
energy and most importantly what you were thinking of at the time! By
retrying the manoeuvre again with your new awareness and trying
something different in your focus, positioning and thoughts will you
find that magic place to be to achieve the desired result.
To best influence your horse takes an understanding of the body
areas of the horse.
What happens to the horse in each of these body
areas when you position yourself at a certain distance or in a certain
way and then ask him to do something i.e. the head area or
hindquarters? Your positioning has a direct correlation to not only
the quality of your communication but also on the outcome of what you
are trying to achieve.
Reading the body language of what the horse thinks about your
positioning to his body and the result of your two-way communication or
‘discussion’ will also determine how good your relationship is.
Does
your horse become very guarded or worried when you stand at a
particular distance to him or in a particular area or is he completely
relaxed? If your horse is at all worried about your positioning to him
then FORGET the game or manoeuvre, the best thing you can do for your horse is to help him become more confident and comfortable with you in that area FIRST!
The major pitfall in being so outcome focused is that you will do
what it takes forgetting the true cost.
Ignoring the communication from your horse
until it gets out of control or becomes totally ineffective and turns
into a nasty down hill spiral to literally become a big upsetting mess
for both of you!
