Module 1.4 is a big gun. Lots of stuff to get through. At first I found this a bit overwhelming, but was then reassured that lots were things that had come up before in the home study course and the previous modules.
Educational program was covered in the home study module 1.212-straightness-training blog post
The interactive quadrant was on the Mini mastery program and on the stm module 1.2 stm interactive quadrant post
Training styles (teaching, coaching and handover) and the motivation quaderant I have come across before in stm module 1.3 13-understanding-horses-part-one blog
However this module goes into more depth in some of these areas so I thought I would reflect on leadership styles and reward.
Leadership styles is an interesting one. M talks about the role of the dominant mare and the stallion. In a herd environment both mine prefer to be henchmen to the lead, but will step up to lead in the absence of a strong leader. Sof has lots of lead mare characteristics, she commands respect in the herd, bosses around others and can be seen as a calming influence in stressful situations where so knows it is safe. In the current herd she is boss by default. Tonto is an aspiring stallion, in his younger days he was rather good at it, but now he is older and less secure he is a bit ott on herding his ladies and defending their hounor, to the point that he looses sof's respect. He does like following and herding us about though, and if another horse or person threatens us he imediatly positions himself in their path and chases them off.
The question of who is the leader between me and so is debatable. It seems to depend on situation. Often I am leader, but occasionally, like when I am on the ground in the school, or sometimes on the way to the feild sof tries to be leader. I think it might be when she perceives threat. Perhaps she does not think I am equipped to keep us safe.
Which was another little revelation from m - how to deal with spooking, something I have always struggled with. When a horse sees a threat we must take the leadership role. Which means staying calm, positioning yourself in between the threat and the horse, looking at the threat not the horse and relaxing. The horse then knows you do not see it as a threat. I have actually started doing this with sof when leading... at first because I didn't want to get flattened but then I realised it helped. When ridden sof still takes the lead - stopping and only going forward once she is happy it is no threat, but the other day whilst riding and leading I got her to go past by calmly saying everything is fine.
Educational program was covered in the home study module 1.212-straightness-training blog post
The interactive quadrant was on the Mini mastery program and on the stm module 1.2 stm interactive quadrant post
Training styles (teaching, coaching and handover) and the motivation quaderant I have come across before in stm module 1.3 13-understanding-horses-part-one blog
However this module goes into more depth in some of these areas so I thought I would reflect on leadership styles and reward.
Leadership styles is an interesting one. M talks about the role of the dominant mare and the stallion. In a herd environment both mine prefer to be henchmen to the lead, but will step up to lead in the absence of a strong leader. Sof has lots of lead mare characteristics, she commands respect in the herd, bosses around others and can be seen as a calming influence in stressful situations where so knows it is safe. In the current herd she is boss by default. Tonto is an aspiring stallion, in his younger days he was rather good at it, but now he is older and less secure he is a bit ott on herding his ladies and defending their hounor, to the point that he looses sof's respect. He does like following and herding us about though, and if another horse or person threatens us he imediatly positions himself in their path and chases them off.
The question of who is the leader between me and so is debatable. It seems to depend on situation. Often I am leader, but occasionally, like when I am on the ground in the school, or sometimes on the way to the feild sof tries to be leader. I think it might be when she perceives threat. Perhaps she does not think I am equipped to keep us safe.
Which was another little revelation from m - how to deal with spooking, something I have always struggled with. When a horse sees a threat we must take the leadership role. Which means staying calm, positioning yourself in between the threat and the horse, looking at the threat not the horse and relaxing. The horse then knows you do not see it as a threat. I have actually started doing this with sof when leading... at first because I didn't want to get flattened but then I realised it helped. When ridden sof still takes the lead - stopping and only going forward once she is happy it is no threat, but the other day whilst riding and leading I got her to go past by calmly saying everything is fine.
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