Anyone Got The New Alexandra Kurland Book?

[Appy2quarter]

Hi everyone

Has anyone got the new Alexandra Kurland book yet - riding with the clicker?  If so, what are your thoughts?

Interested in any feedback.

Thanks

Appy

[Heather]

Hi Charlotte-

Nope havent seen it yet- must get a copy- is that the title? Alex and I are very much on the same wavelength and what she did with me under saddle, when she was staying with me a couple of years back, was exactly what Becky had also been doing!- and neither knew each other!


HEather

 

[cremello]

I've just ordered it, waiting for it's arrival, although I couldn't get a copy in the UK had to order it from the US

[michelle c]

no ive got her first one, at least i think it is her first!!!!   i have a home study clicker training foundation module from 'positive horse magic' and it is very good!!!  the riding phase hasnt started yet, it is in module one that the riding starts. i cant wait to start module one

[Genevieve]

Has anyone got the new Alexandra Kurland book yet - riding with the clicker?

The book is not out yet. Alexandra Kurland posted on the clickryder list yesterday that she was expecting to receive it from the printers within the next few weeks.

[Vrijheidsdressuur]

Came in with the mail this morning! And as I ordered it only tuesday this means that it came flying from the US to Holland in less than five days, which is very neat. I haven't read it yet, but I looked through it briefly to check for nice pics. Too bad the pic's are partly of a very bad quality, with hughe pixels showing and in some cases even to such extent that it's hard to see the picture underneath. The lay-out also is a bit simple, but I have to admit that I'm spoiled with that, as I bought her first book in German and that was a superb edition, hardcover, chique lay-out etc..

The methods for riding do look very interesting, though when I look at the pictures I'm afraid there's some ammunition for anti-clicker people who state that the risk of clickertraining is that you teach your horse the movements, regardless your own seat, and that you  reward only part of the behaviour so that your  horse gets the visible pieces of the puzzle right, but lacks the essence of the movement. So in the pictures there's a lot of nice neck-bending and head-carriage going on, but as clickertrainer and classical dressage-freak I'm afraid that there's not much engagement in the rear to be seen. Another point of critique when you look at it with a dressage-eye, is that even though the necks curl nicely on the pictures, in quite a couple of the cases it's what we in Holland call a 'false bend', in which the horse doesn't bend in the poll, but in the 3rd vertebra of the neck. And as the 'curl' is clicked and reinforced a lot, the noses of 80% of the horses remain behind the vertical. I think that you can get an idea of what I mean when you go to the books' website: www.theclickercenter.com and look at the pictures over there. I had hoped that those pictures were an exeption and that the book itself would pay more attention to achieving the standards of classical dressage, but when looking at the pictures, I'm not very sure of that anymore. But that's only the pics, I'm still going to read it and maybe the text proves me wrong!    

[Numbat]

Yeah, I noticed that in the website pictures too, although I don't have the book. Mind you, if it's so, it's a problem with the trainers rather than the method: if they only clicked for proper engagement, then they'd get that.

[Vrijheidsdressuur]

That's why I don't want to jump to conclusions untill I've read the text entirely. I totally agree with you that you get what you've clicked for, but my experience is that clicking for different aspects of a behaviour isn't always that easy when clicking for dressage, as dressage mainly consists of repetitive behaviour: You ask a horse for shoulder-in and then expect him to hold the correct stance for a couple of paces, up to 40 metres. Another thing I start to think is that the 'pieces of the puzzle'-approach that Alexandra advocates itself may be (partly) the cause of the problems too.

A similar problem I encountered when I taught Sjors the shoulder-in and transformed it from the shoulder-in at liberty to long reining. I started to teach the movement by freeshaping with the clicker and then adding the rein- and whip-aids  to add to the voice-cue I used untill that moment, everything with the clicker.That worked well, but a huge problem was that Sjors was just too smart for that method: He learns too much. That means that during the free-shaping he had made his own image of shoulder-in  and immediately made x steps in that mould when I asked for the shoulder in. That sounds very nice, untill you want to be able to collect or extend, controll the bend and the angle of the movement and you're confronted with a pony who replies with 'excuse me, but that's not what we're doing right now. Right now we're working at the shoulder in and this is it'. Of course then you immediately start clicking for the slightest reaction to your aids during that shoulder-in to teach the horse that within that exercise he can still be controlled, but Sjors' image of shoulder-in was so strong that it was quite a hard one to tackle.

Therefore with Blacky I used another method, by not emphasizing the freeshaping-phase that much, but instead teaching the schoulder-in directly during long-reining, just by clicking for good reactions to my whip/voice/rein aids and with that emphasising the reactions to my aids instead of the exercise itself.

A similar thing I encountered when lungeing freestyle, without reins, lunge and bridle. I wanted to see a nice, correct headcarriage and neckset during this work at liberty, so I taught Blacky to 'curl his neck' while standing and began to ask that during movement when lungeing. The problem was that Blacky immediately started to focus so much on his head-set that the rest of his movements (walk, trot etc) detoriated completely (in fact what he showed was probably the live-version of the pictures of the book, false curl, no engagement etc.). So then I started clicking for the curl when it was combined with more activity from behind, but again Blacky's image of how he should move was so strong that it was really quite hard to transform into what I wanted to see. In the end I decided to quit asking for the curl, and instead just click when Blacky's entire movement was nice. Then he learned in no-time to walk and trot forward-downward, and collect more (with a natural curl as result) when I asked for shoulder-in in that movement.

I think the problems of Blacky and Sjors and the pics of Alexandra could be connected in that they show essentially the same problem. It's a well known fact that breaking a habit is much harder than creating a new one. In both cases I wasn't  trying to break a habit, just transforming it into a new one, but I think that  to the pony's it seemed like breaking because the image I wanted to see and the image they had in their heads were in contradiction. I thought I was transforming 'curl your neck during halt' into 'during walk', but I can imagine that to Blacky the exercise was 'stand still and curl your neck', in which the standing still played a major role. Maybe he even thought that the standing still was essential in earning his rewards, and then asking for the same exercise during a brisk walk is indeed impossible. Alexandra Kurland writes that when clickertraining, you should see the exercise you want to tackle as a puzzle, one that you solve by clicking for every piece apart and then putting them together. Maybe the clicker is (for some horses?) just too strong for that approach when teaching dressage, as you never really know what your horse thinks he is rewarded for.  So maybe in dressage it's better to click in a more 'holistic' way, by looking at the total movement (ugly, but active trot for example) and then shaping the details into the movement that you really want to see (active trot with bouncing back, correct bend, forward-downward stretched neck and nose slightly in front of the vertical). So instead of first teaching the correct details (headset, bend, activating the rear by stepping over), you'd start with the essentials (for shoulder-in that could be reacting to your aids, for trot it's an active movement) and then shaping the details into place.

In classical dressage the 'curl' is seen as a result of a well ridden horse, and therefore it's seen as a grave fault when a rider starts by pulling the head in place before his horse has reached that pose naturally. In our case we're not forcing the horse to bend his neck during halt, instead we are positive and reward a nice curl with  food. But doesn't that give the same problems, in that the horse falls apart as the neck is set while the other essentials that should provide the curl naturally (active rear, right use of backmuscles and therefore the right pull at the neck causing the nice curl) aren't there from the beginning? Does this 'pieces of the puzzle'-approach lead to correct classical dressage, or is a holistic approach essential?

I'm extremely curious to see if any others have faced this problem, and how you use the clicker when training dressage. But for now, back to the book..  B)

[Numbat]

So then I started clicking for the curl when it was combined with more activity from behind

Fascinating, and I think you are so right that there is a danger of getting just the bits and not the whole. (I wonder if there is an advantage here to using treatless clicks or keep-going signals as well as clicks with treats). But I note that in the quote above, you worked on two criteria at a time without having first got each separately, whereas doing each separately, and then adding them together, would be the way Alexandra Kurland would advise, judging from her book. You seem to have done that next, and then it worked.

I have  had a similar experience with the neck-curl thing. I too started by teaching it at a standstill, but I did add in a rock-back and lifting the withers. But I still ended up with this very slow trot with no rhythm, at first. So now I'm clicking like mad for rhythm and impulsion, and I think things are going OK.

 

[Vrijheidsdressuur]

Yes, i forgot to add that I did also click for impulse during movement when walking/trotiing without the curl (as that's so logical for me as I use the clicker for everything ). It's just as you say it; the trot without the curl was nice and active, the curl without the trot was nicely rising from the withers, but combining the two together proved to be very difficult, if not impossible.

But in essence the first method (active trot + curl seperately, then putting them together) was in my experience the way Alexandra means with putting together the piece. The second is more evolving the next behaviour from the first.

By the way, I do use a keep-going signal when the pony's seem to need it, not only when teaching new behaviour (when the keep-going-signal means 'you're almost there, just a little bit more'), but also when expanding old behaviour ('one step more shoulder-in, you can do it!'). Maybe it's not the use of the clicker/keep going signal that causes the pieces-apart problem, but staying too long in the same training phase. So training the curl too long during halt, so that the horse thinks that the halt itself is an essential part of the exercise. The problems are probably less severe when you immediately transfer the curl into curl when walking, and then during trot, so that the horse has no time to evolve the exercise  into more than you want it to be. Curl = for the trainer nothing more than a relaxation, a bending of the poll, but the horse might mentally -and invisibly freeshape it into something you didn't mean in to be, for example into 'stand still and bow your neck while you tense all your muscles'. Invisible, but potentially lethal.