Training With Feel - A Basic Understanding 

Thank you Ross for discussing this subject. Feel your horse. Feel your animal, whatever animal it is. It all amounts to being gentle in my opinion, it all amounts to letting the animal know you, to letting the animal understand that it can trust you. Look into the animal's eye, fall into their gaze, touch the animal in a gentle way, and let the animal learn to trust you. Don't go past the animal's boundaries, don't attempt to control the animal, but rather learn to "lead" the animal, if this is what makes them feel secure.

Outstanding horseman here.

Thank you Ross .Your the first person to clearly explain what I have tried to explain to others since the sixties My kind of thinking and empathy was in those days scoffed at and called Woman Spoiled. Didn't stop me building a relationship with each horse as an individual. Also talking to your horse ,always done that .Only have one horse these days ,he trusts me to help him through his anxious moments ( he still has them occasionally ) Thanks again and God bless Alice wherever she is .😊

You are on top of your game. One of the best

I think it comes down to empathy. High empathy = high propensity to grasp feel. We have different levels of empathy for many reasons. I agree that it takes us time to learn how to interpret the cues, but simply watching and spending time with a horse will do that, provided you empathise with them. How do you know what a horse likes? You do it, and you watch their response, empathising with how they feel. Do they pull away, or are they closing their eyes happily. Some of it I think is innate, research shows newborn babies can understand facial expressions, and that horses also have an understanding of human facial expressions. We tune ourselves though not to see horses expressions, it just requires us to retune ourselves. Only people with trauma or mental issues are unable to see expressions, which does not include most people. People often try to do this kind of understanding using logical thinking, which is doomed to fail, as it is way too slow. Sure you can analyse how your horse acts and theorise how they feel, but that takes many seconds to do. Feel is instant, immediate feedback on how the horse feels. It's a subconscious process. At the start it's good to analyse, but I think the goal is to hand that process off to the subconscious.

thank you Ross well described feel is many things and i love your thoughts alice x

Thank you, I need this

no awareness no feel -true with anything in life. If one is taught (early in life is a bonus) to become aware and continue to develop this all encompassing awareness, then education and application can be fulfilled with greater ease. Technique without feel is a trick, technique with feel is multi-directional and leads to conversation.

I understand horses

4:25 smeone is taking a nap

New music!

Where are you based mate

Who’s Alice?