So, after hesitation as to whether I should put pen to paper with my experience with Performance mode, I will share my own knowledge and experience, as I too feel what everyone else feels.
I have developed skills and training in learning to train my cognitive side of my brain to respond with individual body parts. I have been working in a high-performance industry for over 20 years. It is through my Career, I have self-learnt these skills. I am a Master Wool Classer, Director and own a successful business. I train others to work in the Sheep Shearing industry, so I have a full understanding of how to turn my switch on and off.
Over the years, I have transferred these skills into my horse world and have solely developed my own self analysis of how I am performing in the training of my horses. I will attempt to describe to you of the process of developing these skills, yes, there is no such thing as perfection, but there is the ability of being 95% accurate in your knowledge and practical skills. First you must assess yourself, how do I learn, do I need to watch, Touch, Hear, feel to be able to have an understanding of what I am trying to learn?
I learn through Auditory, Visual, Sound and Touch, I dream in colour and hear sound in my dreams as well. This I learnt from completing courses with a PHD Professor in Skills and communication development, it is through these channels that I can find a training pattern in how a human or an animal is learning and communicating (responding). This brings me to how I started developing my brain to send signals to body parts faster and with more accuracy. In my work, we are working athletes, we all need to be physically capable of high pressure working at, high volume of speeds, with accuracy, precision and stamina.
The brain is quicker at sending signals to the body, to do the task we are wanting to do, but the body is slower to respond. It is when we recognize which muscles or body parts that are not responding to our brains instruction, is when we re- program the body to receive the signal at the same time, without delay or no response. An example is: I have excellent eye and hand coordination skills, I have very quick reflexes when I am working, this is through training both sides of the body to be able to do the same things.
The problem is, we never fully become 100% symmetrical, we can get very close, but our brains have two sides and control our opposite sides of the body. This is where, I will pinpoint exactly how my body is performing on my weakest side, I will then switch on my focus and deliberately train those body parts to do as my brain is Instructing. It is a hard, slow process, but the body starts to develop a pattern in the way your signals and body are responding to each other.
The use of visualization in the training of how you think the training should look, is completely different to how it actually feels. So, when your brain starts to develop the feeling of the image, that’s when you can understand, how to isolate the problem areas in your performance.
Training your self to have two separate worlds is a skill in its self, I have a human world and then the horse world (life, nature, animals, environment). Being able to judge your environment in a training situation and adapt your performance to that criteria is on a daily basis with horses. As you start to find a method in your personal development, that is when the physical training really takes affect in your ability to respond quickly.
What I have learnt in training my self and my horses, is that you need to understand turning on that part of the brain at any given time, with no distractions, just focus and your brain communicating with your body. The Masters do this naturally, as they live this life, so their natural senses are already in tuned with the workings of how horses feel and respond to the teaching methods.
They become symmetrical through the brains ability to understand the right and left side of controlling their instinctual movements. This is also the person having awareness of which part of the body is causing irregularities in the horse’s development. I have spent thousands of hours, training in meditation, focus and the workings of my neurological system.
Training my body in yoga, Tai Chi and extreme stretching, has helped me get past mental barriers with pain and discomfort. I will never be as strong as I once was, but today I am a more developed person in my body and mind than I have ever been in my life. My horses have given me the strength, to things I never dreamed I would possibly ever do or feel. I believe that any thing is possible in the right mind set, just focus on you and know your ability’s and just keep developing yourself.
I had to learn to develop feel with horses, I had no choice but to find that connection with the physical part and the mental part of my brain. My beautiful horse developed Periodontal Disease as a 3 1/2 year-old from the high sugar in the hay in Australia. His teeth where affected so badly, that There was a chance he would never have a near normal mouth again. I never gave up and I treated him every day for 4 years, even while I was trying to learn to get past my back injury. I didn’t care that it took me 1 hour to hobble up the paddock, I did it, why? Because my horses love me, and I love them, I will do whatever it takes to have a wonderful relationship, even when life gets really hard. Sometimes that’s where we learn the most, through life.
As of Roughly eight months ago his mouth is 95% back to normal, but through my own personal development I learnt to understand what was happening to him, the affects it had on him mentally and behaviorally. Any work I did with him, I had to develop looseness in my hands, arms and shoulders, fingers, so I did not cause any pain unnecessarily.
How I am still developing to this day is the use of self-assessing my performance, being switched on every time I am with my horses, whether it is just grooming. I evaluate every situation, I read and listen to my horses and what they are telling me, I fully believe with my heart and soul that, once you learn to speak fluent horse language, it will be an amazing life changing moment when it all connects, as it is for me…….