This fits in very well with the ‘Comfort Zone Training’ series I have just been doing here (look it up on the right side of this Blog).
It reminds us to make good habits with our horses, these habits are the backbone of your training but then you have to break that habit and make a new habit to progress your training. Breaking a habit and incorporating a new bit doesn’t mean leave the original habit behind, it just means you need to move on, even just a step or a minute more, to lengthen/widen the original habit, thereby breaking the original habit and making a new, longer, better, stronger habit.
Habits can be easy things like walking from a stable to the field. First habit would be doing it straight, then you’d break that habit and go for a little walk along a fence THEN into the field, later on you could walk along a fence, down a track and over a stream and back to get to the same field.
It could also be a habit of finding new transitions, more gaits, incorporating lateral work…everything becomes an extension from your original task 🙂
- Shelley – HorseSavvy