Horse Sense for People
Monty Roberts
The man who listens to horses talks to people.'Monty Roberts will make you marvel. The Man Who Listens to Horses will first break, then mend your heart.' New York TimesAlready famous for his way with horses, Monty Roberts now wants to revolutionise the way we communicate with each other. His principles of trust and non-violence, about which he speaks so passionately and lucidly in his public demonstrations, made corporations from all over the world send their managers to watch his work with horses. They saw that Monty's techniques could be applied to business leadership and training.People of all kinds all over the world write and talk to Monty Roberts everywhere, because his passion for understanding, for gentleness, for fairness, reaches all of his audiences. They respond to his ideas of how we can make the world in which we live and work a better place.'The demonstration by Monty Roberts taught us some valuable lessons in peoplemanship. Each of us learned something we could bring back to our daily lives.' Richard H Frank, Chairman, Walt Disney CommunicationsWe can't all meet him, so in response to the almost universal demand to Monty to make his life-changing thinking available to everyone, he wrote this book.
HORSE SENSE
FOR PEOPLE
MONTY ROBERTS
Copyright (#ulink_e673cd70-f28b-55cd-8e57-40d1fe4595b0)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers as Join-Up: Horse Sense for People in 2000
Copyright © Monty Roberts 2000, 2001
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780006531616
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007381869
Version: 2016-02-26
To those thousands of people who have come to me and said “You must give us the human version of the concept of Join-Up.”
CONTENTS
Cover (#u58c0c5ab-a0c5-538c-89e7-4259059c0011)
Title Page (#u5815e658-95d0-515a-ad0d-35148879a767)
Copyright (#ub19844c5-0bcc-5864-8e7e-a73c5db98040)
Dedication (#ubd0a3b5c-bcc7-53d7-a500-7486a0037ab5)
Forewords (#u04ccde01-5263-52c0-9170-0c13f05ea278)
One JOIN-UP: THE JOURNEY (#ue4e04399-6975-534b-b6f5-d99e12c2e6eb)
A STORY: The Mustang Mare (#ulink_886a9de5-ea01-5e5f-8ed9-a54eade21ed6)
How to Achieve Join-Up (#ulink_e4a8c6fe-f233-5c06-ba9d-91405105285c)
Join-Up: The Journey (#ulink_8e2ef303-83cc-5862-90cb-d7e9b713d0a2)
Join-Up in the Workplace (#ulink_c4d9a61d-828e-53ad-9f00-4f12b8fc05ee)
A CORPORATE EXPERIENCE: Paradyne (#ulink_8eb292e0-d557-5bb7-923e-bb355471475f)
A CORPORATE EXPERIENCE: Transit Mix (#ulink_caff84e1-4c2a-551b-bde5-dfbd23ae405c)
Two COMMUNICATION (#u62d3665e-733f-5b12-9dc6-fa9bea209538)
Father and Son (#ulink_ecc92a65-61b5-5254-acd5-1992da2dcd78)
Discovering the Language of Equus (#ulink_1044c92b-cd99-5b89-9f11-56d66d13dc97)
Body Language (#ulink_f6c7a272-4973-52c6-8b69-0a85e1e106c5)
A STORY: Cadillac
A STORY: Reading Each Other (#litres_trial_promo)
The Round Pen (#litres_trial_promo)
Why We Need Join-Up (#litres_trial_promo)
Imprinting Our Young (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Barlet (#litres_trial_promo)
Three AGAINST VIOLENCE (#litres_trial_promo)
The Road to Columbine (#litres_trial_promo)
Violence Through the Generations (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: PB (#litres_trial_promo)
Four TRUST (#litres_trial_promo)
What We Achieve Through Join-Up (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Blushing ET (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Tina (#litres_trial_promo)
A CORPORATE EXPERIENCE: CSX and Tropicana (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Betrayal (#litres_trial_promo)
Five RESPECT (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Brownie (#litres_trial_promo)
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Learning (#litres_trial_promo)
The Blackboard System (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: The Trouble with Harry (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Where Do I Sign? (#litres_trial_promo)
Six THE GOOD PARENT (#litres_trial_promo)
Infants (#litres_trial_promo)
Spare the Rod (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: The Water Glass (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: There Are No Back Doors in Life (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Margaret’s Chore Chart (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: The Boy with Baggage (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven CHOICE (#litres_trial_promo)
Greg Ward (#litres_trial_promo)
A STORY: Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover (#litres_trial_promo)
Crawford Hall (#litres_trial_promo)
The Muckers’ Story (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight CHANGE (#litres_trial_promo)
The Art of Listening (#litres_trial_promo)
Slow Is Fast (#litres_trial_promo)
A CORPORATE EXPERIENCE: Change and the Nature of Leadership (#litres_trial_promo)
Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Monty Roberts’s Ideas to Live By (#litres_trial_promo)
From Horses to Humans (#litres_trial_promo)
CONCLUSION (#litres_trial_promo)
Simplicity
The Power of Gentleness (#litres_trial_promo)
Appendices (#litres_trial_promo)
Corporations That Have Visited Flag Is Up Farms
Blackboards (#litres_trial_promo)
For Further Information (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
FOREWORDS (#ulink_4b6c6d0a-8026-52c7-a32c-09e2c2d7186c)
It took almost my business lifetime to begin to understand the tremendous power that can be leveraged when people’s individualism, creativity and wisdom are unleashed.
In recent years there has been a growing appreciation of enlightened forms of leadership that seek to engage, involve and inspire, as opposed to the long-standing practices of “direct and control.”
Meeting Monty Roberts and absorbing his philosophy was a really magical moment for me—I am inspired by his beliefs and impressed by his actions. He clearly demonstrates that kindness and respect for the horse are superior to the traditional breaking of the animal’s spirit. Monty’s notion that the teacher (or leader) must create an environment in which the student can learn and grow is simple, direct and honest—it fit perfectly with a style of leadership that I have been experimenting with since the early eighties.
Monty Roberts certainly listens to horses but, in my humble opinion, he delivers a powerful message to people and, in particular, people at all levels of leadership. What he achieves with a horse is a metaphor for a style of management—employees will produce exceptional results if they are treated with dignity, respect and honesty.
In the world of organizations and business we make the mistake of putting people in boxes and limiting their abilities and creativity—we need to find a means of changing the way people think about themselves, their jobs and how they work as individuals and in teams. I suggest you couldn’t start anywhere better than this book.
CLIVE WARRILOW
Volkswagen North America
CEO and President
I am not usually to be found kicking up the sawdust of a riding ring, especially if it means taking a long drive to get there. My encounters with horses have been limited to having them step on my feet on hot summer camp mornings nearly forty years ago. As an adult, I look at them as not much more than a one-horse power motorcycle with a mind for unpredictability. I once spent a ludicrous amount of money to ride a horse named “Cheesehead” while I looked, dry-mouthed, down a thousand-foot drop in Yosemite National Park convinced that my mount was more interested in biting the rear end of the horse in front of me than concentrating on his footing. I have never grasped why so many people, including gaggles of little girls, have such a big thing for these creatures of tonnage that can decide to run like a demented rabbit just because a piece of paper blows across the trail.
So again, I wonder why I am standing in sawdust while people with big shiny belt buckles, jeans and pointy boots mill around me. The loudspeakers are playing full orchestral renditions of “Don’t Fence Me In” and “Tumbling Tumble Weeds.” With my nondescript beige pants (khakis?) and T-shirt I must look out of place. I am also too fat to ride horses. I’m surrounded by opposites, hundreds of gangly men and tiny women. Like the horse they appear to love so deeply, they are a different species.
Oddly enough we are all here to see the only other person in the place who doesn’t look like he ever rides a horse, Monty Roberts. I’m here to see a man who deciphered the horse’s natural language, Equus. By demonstrating its application he is spreading the word about how to rid the world of outmoded concepts about the violent domination of horses. I rather suspect he has simply invented a way to convince a horse that it is in its best interest to allow itself to be ridden. Sure, he is kind of a Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey of the horse world, but I would just as soon watch that kind of thing on PBS.
Why am I here? Why has his best-selling book The Man Who Listens to Horses been read by millions of people like me who would just as soon never deal with a horse? The music stops and Monty walks into a circular metal fenced ring. He looks like a London cabby. This is the man who was a child prodigy, a wonder rider. Arguably he knows more about horses than any other person on this earth. His eyes are pale and full of life; yet ironically he is completely color-blind. At sixty-one he has the clarity and cadence of voice of a thirty-year-old. He’s not wearing a cowboy hat. There’s no denim, just a nondescript jacket.
This is the man who listens to horses. For his first act, he takes a horse that has never been ridden. He communicates with it by using a fascinating body language, all the while talking on a wireless to a hushed crowd. The horse moves nervously around the ring while he allows it, he tells us, to go the usual distance it would if a predator were trying to chase it down. Monty freely admits that he is the predator and gently induces a little anxiety that puts the horse into a trotting flight around the ring. Then Monty does his magic.
The Join-Up begins. Through a series of bossy postures and motions he actually communicates to the horse in Equus and the horse has an amazing change of heart: Monty is not a predator—Monty is now not only a friend, but a powerful one with experience and savvy, offering protection and companionship. The worst fear of every prey herd animal is isolation. Monty has taken advantage of this fear. Within twenty minutes not only has Monty communicated that he isn’t a retractable-clawed killing machine, but that he is an in-the-know, all-protective alpha partner. The horse, now “joined-up” with Monty, shows some apprehension if separated from him, like a two-year-old human child trying to keep constant contact with a parent.
Monty’s communication with this animal creates a trust that is astonishing. Before the demonstration I sarcastically made the comment to my wife that Monty will probably be taming the most ludicrous of vaudeville beasts. I was overwhelmed to observe just the opposite. His new friend accepts a saddle and a rider, all because Monty said “trust me” in the horse’s language. Monty transformed himself from the predator to the horse’s ally. Now that horse will go to extremes to comply with him.
During the entire process, Monty has been giving a verbal rundown of what he is doing, even at one point asking the crowd to applaud loudly. It is apparent that Monty has harnessed the horse’s willingness to work with him. Every time the crowd applauds, the horse draws itself closer to the man, seeking the safety of its newfound protector. When the applause ends, the horse relaxes, feels free to wander a bit, but still is attentive to Monty’s presence. Restarting the applause sends the horse back to Monty for comfort and solace. Monty is clearly perceived as a place of safety. All this is opposite of the age-old practice of breaking a horse, which usually involves inflicting pain and terror on the animal. The traditional method of breaking literally mortifies a horse until it seems to accept its own spiritual death, and in doing so survives.
The real reason I am here is to see a man who is taking a giant leap of faith, past the world of horses. It is simply stated: cooperation is better than domination; the world could use much less pain and fear. Monty has used his knowledge of horses as a vehicle for the message. I see him as a kind of Buddhist monk, who I suspect doesn’t even know that he is a practitioner of compassion and empathy in all affairs among people and between people and animals.
I am no “new age” adherent. Too many “new ages” have come and gone for me to be impressed. Today’s atmosphere has allowed Monty Roberts to rise to recognition in an arena where men are men and horses are horses, and this is good. He is as much a reflection of the times as the other way around.
It is a simple, if large, step from a new kind of relationship between person and animal to learning to take the time to understand the ground on which all other people and living things stand. We are the truly pliable ones. If we want to talk to turtles, then it is up to us to learn turtle language, not the other way around.
Monty Roberts has demonstrated that all relationships can be based on a spirit of cooperation and empathy, whether it is with a ferret or the entire biosphere. All that is required is that we take the time and have the patience to learn the other’s language instead of brashly imposing our own. We are the capable ones. Primate researchers spent years trying to teach a chimpanzee to talk. All that came of it was a desperate ape that could barely say “mama.” Then our behavioral experts started to lighten up and stopped insisting on our way of doing things; before long chimps were babbling away using sign language. Their brains don’t have the motor control that allows the complexities of human speech.
Monty takes obvious pride in breaking a long chain of violent human domination. His message is clear and simple: all violence is bad; cooperation is good. There will always be conflicts in nature. It’s the way of the world. There are distinctions. Man’s violence against man is virtually always immoral. Nature is always amoral. My message is simple: I went to see Monty Roberts and watched him work with two horses. I learned about the language of Equus. I still don’t like the beasts and probably won’t again see the inside of a riding ring for years to come, but I did see a happy man who loves people, and who, while staying within the realm of horses, managed to plead for quietus, peace and compassion between people and the animals with which we cohabit this blue-green sphere. Equus is just the first language. There are many, many to come if we only take the time to stop, look, listen and Join-Up.
MICHAEL SCHWARTZ, PH.D.
Prime Factors Inc.
Chairman
One JOIN-UP: THE JOURNEY (#ulink_88022f51-27d2-5317-a724-4dfa7e646787)
The horse has an important message for humankind
I cannot imagine my life without horses. They have been my teachers, my friends, my business partners and my entertainment. Their message to me has been so strong that I have dedicated my life to interpreting what they are trying to tell us.
When as a boy, I first watched the wild horses out on the Nevada desert, I was immediately surprised by the fact that there was a clearly defined language that they used. I was further surprised by the realization that it was a silent language, one of gestures, much like signing for the deaf. A horse squared up to another, rigid and on point with eyes directed onto the eyes of his subject, is saying, “go away.” The positioning of their ears indicates the direction of their attention. Turning to a forty-five degree angle is saying, “You are welcome back into the herd.” All the many motions and gestures of the horse add up to a sizeable dictionary of signs and actions.
Later I became a trainer of horses, and over many years developed a set of training principles. The horses I work with are usually “raw,” untrained horses or remedial horses that have been physically or psychologically abused. I often meet the horse I am to work with for the first time in a Join-Up session. Join-Up is a consistent set of principles using the horse’s own language and designed to let the horse know that he has freedom of choice. I release the horse at the beginning of each session of communication, encouraging him to leave me, therefore exercising his right to flee in order to protect himself. I then encourage him to go away, in essence suggesting that he can do anything he wants. I require him to be responsible for his own actions and for their consequences. I continue to communicate that I will be responsible for my actions, too.
I came to call the process based on these principles or concepts, Join-Up. Fundamental to the process and its remarkable success is my belief in the effective importance of nonviolence and trust.
A STORY The Mustang Mare (#ulink_5bd0d742-0981-55d7-8638-876d895338ec)
People often ask me if horses are capable of such traits as loyalty, trust, care and concern for other species. I am asked during each “question and answer” session during my demonstrations if I believe that horses possess a sense of caring regarding people. Many academics inquire of me whether or not I truly believe that there could be an interspecies understanding.
My stock answer is that horses live within a social order that is based on the principles of trust, loyalty and mutual concern. I go on to say that they have taught me that without these attributes they could never have existed for their fifty million years.
I don’t know that any of us will ever be certain about how much horses actually feel a sense of loyalty toward human beings. I am not sure if anybody will ever know if there is a deep caring or concern on their part for our well-being. I only know what I have experienced with horses and it is with that background that I bring you a story that to me dramatizes these characteristics.
I feel it is quite possible that the story I am about to relate is one of the most important episodes of interspecies communication ever witnessed. I know the importance that this story has for all my work subsequent to its occurrence. I know firsthand the hundreds of horses that experienced a deeper understanding from me because of this experience.
If horses are capable of demonstrating this cross-species care and concern, then how many species are there on earth that have this capability? I feel that many animal behaviorists at work today would ratify my findings with experiences of their own. It seems strange to me that humans find it so difficult to comprehend this.
Each horse in the herd lives by the laws of absolute allegiance. A stallion is loyal and protective of his mares. I have learned about it from horses and I can attest to the fact that breaches of loyalty are far more frequent in the human spectrum than in the equine world. I am not sure if it is a function of their fifty million years of survival of the fittest or whether it is a conscious effort at the moment.
Over the many years that I have been utilizing Join-Up and developing its potential, I have encountered many interesting and sometimes surprising reactions. Each of these experiences allows me a further insight into the power of developing trust. As I go through the process of Join-Up I am engaging in a dialogue with the horse in exactly the same way I hold a conversation with a person. Our conversation creates that basis of trust. I carefully observe the horse as I work with it, assessing its responses to me and the environment it is now in.
We often make false assumptions about people and horses; it is our nature. I have done it in the past and from time to time still do. This story is a reminder of just how wrong we can be and how important it is to make correct and unbiased assessments of people and situations. Our ability to read other people’s body language is innate, but sometimes we can even get that wrong. This incident has led me to a greater understanding of the depth of the bond I make with the horse. This experience has brought home to me how deep maternal instincts run in most mammalian species. To my personal knowledge this is the first interaction of its kind. To think that this adult female horse as wild as a deer could so quickly adopt me and move to protect me was overwhelming. It would have surprised me greatly if a domestic mare had reacted in such a fashion. I now realize that it is more likely for the wild one to express this phenomenon because she is so much more acutely aware of the dangers in nature. Subsequent to the incident I have been much more confident when discussing interspecies communication than I was before. This mustang mare proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that there is a close interspecies connection most people have failed to observe or experience.
I received a call one day from a lady who had just adopted a mustang mare from the Bureau of Land Management. The mare had a foal at her side, which was not uncommon. The owner had heard about my methods and wanted her mare started by me. She felt strongly that my nontraumatic approach would enhance the genuine qualities of the mustang, causing her to be an excellent riding animal for herself and her family.
This was the first mustang I had started since those early days of working with them in Salinas. I advised this lady that she should wait until the foal was six or seven months old and then wean it. Once the mare had settled down, she could bring her to the farm.
They duly arrived. The trailer was backed up to the round pen and out of it charged the wildest animal I have ever seen in my life. I soon learned that she had gone through the adoption program and had just been turned out in a corral. Her only interaction with humans was when they fed and watered her. It was a daunting experience to watch this mustang from the small viewing platform. She was frantically trying to climb out and kept herself as far away as possible from our side of the pen.
Eventually I entered the pen to begin to work with her. I went through my procedure, sending her away, which is the first step, and she responded quite well. She gave me the signs I was looking for and was very demonstrative. After about forty-five minutes I could touch her. We were making excellent progress. By the two-hour mark, I had a halter on her and was leading her around. I could pick up her front feet, but when I tried to pick up her back ones, she resisted furiously by kicking. Mustangs are often paranoid when it comes to handling their hind legs and I felt certain that a few days of work would increase her trust in me so that this problem would go away. I decided not to force that issue.
Sean, my assistant, brought in the saddle, bridle and pad, placing them in the center of the round pen. While he was doing this, the mare was hovering really close to me at the south side of the pen. Sean left to the north, closing the solid wooden gate behind him.
I left the south side of the pen and started to walk toward the equipment, leaving the mare just to the right of me. She was facing north toward the door. I took about two steps from the south wall and she left me like a rocket. Running as fast as she could, she crashed into the saddle on the ground and started ripping it to shreds with her teeth. Pawing and kicking, she tore at the saddle. It was as if I had brought a lion into the middle of the pen. I felt she thought she was cornered and had to fight this predator for her life. I stood frozen in my tracks near the south wall of the pen. The air was filled with bits and pieces as they flew off the saddle. The effect was terrifying and I must admit at that moment I thought I was next on the menu.
I started moving around to my right, staying as close as I could to the wall. I moved along as smoothly and rapidly as possible. I had recently had extensive back surgery, so jumping out of the round pen was not an option. I managed to get about halfway round. I saw Sean was standing on the viewing platform near the gate, watching me and at that moment the mare broke away from the saddle and ran straight at me.
My heart almost stopped. I was scared to death. I crouched down against the base of the wall and decided that the best way to take her on was to ball up in a fetal position covering my head. She was coming and having seen what she had done to the saddle, I knew it was not going to be pretty. I could sense that Sean had jumped down from his perch into the pen right by the gate. I don’t think he was too anxious to get near her either, but the mere fact that he came into the pen said a lot for his courage.
As I was balled up there on the ground, I saw out of the corner of my eye her nose was right against the wall in front of me. She had not attacked me. Her hind feet were brushing against my toes. It was very strange because she was almost in a U shape, wrapping herself around me, her tail against the wall on one side and her nose the other.
I stayed balled up there for a while and Sean was out of sight. I saw her look over her shoulder directly at the saddle. As her head came off the wall to view the saddle she pinned her ears flat back and bared her teeth. As she looked back toward me her ears came forward and her mouth was closed. I called out to Sean. “Wait, wait, don’t come forward now.” Luckily she had not seen him as her attention was fixed on the saddle and me. He stopped in his tracks, frozen by my urgent command and stood up against the wall. The mare then made another dive for the saddle, attacking the remaining larger pieces. Like a whirlwind, she suddenly deserted this deadly enemy and resumed her protective stance around me.
I realized that this mare was adopting me. She had joined-up with me so intensely that in her mind I deserved the same protection as her foal. She was guarding me from this deadly predator that had come into our world. She was still lactating and the warm milk began to drip onto my legs.
Sean moved into the center of the pen and gathered up the shredded remnants that had been a saddle, retreated and closed the gate behind him. Once the potential danger was removed, the mare walked away from me. I got up, stroked her head and walked around the pen with her. Sean went for another saddle and returned to the pen. This time I kept her on a lead while putting the pad, saddle and bridle on.
Sean came in later and rode her with no trouble, finishing up in just over two and a half hours. The owner actually rode the mare within two weeks and was extremely pleased. Later reports reached me that this mare became a wonderful animal for both this lady and her daughter. It was the first mustang she had adopted and this experience was so positive that she became president of a mustang association.
Several times she invited me to come to adoption events and start mustangs, which I was delighted to do. She felt that they had a better chance of being successfully adopted if they were already “joined-up.”
The bizarre behavior described in this story has never reoccurred with me, nor have I heard of it happening to anybody else. While the occurrence may have been unusual, her desire to protect me amplified the potential for close human-to-horse attachment. The mare’s body language was there for me to read, but I was confused by the speed of events and perceived only the aggression with which she attacked the saddle. It took me a long time to realize that this was the act of a mother to protect what she now considered to be her family. I had not before realized the depth of bonding that Join-Up creates. In the mare’s mind I was to be protected from all danger and that included a possible attack from what she perceived to be “the deadly saddle.”
Surely one of the most important jobs a parent has to do is to protect the child from any kind of threat. This must be a deeply instinctual trait imbedded in the brains of all mammals. This mare exemplified the extent to which a mother will go to protect what she perceives to be her maternal responsibility.
A human being (predominantly a fight animal) will quite often act out in violence even when it is not in his best interest. I feel that most traditional horsemen would have stood their ground to this mare and wherever possible would have struck her, feeling it was the only way to protect themselves. Many of the horsemen I have known in my time would have literally beaten the hell out of her.
We all know now what a mistake an act of violence would have been at that moment in time. I believe that she would have instantly become a mare never again to trust a human under any circumstances.
We have been closely associated with the horse throughout almost the entire development of our species, and possibly this is why the concepts that I have explored in this book are as sound as they are.
This new millennium will be the first in the history of humankind without the horse as the mainstay of our transport system. The horse owes us nothing. They have fought with us in our wars, plowed our fields, fed us and remained the most faithful of servants. “Man’s best friend” has probably been an accolade preserved for our dogs for a few thousand years now. I’ve heard it said the Egyptian pharaohs were the first to use this term. I love dogs and I believe that people can love them deeply and that dogs try to please us far more than most people will, but there is also a case for the horse being man’s best friend.
The horse has been our partner in an incredible range of serious activities, and we must never forget the effort the horse has made to entertain us—racing, polo, dressage, jumping, rodeo and every kind of game or competition that you can imagine has been done in one form or another on horseback. The horse has served us as a pleasurable companion, to a greater degree than we realize. At the turn of the twentieth century the horse was our primary vehicle and practically the only power source on the farm. By the mid-1900s they were scarcely used in these ways, yet in the United States the total horse population at the turn of the twenty-first century was three times larger than it had been a hundred years before. How can this be when we don’t need them anymore? Because we do need or want them for our entertainment and pleasure.
But there is more to Equus than just the enjoyment of all the sports and pastimes with which we associate the horse. We can use his natural existence as a metaphor for our lives today. I once believed it was nothing more than a metaphor, but I have discovered that the horse has many of the same responses and needs as humans; and the horse and human have closer behavioral ties than I had first considered. The reason horse and human work so well together may be because they do share much in common—the horse’s behavior is not alien to us. It is little wonder that what the horses tell me in the language of Equus, their natural communication system, can be translated directly to the world of humans.
˙
Recently, we had two very interesting horses brought to Flag Is Up Farms, which gave me a unique opportunity to test the true nature of this language. One was born without hearing and the other had been blind from birth. As events progressed the blind horse regained its sight following surgery, but the deaf horse will remain so for life. The deaf horse understood all my communication (in body language) and joined-up well with me. The once-blind horse had difficulty in deciphering my movements; they meant very little to it. These experiments proved that their body-language communication is to a great degree learned, although partly instinctual, and that sound is not terribly important. Mares might call to their foals or vice versa, and sounds will alert horses, but they do not play a major role in their communication system. “Actions speak louder than words” is a nice saying and one we humans use quite often; generally, however, we do not live by it. The language of Equus is, in fact, one of actions, not words.
If you still find it difficult to believe that sound is not a necessary element in the language of Equus, you only have to look at the behavior of a herd of wild horses. Every time I bring wild mustangs to the farm, they run and hide in horror at the neighing of domestic horses because they fear that a predator will be alerted. It is clear to me that this language I have identified is silent—it is a body language that utilizes direction, speed and gesture to receive and pass on information.
The most common forms of communication on earth are silent. Bioluminescence is used by billions of marine animals. It is a light show. Their little bodies are equipped with a lighting system that flashes in patterns only they understand. Body language is used by literally hundreds of species. It may seem to uninformed human beings that many gestures are without specific meaning, but be assured, the more you learn about body language, the more specific you find it to be.
Since 1986, when I first showed my work in public, thousands of people have come to Flag Is Up Farms from all industries and walks of life to watch me demonstrate Join-Up. Most of them had no idea what to expect. I noticed an odd phenomenon and began to make a mental note of its occurrence. At the beginning of a demonstration I send the horse away into flight mode around the pen, and when he shows that he is ready, I communicate an invitation to join me. The horse turns toward me, walks in close and reaches out to touch my shoulder with its nose. At this precise moment I often hear a gasp from the crowd. On several occasions I have actually heard the commotion as someone falls. After the person affected has recovered, he or she has relived with me stories of mental or physical abuse. Oftentimes women are reduced to tears at the sight of a flight animal accepting and trusting a potential predator. This is no coincidence: it happens too often.
The animal at the fight end of the fight/flight spectrum is a predator, and the animal at the flight end is preyed upon. Based on this assumption, you can describe humans as predators, but humans can also be passive, nonviolent and nonaggressive. This curious and perhaps unique mixture of fight and flight, prey and predator is almost always present in our relationships and communications. Women, in particular, have a great ability to identify with the hunted and therefore with horses.
The traditional horse trainer who breaks a horse by tying him up and forcing him to accept saddle, bridle and rider is a predator. Male predatorial behavior is far more common than most people would imagine, and it happens in our apparently enlightened society on a scale that I find difficult to comprehend. In many parts of the world, women are still expected to walk behind their husbands and have few or no rights. Women in and out of the workplace are often preyed upon. It is little wonder that women identify with the flight animal.
The thousands of letters sent to me tell a sad story of the continuing existence of abuse of all kinds, predominantly in the home. How long will it take to raise awareness that violence is never the answer?
If the similarities between human and horse can tell us anything, it is this: the horse has much to teach us about social structure. He is asking not to be preyed upon. He is begging to Join-Up, to become a member of the human herd, a fifty-fifty partner on the basis of trust, and for us to leave violence out of the contract. Many women who watch my work will remark that they wish this lesson could be learned by the male of our species. When a man learns that a nonviolent approach can be far more effective—for himself as well as the prey animal—he understands how wrong violence is.
While I have learned the value of a good academic education, no hands-on work can be totally replaced by theory. It’s also true that at the time of my university training, there were no courses that approximated the work that I do. My teachers were a few people and many thousands of horses. I spent long hours with a pair of binoculars watching and learning about the nature, behavior and language of horses. I observed in detail and gradually translated it into a system that, coupled with my love for horses, formed the foundation for Join-Up. I am still learning, still discovering and still refining my approach.
It is my hope that Join-Up will one day be accepted as truly revolutionary in both the horse and human worlds. In my work, as in the work of other horse gentlers, the horse is given the opportunity to make choices, and to volunteer to cooperate with humans. It is my deepest wish that this discovery helps to change the nature of human interactions.
What is, I believe, unique in my approach is that I have recognized in the horse a language of communication from which we, as humans, can learn fundamentally important lessons. The last six thousand horses of the more than ten thousand I have started (that is, convinced them to willingly accept saddle, bridle and rider) averaged under thirty minutes to accomplish the goals described here. It is no great feat for me, and I should not be credited with inventing anything. I have only discovered what nature already had in place, a language and an understanding of how two species can get along without violence.
HOW TO ACHIEVE JOIN-UP (#ulink_2b65498f-bf1a-5c54-871d-89355ca1831b)
To understand the important principles behind Join-Up and how we can transfer them to our world, I will quickly take you through the process of Join-Up itself.
The horse has a very effective and discernible language. The incredible thing about this language is that it is universal to the species. Humans, on the other hand, possessing the most phenomenal brains on earth, often need help to communicate with one another. Just like any other form of communication, the language of Equus requires some effort to master. If we refuse to believe that the horse can communicate fluently, then we are apt to fall into the trap of training through the use of pain. Consider for a moment what you would feel if, when you attended your first day of school, your teacher put a chain through your mouth or over your nose, gave it a jerk and then took a whip to you when you tried to get away. What do you believe the balance of your relationship would have been? How do you think you would have viewed school from that point on?
Although horses’ brains are not as complex as humans’, horses have a similar reaction. The point of my method is to create a relationship based on trust and confidence, a relationship by which the horse wants to Join-Up, be part of the team and wear the same color jersey. Most conventionally broken horses form an adversarial relationship with the people they work for and, though they may agree to perform, it is with reluctance. Any environment that is based on fear and punishment will achieve performance, but not innovation. You can force people and horses to cooperate, but you cannot force optimum performance. This desire to perform can only be achieved through intrinsic motivation.
When starting the fresh horse I will not hit, kick, jerk, pull or tie to restrain him. I request that he perform certain maneuvers, but I must not force or demand. The horse is the quintessential flight animal and when any pressure is applied to the relationship, he will almost always choose to leave rather than fight. I have chosen to follow a nonconfrontational route, and my intention is to cause the animal to accept the saddle, bridle and rider with a minimum of trauma. I regularly do public demonstrations where I take a young horse who has not been saddled, bridled or ridden and attempt to have him accept all this in approximately thirty minutes.
I bring the horse into my round pen where I introduce myself in the center of the circle. After this brief get-acquainted session, I offer the horse an opportunity to leave me. I square up to the animal and snap my eyes directly on to his—what I call “eyes on eyes.” The horse, viewing this as a predatory gesture, flees. I track the horse as he proceeds around the perimeter of the pen so that my shoulders are square with him at all times. My eyes pierce his. In his language this means, “Go away.”
My message to him is, “You made the choice to go away and that is fine, but don’t go away a little, go away a lot.” Horses have a flight distance of approximately a quarter to three-eighths of a mile. After that, they feel compelled to negotiate with their predator, as it could be dangerous to continue fleeing because they run out of energy. Once this distance has been achieved, their tendency is to request a truce of some sort.
I remain eyes on eyes and shoulders square, but I watch closely for gestures of negotiation—gestures that make up part of the language of Equus that I’ve deciphered over time. The first one I virtually always see is that he will lock on me the ear closest to me. It will point in my direction. This means, “I respect you. I don’t know who you are or what you are up to, but I will show you respect and attempt a negotiation.” Second, he will come off the wall and try to come closer to me, near the middle of the pen. I remain shoulders square, eyes on eyes, which effectively keeps him away. The next gesture I usually observe is that he licks and chews—language, in effect, that conveys he does not fear me and believes I will not hurt him. The fourth and last gesture that I wait to receive is when the horse drops his head down near the soil and allows it to bounce along. This says, “If we could have a meeting to renegotiate, I would let you be the chairman.”
With all four of these gestures in place, I take my eyes away from his eyes, turn slightly away from him and set my shoulders on a forty-five degree angle to the body axis of the horse. This means that he is entitled to come to me, to make a choice to be with me rather than to go away. I stand virtually motionless as he approaches and reaches his nose out, most often nudging me in the back. This is the moment of Join-Up, when the horse has chosen to accept me.
I turn slowly, eyes cast down between his front legs, my shoulders round, fingers closed and wrist bent. I reach up and rub him between the eyes. This is his reward for joining with me. Very occasionally the horse is not ready for Join-Up and returns to the flight mode and I have to repeat the process. Usually, however, after a few seconds of rubbing, I walk away and the horse will follow me. I call this Follow-Up. I can literally walk a serpentine pattern in the round pen and the horse is happy to follow close to my shoulder. I stop and turn slowly to stroke him once again, reaffirming our new relationship. Soon we will be partners doing great things.
If all learning is 0-10, then the most important part of learning is 0-1. Join-Up and Follow-Up represent the 0-1 phase. Once I have my horse traveling on a positive path, then all I have to do is reward him for his positive actions and put him to work if he does something negative. For the horse, work is running away from a predator. (The horse is at rest when he is peacefully grazing and must flee when danger is near in order to survive. However, it’s also important to note that in order for the horse to maintain fitness he plays and runs with others.)
Once the horse is on that positive path, the balance of the procedure is academic. Before I ask him to accept certain responsibilities, I must earn his trust by showing him I am not a predator. To that end, we work our way through a series of goals. One is to massage with both hands those areas most often attacked by predators—high on the back and low into the soft flanks. I stroke the horse and then walk away, so that he becomes aware that I have no agenda to cause him pain. I pick up and put down each of his feet, then once more walk away to achieve the same result. After that come the saddle pad, saddle, bridle and rider.
If he says no to the saddle, he goes back to work, which means I gently but firmly push him away from me and require him to run around the perimeter of the round pen once more. The same goes for the bit and the other goals I choose for the horse. Often, placing the bit in his mouth causes the horse to forget about the saddle and think about this new item of tack—it causes a diversion. (Such a diversionary tactic can, we all know, be useful in dealing with reluctant children. If they are focused on a negative problem, then diverting their attention to something else is often a swift and effective way of turning a negative situation into a positive one.)
At no time is there a need to inflict pain or use violence. It will only cause the horse to want to fight me and is, without any question, counterproductive.
At this point, I have essentially accomplished my aim to have the horse accept the saddle, bridle and rider. The horse is not traumatized and elects to stay with me. And to my mind, this is the secret of true leadership. An effective leader must create a situation whereby people choose to stay with him or her rather than go away.
•
There are clear parallels between the procedure I describe above and certain aspects of human communication. With horses the methods are physical; with humans they are psychological. But they are both rooted in psychology and the results are the same phenomenon of acceptance, which will be predictable, discernible and effective.
First impressions are perhaps the most important messages we convey. There is never a second chance to make a first impression and the importance of the manner of a greeting can never be overstated. We humans can tell much from a handshake. Does it have a feeling of welcome and warmth or the lack of it? Rubbing the horse on the forehead I believe to be quite similar to the human handshake. People seem to be most comfortable after a handshake when they remain eye to eye and begin to communicate. Horses, on the other hand, do not require eye contact in this situation and are happiest when the human walks away from them immediately after rubbing the forehead. The horse will generally follow the human being at this point. Predators do not ordinarily walk away from prey animals. When I rub the forehead of my equine student and then walk away from him I am conveying the message that I am not acting predatorily. Touch and connection are established, however briefly, at this point. This welcome gives confidence to each party about the other’s intentions. An embrace, too, can be such a reward. A hug is a wonderful reward for friendship given and establishes its continuance.
Eyes on eyes, shoulders square and encouraging the horse to go away is the same as allowing people to consider their options and recognize their mutual needs. Generally eye-to-eye contact between people implies communication is going to follow.
It can, however, also be a hostile gesture. The piercing eye-to-eye contact of the predator and prey is aggressive and implies intent to attack. A man was in a canteen one day, his lunch on his tray, when he was suddenly punched in the eye by a complete stranger. The man next to him was horrified and offered a helping hand. As they sat down together the man who had been attacked tried to piece together the reason for the assault. He told his newfound friend that the stranger caught his eye because he looked exactly like the man who had robbed him in the street just a week earlier. “I must have looked at him with subconscious aggression in my eyes without realizing it,” he said thoughtfully.
My eye-to-eye contact with the horse communicates my desire for the animal to go away. I establish a working alliance and a flow of conversation only after the horse communicates a request for cooperation. Using the language of Equus, I keep the conversation alive as I create an environment for learning. If I execute true to the concepts of Join-Up I will soon establish trust. Ambivalence should not be viewed as resistance, but as a request for time to think over the proposal currently being offered. At no time should the trainer use force to establish leadership to achieve his or her aims.
When the horse turns his nearest ear toward me he is paying close attention to what I am saying. It is his first offering of respect during this act of communication.
Coming closer to me in the center of the circle is the equivalent of a person watching me closely during a conversation, and appearing to be keenly aware of what I am saying.
Licking and chewing, another part of the wordless conversation between horse and man, also has a broad connection to human communication. When the horse is still suckling from his mother, he moves his mouth in a unique manner, quite similar to the movements of a human baby. Once the horse has learned to eat grass and hay, this changes to a licking and chewing motion. Don’t we humans place great importance on sharing a meal with someone with whom we wish to communicate? There is a great deal of meaning in this. “Let’s have lunch together,” is very different from, “Let’s spend thirty minutes in my office.” Going out to dinner is another level altogether. It metaphorically shows your soft underside and builds an environment of trust. After my first meeting with Queen Elizabeth many people asked me if I had dined with her. It was surprising to me at the time, but it made me acutely aware of how important most people feel it is to have shared a meal with someone. There is a subconscious understanding that sharing food suggests a closer association. Horses understand their own vulnerability while eating, and so that activity is reserved for a time when they are in the presence of those they trust.
When the horse drops his head and trots along bouncing it near the soil, he is acting out a very similar gesture to that of bowing in traditional Japanese culture: the person who achieves the lower position in this gesture of greeting is in fact asking the other to lead the conversation. This is virtually a direct translation of what the horse is saying: “Please suggest the agenda for this meeting. I don’t necessarily want to be subservient to you, but one of us has to play the lead role and I would like it to be you.”
The Join-Up moment is what any successful human conversation tries to achieve. It represents the coming together of two people, a meeting of the minds and of mutual respect and understanding. It advances the thought that I am happy to be with you and that I hope our time together will be one of mutual enjoyment. I place enormous importance on the fact that it is volunteered. With people, as with horses, I believe it is vital to achieve that same feeling of Join-Up. It is not possible to Join-Up when either participant feels pressure to accomplish it. It is not that we agreed to do it; it is that we want to do it.
Follow-Up is when I walk away from the horse after Join-Up. He will follow me only if he has a true desire to be with me. Horses have no ability to contrive. They simply cannot fake it. When I walk away, if he has any reticence about being with me, he certainly will not follow. Isn’t this similar to forming a close association with another person, nurturing that association and then waiting to see if your new friend makes any effort to come to you? If none is made, perhaps you need a bit more time to convince this individual that you have a meaningful role to play in his or her life. In my opinion, this is the same whether in business or personal relationships.
At the conclusion of a Join-Up session with a horse I make a point of doing something that is generally fun for both my audience and me. I take my horse to one side of the round pen, then run to the opposite side and ask my audience to applaud for the horse’s performance. The horse will virtually always perceive noise as frightening and will rush to be close to me. The crowd will at once realize that my horse has learned to seek a position near me when danger is perceived, thus validating my concepts.
I mentioned that during each of my Join-Up procedures I stroke the horse with both hands in what I call his vulnerable areas, those spots most often attacked by predators, then walk away. I do this to convince the horse that I intend him no harm. No predator walks away from its prey once it has access to the vulnerable areas. This builds trust. People are much the same, and while vulnerability may be either physical or psychological, you build trust when you are in a position where you could do harm but you don’t: the same is true when you protect another person from something you believe could be harmful. In turn, you know that if the same is done for you, it will increase your level of trust for the person involved. This gesture confirms the trust that began to develop at the first greeting. This trust-building tool is one of the most powerful in the world of commerce—the sharing of personal experiences between colleagues helps to create an environment in which people can work at a closer and more efficient level.
To further build this trust, I pick up each of the horse’s feet, hold it for a few seconds, put it down and walk away. The horses’ legs and feet are virtually their only weapons against predators. Their first choice is to flee using those powerful legs, but they will fight as a last resort. The strike of a front hoof or the kick of a back one can often mean life for the horse instead of death. When a horse chooses to allow me control of his hooves, he is in fact entrusting me with his weapons. Isn’t it true in the human spectrum that before we can go forward in a trust-based relationship, we are obligated to lay down our weapons? It isn’t until both parties feel no need for armament that we can truly work in unison.
The saddle pad corresponds in human terms to a tentative step toward shouldering first responsibility. The question asked of us might be: “Are you going to be responsible for your own decisions?” It is useful to find out how people will react to the idea of responsibility before it is given. For example: engagement before marriage, internship before becoming a practitioner and apprenticeship before achieving professional status.
The saddle continues the testing and accepting. It is literally about carrying responsibility; “being saddled with” describes the assignment of a task. Acceptance of the saddle is a metaphor for facing up to responsibility and accepting the responsibility of further challenges.
The bridle is used to guide the horse. Taking the bit between the teeth means, in human terms, to put energy into something, to be purposeful. The bridle is used for gentle guidance, not to control. If a horse wanted to do something, a bridle would not stop him. Among people, guidance—or the willing acceptance of guidance—suggests that a trust mechanism is in place and that one person is listening to another. The bridle represents purpose and direction based upon communication and trust. Cohesive direction and good communication create teamwork, which we rely upon to achieve shared goals.
The rider is the ultimate responsibility for the horse—a commitment akin to that of a partnership or marriage. The partnership of horse and rider represents the mutual acceptance of responsibility between employer and employee, teacher and student, husband and wife. Trust between horse and human can be seen when the two partners are relaxed and at peace together, where there is no force or stress involved.
It cannot be overemphasized that any violence will undo the processes I’ve just described above.
JOIN-UP: THE JOURNEY (#ulink_a9189cb0-707d-5600-a765-3cfa50ccce50)
Join-Up is a tool, like a fine chisel. With it, you can carve a stable environment that enables communication. The tool must be used with skill, which may take years to perfect, but in its basic form Join-Up can be learned quickly.
It is, though, a procedure that must be precisely followed; there are no shortcuts. Each step is distinct and necessary. Join-Up may bring out conflict and perceived resistance or ambivalence. It is imperative that anyone using Join-Up be totally responsible for his own actions while allowing the other party to be responsible for his.
A raw horse that quickly accepts saddle, bridle and rider does so, in part, because he has been offered freedom of choice. The “trainer” simply moves through the process, keeping the conversation alive, always allowing the horse time to respond.
It is therefore response-based, not demand-based. You have to learn to open the doors of opportunity and be confident that Join-Up will work. You may have to wait until the horse responds favorably—the same holds true in human relationships.
Join-Up works at any stage of a relationship, whether a new one or one of long standing. It heralds an end to isolation by establishing bonding through communication. Join-Up is the result of deep communication in a shared language; it is a bond based on trust and marks the beginning of a fifty-fifty partnership, sustained through continued adherence to Join-Up’s principles and techniques. It is nonviolent, noncoercive and can only be achieved if both partners have willingly entered into the process. Join-Up means stepping into the other person’s world, by observing his or her needs, conditions, rules and by working within his framework and communicating in his language. It is not created by a particular environment, nor is it a formula to overcome an inability to communicate. It cannot be faked.
On the other hand, it can be formulated and taught; at heart it’s a simple process. Once you understand the formula, the path is clear to successful and mutually enjoyable conversation.
Follow-Up is the confirmation of Join-Up. With horses, this process allows the trainer to reestablish the trust bond. If the bond is not firm enough, the trainer simply goes back through the process until Join-Up is reestablished. Join-Up’s strength is its simplicity.
Join-Up is pivotal to a balanced existence, encouraging trust, reliability and comfort from others, but it can only occur when an underlying desire for partnership exists on both sides. My training provides a step-by-step guide to building a trust-based partnership, which is essential for horses and humans in order to eliminate violence.
With humans, as with horses, communication enables Join-Up. Trust keeps the process alive.
JOIN-UP IN THE WORKPLACE (#ulink_08da3857-6566-5245-adaa-7485e58cb13b)
Fear and mistrust can be delivered to you by two distinctly different messengers. First “the familiar” and second “the unfamiliar.” Horses bring about fear in people, generally because they are unfamiliar with them. People simply have not taken the time to get to know that, although horses are large and fast, they have no agenda to hurt without cause. Fear of a parent, your spouse or your boss might be established out of familiarity and a knowledge that they have a propensity to “act out” violently.
I tell people who express great fear of horses to get to know them, to study their true patterns of behavior and understand more clearly what the horse wants out of life before branding them as dangerous.
As I examine my own patterns of fear and distrust, it seems utterly foreign to think that I might fear a horse. It is a joke for me to think that I might fear this flight animal more than the man walking on the other side of the street or the person approaching in an automobile. It seems ridiculous to me that a horse could be perceived as more dangerous than an airplane, train, truck or even that awesome instrument of terror, the computer.
What the horses are telling me is that if you can remove fear from the environment, both learning and innovation spiral upward. There is no more fearful situation than when people in the workplace are faced with change. Predictability and routine are all important in the stress-filled world of business. If you take away that predictability, change the routine, you alter the environment in which people work. Change, however, is with us. The speed of change in today’s high-tech world is frightening. One of the most important jobs a manager has is to create an environment in which change occurs without production loss. This can be accomplished by creating an environment in which people are willing to change. Obtaining people’s willingness to embrace change is therefore a catalyst in the process of change.
I ask my raw horse to change from being an uncooperative animal to being a partner with me in a new venture. I do not use force—horses Join-Up with me of their own free will. It should be the same with a workforce. Without willingness, work suffers and the whole organization is crippled. Take the simple situation of lunch and coffee breaks, time off and bonus benefits. If a manager is fearful that the company’s goodwill is being abused, he may try to control the situation forcefully. What he should do is concentrate on making the working environment pleasant and building motivation so that the employee is actually happy to stay busy. If the executive gets his formula right, he may well find that his attention will need to be directed to seeing to it that his people take sufficient time off so as to freshen them for the task. Suddenly you have employees hungry to volunteer their loyalty, in the same way that horses lick and chew to signal their willingness to cooperate. People, like horses, perform much better if they are willing partners.
While attending a conference I noticed that one company put its management team in one hotel and its executives in another more upscale establishment. If cooperation and communication are desirable, then segregation is destructive. In my own organization, I attempt at all times to keep travel and living accommodation the same for all staff to promote the feeling of being a member of the team. I work to create an environment that communicates this theme: each position on the team is important if we are to achieve a successful outcome on tour and at our demonstrations.
On another occasion, a well-known organization came to Flag Is Up Farms for a demonstration. The employees filed up onto the round pen viewing platform. Three of the executives stood by the buses—I was told they were the bosses and we would have to wait for them before I could start. I took no notice and began my introduction. I didn’t see why 98 percent of the people should have to wait for the 2 percent. As the crowd hushed and the sound system came on, I could see the three men had come up the steps and were standing to the rear of the onlookers. In an oblique way I began to describe how corporate families find ways to intimidate and pull rank on their workforce. I didn’t name the men, but I made my position clear to everyone. Remaining on the theme throughout the evening worked like a charm and, at the end, each of those men came to me and told me how much they had learned that night.
A CORPORATE EXPERIENCE Paradyne (#ulink_68e23ba3-895a-5cb0-9396-75b6699990c0)
Paradyne employs more than 800 people at its corporate headquarters in the Tampa Bay area of Florida in the United States and has regional offices around the world. Paradyne is a pioneer in high-speed network access and is revolutionizing the data communications industry. More than 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies, and businesses in more than 125 countries, have chosen Paradyne.
In 1997, Paradyne had a huge challenge on its hands. The company needed to adopt a new information management system, and get it up and working in eighteen months or less. The company had an archaic information system. It was necessary to install a new system, which would change everything they were doing, from giving a quote to organizing payment at the other end. John Guest of Paradyne brought in management consultants. They put together a team of people in charge of getting change under way and titled it “the foundation team.” The consultants showed the foundation team my Join-Up video. They were not at all sure how the film would be accepted—after all, I was a cowboy talking about horses.
The consultants needed to stir up creativity and willingness, and began by exposing the team to metaphors from the horse world. Time was limited: they had only two days to put the team together. To take an hour out of those critical days to see a video about a horseman was a bold step for these consultants. Would the foundation team see the connection between the nonconfrontational methods I use with horses and its need for people to accept a completely new information system? The team was asked to write down all the connections they saw between the project in front of them and the film. Within two minutes people were nodding, then busy writing and listing the connections as they saw them—more than a hundred in all, including: a nontraumatic, noncoercive environment; allowing bucking to occur; expecting resistance; keeping the pulse rate down; establishing trust; and keeping the dialogue flowing. They recognized the value of never taking out their frustrations on a colleague.
The consultant team sat back at this point, breathed a deep sigh of relief and realized the message was getting through. Join-Up became a metaphor for the willing acceptance of change that the team sought.
The film helped to establish the tone of the workshops and the changeover to the new system went well. In record time, Paradyne was reaping the benefits of change, with a level of acceptance its executives had previously not considered possible.
In 1999, I was in Texas meeting with my friend Flip Flippen about his work with the school systems in parts of that state. And as an aid to our conversation he told me about an interesting experience he had with Transit Mix.
A CORPORATE EXPERIENCE Transit Mix (#ulink_fd9c0b88-c701-5a0a-82eb-1e9a4d99288f)
Join-Up has the power to transform a workplace in terms of efficiency and employees’ motivation and satisfaction. Turns out Transit Mix Concrete & Material Corporation was in real need of all three.
It faced mounting costs caused by high turnover among the drivers of trucks used to deliver concrete and materials. It was costing the firm $2,200 to train a driver and the turnover rate was a staggering 72 percent every six months. The cost of accidents also cut deeply into its profits.
Flip Flippen of M. B. Flippen Associates was brought in by Mark Stiles, president of Transit Mix, to meet company executives and improve performance. Flip is a psychotherapist who owns one of the most successful teacher-educator companies in America. In 1997 he was lying in bed reading alongside his wife, Susan, who was watching a PBS special, a documentary on my gentling of the wild mustang Shy Boy in the high desert. Half listening, at first he thought the program was about kids, not horses, but he soon sat up and listened attentively to the rest of the documentary.
Later, he bought a copy of the video and asked some of his staff to watch it. They were fascinated but didn’t get its relevance to their work until Flip asked them to close their eyes and listen. “Tell me,” he asked. “Is he talking about horses or kids?”
Flip became a close friend and we later collaborated on a video used for instructional purposes in the school system. Although I had developed my approach from my work with horses and his had grown from his knowledge of children and teachers, there was a strong relationship between my concepts and his teaching methods. Although his work is primarily educating teachers who work with children, he and I had been collaborating for about a year when he got the call from Transit Mix, which asked him if he could use his renowned skills for improving educational performance to help solve its corporate problems. Flip took a hard look at the driver problem. Cement trucks carry a heavy load that rides high over the truck’s mainframe. With that high center of gravity, these vehicles are prone to overturn at the slightest miscue. The drivers are in charge of loading and unloading, washing the truck after each off-loading and preparing their unit for the next trip. The work is strenuous and the scheduling tension-packed. And when drivers quit, qualified replacements were scarce—in part due to a construction boom and an all-time low unemployment rate in Texas.
Another area of concern was property damage. Because of high turnover, competent operation of the vehicles was at a low level. Backing into someone’s building or crunching the contractor’s Mercedes was an expensive proposition.
After a few days of observation, Flip had identified what he believed was the primary problem. “The company and these drivers,” he said, “have not joined-up. I found a window, up high in the office building where I could see a large portion of the operation. I watched the drivers arriving in the morning, parking their cars, taking over their trucks and starting their day. They never talked to anybody and no one spoke to them. When their truck was loaded, off they went, getting directions from a dispatcher on their CB radios.”
Flip concluded that the drivers were seen as little more than robots. When he met them to hear their concerns, he discovered that they were completely disengaged from the company. Their basic concern was “When is pay day and how much do I get?”
Flip and I had discussed the fact that every time I do Join-Up with a horse, I give him a rub between the eyes; I let him know that I care; then I communicate with him, form a relationship and earn his trust and respect. Flip then put in place the EXCEL Leadership Model, which he uses with teachers. It consists of a series of steps almost identical to my own in the round pen. As in Join-Up, first comes the welcome—one of the most important phases of building trust. My rubbing of the horse’s forehead is analogous to offering a handshake, saying “hello” and exchanging pleasantries. Flip told Transit Mix executives that they had to listen to the needs of their employees, much as I listen to my horses.
Flip spent considerable time with the executives and established their individual needs and wishes, both for their working lives and for the company—he literally joined-up with them and urged them to engage with their drivers in the same fashion. He went around the room shaking their hands, asking them if they had ever shaken the hands of their drivers. Each had to admit that he had not, and all agreed to give the plan their best shot. This was vital, because it is impossible to make significant change in a company unless you have agreement at the top level.
The executives had to convey concern, interest and commitment to the truck drivers and let them know that they were important and respected employees. They started meeting the drivers every morning, shaking their hands and exchanging a few words about their plans for the day. A new company attitude began to take shape.
New drivers and their families, many of whom spoke Spanish as their first language, experienced difficulties when first coming to town. So the company hired a social worker to help relocating families with telephone or electrical hookups, in registering children in school or finding a doctor. The social worker even went to workers’ homes to discuss with spouses things such as job benefits and preschool classes, how to find tutoring services or set up car pools, since the head of the household often drove the family’s only vehicle to work. Taking a lot of the stress out of matters at home left the men better able to concentrate on work. The social worker’s job was equivalent to Follow-Up, which enables the trainer to create a bond of trust with the horse. The workers had found a safe place, which enabled them to respect their managers and give their commitment to the partnership.
At one point, the child of a driver became seriously ill. The company helped out and it was astonishing how many other drivers showed up to help the family as well. Transit Mix suddenly had a team.
Flip then decided to bring company executives to watch one of my demonstrations where they too learned the power of Join-Up. Managers went back to work with a new enthusiasm, which they communicated to employees, and goodwill flourished. Shop mechanics would shake hands with drivers; there was a new willingness to work harder to resolve problems.
At the same time Transit Mix executives, Bill McWhirter, president, and Haywood Walker, COO, under Flip’s guidance, instituted a certified professional driver program. After a thorough training course, certified drivers got a bonus, a raise and a patch for their uniforms. This created an elite corps within the drivers’ group. Men who were proud to do a good job were rewarded for their efforts.
Competition for the certification courses encouraged drivers to stay with Transit Mix. There were even competitions between plants to select the most outstanding driver. The company discovered the value of giving positive rewards for positive actions. Employees’ efforts were rewarded with care and commitment. To anyone who has watched me work with a horse in a round pen, it all sounds familiar.
Most of the drivers came to the company with lots of baggage. They had spent their lives relegated to low-paying jobs and they were not used to being treated with respect. At first they were skeptical; they were unaccustomed to a handshake from the bosses, but it wasn’t long before they saw the workplace as a safe place and their effort increased dramatically.
Mark Stiles, group president, set the tone and direction for a successful future. The driver turnover rate dropped from 72 percent to 47 percent in just over fourteen months. The dropout rate among certified drivers was less than 1 percent. Transit Mix is confident that the dropout rate will continue to fall sharply. Meanwhile, the company now serves as a model for the trucking industry, and Transit Mix is more profitable than ever.
Two COMMUNICATION (#ulink_75a821dc-27bf-5c76-8cda-cf540b3bba1b)
The body language of horses offers profound lessons for communication between humans.
Communication is key to our success as human beings. Poor communication results in unrest, unhappiness, isolation and much more. The horse communicates through body language. With humans, body language plays an important role in determining what information we receive and how we are receiving it. Surprisingly, words play a relatively insignificant role in our interaction with people. Therefore nonverbal communication sends very strong messages, not only in the world of the equine and most other animal species, but also among humans.
If we feel comfortable around someone, we will naturally want to stay with him. By staying near him, we are likely to become more interested in him, his needs and desires. This is how we influence people.* (#litres_trial_promo)” Scientific evidence allows us to assume that about 80 percent of communication between humans is body language. When compared with words, body language cues are imprinted more deeply in the human memory bank. Tone of voice is the next most influential part of communication and words make up the rest. This compares favorably with the horse’s communication system. Horses communicate extensively and almost entirely using body language: they do make noises, but in the natural environment, silence is paramount, because no member of the herd wants to alert predators. The horse’s highly developed senses of smell and eyesight play an important part in their communication.
The dictionary definition of communication is an act or instance of transmitting information. But communication is so much more than that. What are we trying to do when we communicate with people? We are looking for physical, emotional and spiritual families. We are looking for like-minded people who will reduce our sense of isolation in an increasingly complex world. The horse knows that, in his world, isolation means certain death. People, by contrast, can often intentionally isolate themselves from other humans. Though they can survive quite well, isolation can have negative consequences. In large cities for example, fear for one’s safety tends to create a desire to isolate oneself using bigger and bigger locks and more and more security, creating an environment of isolation within the mass of humanity. And often people in isolation lose confidence both socially and in the workplace. Stress and loneliness rise and isolation can create a sense of vulnerability.
The badly behaved foal that has been sent out of the herd knows that he cannot survive alone without the protection provided by the group. The isolated horse is at risk. The elderly or infirm horse unable to sustain the pace of the family lags behind and is soon harvested by predators. The horse knows that isolation is an unhealthy state, whereas the human seems to be unaware of the potential dangers of solitary confinement, even when it’s by choice.
Animals use a sophisticated interspecies communication system in order to survive. They assist each other, protect and communicate in a way man has yet to learn. Animals do not form subversive groups that terrorize the neighborhood as humans have learned to do. To be isolated is not to be part of a community, not to belong. Isolation is a revolt against all the things society has to offer. The more people find themselves in situations where isolation is encouraged, accepted and endured, the more anger, shame and fear they will feel. And reactions such as violent crime will surely be a result. We need to improve our communication with the less fortunate of our society and learn to speak the language they understand, as I have with the horse.
When I induce the horse to circle the round pen I am saying, “I am giving you an opportunity to choose for yourself. Flee if that is what you feel is best for you.” I want the horse to be free to choose his own course because in that state of mind learning is encouraged. Through communication, I play out the role of predator and await the gestures appropriate to renegotiation. When the horse exercises his option to come to me rather than go away, I welcome him as strongly as I can in the language of Equus. I reinforce his choice so that we can work together in harmony. It is my hope that we can go forward from that point in the certain knowledge that we mean no harm to one another.
FATHER AND SON (#ulink_60acbd9a-a54e-5ec7-b2ee-6c2bf8e4961f)
It’s important to realize that we do each other harm in many ways—physical violence is only one form of violence. Harm can be done verbally or by an absence of communication. Communication, and the lack of it, molds our personalities just as the sculptor’s hands mold clay. If we find a way to come together with others, each of us understanding our mutual needs and desires, a bond forms. True communication protects us from misunderstandings that tend to fester into a state of fear and distrust. To acquire trust in a relationship is one of the most enriching aspects of life. But my own life is testament to the fact that communication between humans—even between father and son—is often flawed or lacking altogether.
I was walking down Main Street in our hometown of Salinas one day; I would guess I was about ten at the time. I looked ahead and saw my father walking directly toward me. As he approached, I said, “Hi Dad!” but he looked at me and kept walking. I couldn’t decide if he had seen me or not so I said, “Dad … Hello!” He was only about three feet from me and he looked directly at me. I could tell that he recognized me, that he knew me, but he gave no response at all. He passed me, turned to the left, and crossed the street; again I called out to him, “Dad. Hey!” I shouted loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear, but he just kept walking. I returned to school, hurt and puzzled, trying to figure out in my mind what I could have done to upset him and cause him to so deliberately ignore me.
I harbored this hurt for many years. My father’s recognition of me was important, particularly at that age. This incident was yet another deep scar on our relationship. In a sense, it was a small incident, but it reflected a huge coldness, a void between us, which I simply could never come to grips with. I became always eager to please. I did everything he wanted me to. I intensely disliked being involved in his harsh, often brutal if traditional training methods with horses, but in order to please him I gave him any assistance he requested.
We finally reached a silent understanding. During a confrontation years later, I asked him if he remembered that day on the street when he ignored me. He looked at me and said, “I didn’t have anything to say to you.” I let it go, because I guess that was an answer; by then I knew it would achieve nothing to point out that I had not been asking for a conversation that day in Salinas, merely an acknowledgment of my presence.
Greetings take little effort. Children need to know they are important to someone. A parent refusing to acknowledge the presence of his child is like an animal refusing to allow a newborn to drink from its udder. It is a refusal of life itself. I have been strong in my need to communicate with my own children because of such incidents from my childhood. Parents must take responsibility for their children’s emotional welfare; the impressions of humanity they grow up with will mold their lives and affect the lives of the people around them.
For a few critical years in my development I lived with the knowledge that my father had ignored me. The child will almost always ask, Why? In this case the child’s logical conclusion was that he wasn’t worthy of a greeting. A child so treated will often conclude that he or she has been rejected by society, in this first case the microsociety of his immediate family. If a message of rejection is given to a child, we should not be surprised if the child rejects the family and, perhaps, in the end, the larger society. We have already painted the picture; all the child has to do is step into it.
I had not, to the best of my knowledge, done anything to cause my father to ignore me. In my own opinion, I was a hardworking youngster whom any father might have been proud to have raised. The incident, however, caused doubt in me, and it left an indelible mark on my character that has caused me to view relationships with people with a degree of skepticism. But if the adults in my life didn’t seem to make much sense, the horses—even, and especially, wild horses—were starting to make perfect sense.
DISCOVERING THE LANGUAGE OF EQUUS (#ulink_08991dc5-141e-5567-9c6d-6abe8fd0b8a2)
In 1948 I made my first of many trips to Nevada. There, deep in the heart of Indian and ranching country, I watched the wild mustangs and began to recognize that there was a decipherable vocabulary in their actions and movements. There were quiet times during our trek in which I could observe the mustangs interacting with one another oblivious to our presence. I was driven more by intuition than by a desire to communicate with horses, but this experience opened the door to a process of communication that would help me find common ground between human and horse.
Advance and retreat was one of the first lessons taught to me by horses and I was later to discover that it works well with people, too! This was an exciting time for me as I was discovering the presence of a language that nature probably had had in place for millions of years.
This early knowledge was the foundation of all that I am today as a horseman. A few years later, as a boy of fifteen, I was convinced that it would be possible to get a wild mustang to turn and come back to me of his own volition, so that he would Join-Up with me instead of fleeing. It was a wild undertaking, but out there in the desert in 1951, I caused a mustang colt, about three or four years old, to Join-Up with me in one day.
I started out early one morning and within a couple of hours or so I had a young mustang separated from the herd and was driving him away from the group by using what I now know to be crude gestures in the language of Equus. Even though I had a lot to learn I was able to utilize the principles of advance and retreat to make it uncomfortable for him when he was negative and very comfortable for him when he was positive. Within twenty-four hours, having stopped to feed and water my saddle horses while allowing the mustang to do the same, I had full control over the movements of this wild flight animal. I could square up on him with my saddle horse and run straight at him if he decided to leave me. I would stop abruptly, turning to ride away if he showed me the signs that he wanted to come closer to me. In one full day I could cause him to willingly follow me around. His actions became voluntary. He was relaxed and comfortable. I didn’t take it any further because I was so pleased with the achievement and my time was limited.
I was certain people I knew would embrace my accomplishment; sadly that was not the case. I must have anticipated meeting with some disbelievers, but I never imagined the level of ridicule with which I was met. When the word got back to my father and his friends, I was further put down. My mother was the only one who gave me any credit, but I’m not sure she completely believed me. As I reflect on it today, I can understand how in the early 1950s my claims seemed utterly impossible.
But I went back to work with my horses and made them my life. During my childhood I lived in two distinctly separate worlds, one with horses, the other with people. My world with horses was one of comfort and understanding, but with people I felt isolated and alone.
•
It wasn’t until early in 1985 that I attempted to demonstrate to my father the effectiveness of my work. I explained that what I was doing was based on what I learned out there in the desert. Even at that late date he was too set in his ways to give ground. Father and son relationships can be powerful and often inflexible, as ours was. There was never any give in the constant struggle for supremacy. My father tenaciously clung to his beliefs, and I to mine.
In February of 1997, I adopted three mustangs with the intention of repeating my experience of the 1950s. This time I was older and wiser, though somewhat less agile, and determined to record the event on film. Once again I confronted a wild mustang in the wilderness. I knew now that if I could persuade him to trust me I could cause him to accept his first saddle, bridle and rider without force or pain. Just as in 1951, Equus proved to be constant and reliable. It was incredibly tough for me, both physically and mentally, but this experience proved to be one of the most gratifying of my life.
The BBC/PBS television program about the mustang, which I named Shy Boy during that long twenty-four-hour ride through the Cuyama Valley of California when we became acquainted, was shown around the world. The video of that remarkable Join-Up became very popular when I conducted my lectures and demonstrations, and I often fielded remarks and questions about the event. One of the most frequently asked questions was, what did I think the mustang might do if he was taken back to the wild and turned loose? Would he go with the herd or return to me? It took more than a hundred queries of this kind before I realized that I had to accept another challenge.
By this time Shy Boy had been ridden for nearly a year and had been treated well. If I gave him the opportunity to choose between the wild horses and the wilderness or his newfound domestication and me, which would he choose? It was not without trepidation that Shy Boy was released to make his choice.
Come what may, I decided to document his release just as we had documented our first dramatic encounter. After we had tracked down the herd he knew before and released him, the wranglers who accompanied me, and the film crew, watched and waited, scanning the desert hills for any sign of his return. He had rejoined the herd without hesitation; they had welcomed him back before galloping off together. Through the remains of that day, and through the night, I watched him. In the early light of morning, we saw the herd on the crest of a hill. One horse stepped away from the others. I waited. Then Shy Boy came down the hill, galloping through the high grasses. Running directly to me, he put his head to my chest and, in the language of Equus, clearly stated that he was happy to be back with me. He had deliberately chosen to Join-Up with people over returning to his own kind.
I have always asserted that a happy horse that loves his work is better than one that has been forced. This has always been very difficult to demonstrate, but now for me there is no longer any question about it. A mustang, born into the world of absolute flight, chose caring people over his own kind. Shy Boy made his choice because I had gained his trust. Using his own language I had assured him that I was not predatorial and I’d made it clear to him that he could come to and stay with me without fear.
BODY LANGUAGE (#ulink_3e75c96f-58bb-5f67-b0c0-7208df4bbdc9)
Advance and Retreat
When I first encountered the wild mustangs in the Nevada desert as a boy, I also discovered how mustangs could be caught. The Indians from north of Battle Mountain introduced me to principles of advance and retreat. The wild herd is driven away from a trap (a keyhole-shaped structure made up of woven wire and posts, about a quarter of a mile long) for at least a day. You then ride back the other way and the herd tends to follow, leaving some riders to circle behind the herd and so complete the trap. Advance and retreat was one of the first lessons taught to me by horses and I was later to discover that it works well with people, too. For the first time I realized that it was possible to converse with a wild horse. This was thrilling—not only was I discovering the presence of a wondrous language, but I was also discovering my own ability to decode it.
The flight animal’s first reaction to a predator is to flee, using speed to escape from danger. With the attack safely averted, the flight animal will tend to stop, look back and reassess the situation. Survival of the fittest has taught the horse that the more he knows about his predator, the better he will be equipped to survive. In addition, it is critical to conserve energy. It makes little sense to run mindlessly into the jaws of another predator. A horse will often retrace his steps to the area of the attack to determine the nature of the predator, keeping track of its presence and appraising any current threat—somewhat along the lines of “better the devil you know …” This is the phenomenon known as “advance and retreat,” and it is an essential part of the communication process. Humans also act out advance and retreat.
Consider the example of an adolescent boy just starting high school. He has a crush on a girl and follows her persistently. If the girl is not interested, she will ignore his advances. After some time his enthusiasm for this pursuit wanes. He loses interest and starts to look elsewhere. This is the moment when he takes the pressure off. It often does not take long before she misses his constant attention. In animal terms, he has been the predator and she the prey. She will notice he is no longer around and will feel his absence. She may not have had a crush on him, but she enjoyed his attentions. Perhaps she starts to appear where he is, or shows interest in him. Without consciously realizing it, she missed the pressure of his advances, which subconsciously made her aware of how good it felt to be wanted.
The clever salesman uses the principles of advance and retreat to make his commissions. First, he bombards the customer with attention and information and then he retreats, leaving the customer literally to miss the attention. The customer then contacts the salesman of his own volition. The moment that the salesman receives a voluntary approach from his prospective customer, he is metaphorically in the driver’s seat. He can then use subtle tactics to convince his customer of the value of his product.
These concepts were made clear to me by horses over four decades. When the horse decides to approach me of his own volition, he is communicating that I have gone a long way toward selling him on how wonderful it might be to enter into a partnership.
Eyes on Eyes
The first gesture many predators make while stalking is to lock eyes on the eyes of the prey—there is no mistaking this for being anything but predatory. As soon as I release a horse in the round pen and he moves away from me, I lock my eyes on his eyes and take on an aggressive stance, my shoulders and body square to the horse. These actions alert the horse that I could be a predator and cause him to take flight.
A comparable situation occurs when a young man notices a girl he finds attractive and looks directly at her. The desire of one person for another can take on the nuances of a prey/predator scenario. If the female denies eye contact, it is very difficult for the relationship to develop. A relationship is apt to begin when there is eye-to-eye communication.
It is imperative that I am precisely aware of where I am looking at every moment during the process of Join-Up. I can actually slow a horse down by moving my point of vision along the horse’s back toward his tail. The farther I focus away from his head, the slower the pace of the horse. I often show this when demonstrating Join-Up. Conversely, turning one’s attention away is as important in this conversation as is a direct gaze. I always look down and away from the horse’s eyes when I go in close to reward him by rubbing his forehead. By taking my eyes off the horse, I am taking the pressure off. The horse perceives the release of pressure as part of the reward.
Among humans eye contact also signals interest and communicates commitment. It maintains conversation. The lack of eye contact may very well be a natural, healthy and demonstrative part of the communication process. Cessation of that contact takes the pressure off and denotes a change in the flow of communication. The lack of eye contact can be interpreted in many ways. One might feel it demonstrates a lack of self-esteem and/or sincerity and the presence of confusion and/or fear.
Don’t we demand that children should look at us when we are reprimanding them? The child often looks away and adults will generally consider this to show a lack of interest or even a passive defiance. How many times have we seen an angry parent grab a child’s face and yell, “Look at me when I am talking to you!” From my experience with horses I feel that a child who looks away is passive and not dismissive. If a child stands square and drills the adult eye to eye, that child may well be accused of defiant behavior.
Autism
The language of the autistic child is similar to that of the flight animal, and his flight mechanism is far more finely tuned than that of a nonautistic child. The autistic child will almost never make eye-to-eye contact.
Autistic children are also acutely sensitive to body language. In a way similar to that of horses, they rely heavily on it for communication. So it is appropriate to briefly explore autism in this regard.
Autism is a neurological dysfunction that has many different levels of severity and whose cause is not entirely understood. Because the brain is a complex organ, any part or parts of it affected by disease or mutation can cause a wide variety of dysfunctions. What is clear is that the brain becomes overactive in certain areas, which could be a reaction to underdevelopment, or lack of development in other areas.
Autism is not a disease—one is simply born with the condition—and there is no dramatic cure. The word “autism” conveys to many of us a child or person locked into some strange world. Often mute, they seem inaccessible and removed from normality. Autistics are noted for their ability to concentrate deeply on some tiny aspect of their surroundings; they might lock onto a minute detail such as a pencil rolled between the fingers. They seem afraid and often hide from a direct gaze, finding odd corners to crouch in and immersing themselves in repetitive activity. Even less severe autistics can have difficulty relating to other people: they seem unable to read people well or to respond. They are people for whom the jigsaw of life is missing key pieces.
The autistic, like the horse, thinks spatially, or in pictures. Autistic people often find written language a struggle, and they mix up words and symbols for sounds and sometimes cannot even recognize specific sounds. However, autistics have the same range of intelligence as do nonautistic people. In fact, they are often very gifted in some areas while below par in others.
Recently there has been a considerable increase in horseback riding therapy centers where children with a wide range of disabilities can safely, under trained management, ride horses. Reports on the success of these ventures vary, but generally it is noticed that the act of riding is stimulating for autistic children. Riding provides the autistic child who is unable to walk with a freedom of movement over which he or she has some measure of control.
The close proximity of horse and rider also seems to be attractive to autistics and often helps to arrest violent or repetitive behavior. The child with high anxiety or suffering panic attacks almost instantly becomes calm once seated on a horse. The act of riding also helps the children to use muscles that would otherwise not be so actively employed and so their all-around development is enhanced while the sound of trees rustling, the feel of the wind in their faces and the smell of nature as they ride along combine to produce a complete and stimulating environment.
The horse and the autistic child have much in common. Noise, particularly loud and unusual sounds, can be terrifying to both. The horse thrives on routine, and autistics are almost fanatical about routine; one thing out of place and they are likely to throw a tantrum, which makes education very difficult and much communication depends upon body language.
A handshake might be perceived as an attack to such a child, who will often approach you from behind, just as the horse in my round pen does when I do Join-Up. Autistic children will try not to look you straight in the eye, but firm eye contact, conveying focus, plays an important part in their communication system, as does touch. Many such children want to be hugged but cannot handle the psychic distress that this stimulation causes. As with the horse a certain quality of touch is acceptable, but it must never be forced. Both will become very accustomed to seeing the outline of a person they deal with every day and will recognize familiar sounds and shapes. The horse is immediately alarmed when faced with something that has an unfamiliar shape and is liable to react with extreme fear, even spinning around and bolting. The autistic child will almost certainly fear strange sights or sounds, which can be a trigger to violent or repetitive behavior.
Perhaps it is not surprising that the horse, a visual thinker with an extraordinary ability to sense the intentions of its rider, is quite comfortable being ridden by autistics and, furthermore, is able to cope with their often unusual behavior.
My interest in autistic children is not entirely founded on the similarities they share with the horse. I also think in pictures, and perhaps this has something to do with my success in working with horses. For a long time it never occurred to me that everyone didn’t think that way. I can still remember the floor plan of a house that my grandparents lived in—each room, how the furniture was arranged and where the windows were. That house was demolished when I was eighteen months old. When it came to designing Flag Is Up Farms, I had no difficulty in planning it out because I could see the end result. It was the same with our house and the subsequent alterations and extensions that I have made.
Temple Grandin is an autistic and a well-known author of several books and articles on her unusual life and chosen area of study—the design of feed lots, slaughterhouses, corrals and farms that handle animals. I first heard about her in the mid-1990s when her book Thinking in Pictures was recommended to me. I devoured it and was awestruck by the similarities that I found when comparing her thought processes to mine. I was impressed by her ability to recognize and reduce stress levels in cattle being handled in chutes. She used her special ability as an autistic with a pictorial memory to determine factors that terrified the cattle. She is now designing handling facilities for animals by employing concepts that would have been considered foolish and unnecessary just a couple of decades ago.
Temple Grandin has revolutionized the way in which cattle are brought to slaughter. Her autism means that she finds it difficult to cope with being touched and she fears loud and sudden noises, just as cattle do. So she brought a particular insight and sensibility to the problem of avoiding panic in cattle at stockyards. Her solution was simple, but brilliant: have the cattle follow a circular path, since moving in circles is in their nature and comforts them.
Though seemingly cut off from the world, the autistic may have lessons to offer us. The ways of her fellow humans confound Temple Grandin but she saw something terribly lacking in the way we handle animals destined for human consumption. Her thinking has had a profound impact on the handling of cattle, sheep and swine all over the world.
Although I am not a vegetarian, I firmly believe that the handling of all animals destined for slaughter ought to be done with the primary objective of eliminating stress, trauma or pain.
I invited Ms. Grandin to join me at a demonstration in 1998. She is the only person who specializes in animal behavior whom I have ever allowed to take a microphone during my question-and-answer period and respond to my answers with comments of her own. This was a dangerous thing for me to do—there is a risk of being contradicted, or of disrupting my work with the raw horses. But I not only have confidence in my concepts, I have also come to respect her opinion. It turned out to be enjoyable and I would welcome the opportunity to do it again, but only with Temple Grandin. I felt this incredible sense of safety. In her response she is a flight animal, or as close to one as I have ever met. In my excitement at first meeting her that evening, I thrust out my hand and she ducked under the bleachers. Quickly, the horse trainer in me kicked in and I began to move more slowly and cautiously.
What Temple Grandin offers is a keen insight into what a flight animal goes through. “If you’re a visual thinker,” she once said, “it’s easier to identify with animals.” As an autistic, she has great difficulty understanding human emotions and codes of behavior; the touch of another human appeals intellectually to her but its physical aspects terrify and overwhelm her. Yet she reads the moods and signs of animals as she would a book. Cattle and autistics share common ground, because both are frightened by high-pitched sounds, sudden loud noises, air hissing. Temple Grandin understands very well why cattle fear shadows and sudden movements, how feeling and emotion is communicated by the body—even through
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