Horse Sense for People. Monty Roberts

HOW TO ACHIEVE JOIN-UP

      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.

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      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