What is Modern Horsemanship?
Jenku uses a combination of classical dressage, natural horsemanship, positive reinforcement and the belief that ‘there must be a better way’. He believes in training the trainer and taps into the horse’s innate potential to learn complex behaviours. He uses one universal language based on what he calls ‘The Three Agreements’.
The Three Agreements
1 A clear yes — Reward as feedback. Desired behaviour is encouraged with a pleasant consequence.
2 A clear no — Pressure as feedback. Undesired behaviour is discouraged with an unpleasant consequence.
3 A clear neutral — when in doubt, go to neutral. Doubt is the precursor to fear. Fear of failure is counterproductive to learning. The third agreement serves as a safety mechanism to help you and your horse to reset and try again if the stress levels get too high.
Shared neurobiology
It’s important to consider that the horse has an overdeveloped brain stem and an underdeveloped higher brain. Humans, on the other hand, have an overdeveloped higher brain and an underdeveloped brain stem. Horses, therefore, have no capacity for language, reasoning and problem solving. These are human traits. However, both horses and humans have a similar nervous system that consists of three parts:
n1 Central nervous system
n2 Peripheral nervous system
n3 Autonomic nervous system
With this understanding of the physiology of the human brain and the horse’s brain, it is possible to combine the best of both for optimum performance.
Motivation
Both horses and humans are fundamentally motivated by pleasure or pain. To understand a little more about why this method is so effective, you need to know how your own and your horse’s neurobiology functions. This revolves around the autonomic nervous system. It regulates all our subconscious bodily functions, our heart rate, liver and kidney functions — even our breathing when we’re not consciously thinking about it.
It’s composed of two parts — the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. The fight or flight state
(sympathetic nervous system) acts like the accelerator in your car. And the rest and digest state (parasympathetic nervous system) acts like the brake to slow down your car. In other words, you cannot be running and resting simultaneously.
Fight or flight state
Trigger > Stress hormones > Blood to the outside
Normally there is an external trigger that stimulates one or more of your horse’s five senses. This, in turn, triggers an electrical impulse in his brain that causes a neurochemical reaction in his body. Stress hormones are released in his bloodstream which increase his heart rate and the intake of oxygen to his lungs. His pupils dilate to help him to see better. His back muscles contract and his head and neck come up. And, most importantly, blood rushes to his muscles to enable him to flee from danger.
Rest and digest state
Trigger > Happy hormones > Blood to the inside
The rest and digest state is active when your horse feels safe and relaxed. This state slows the heartbeat, increases salivation, boosts circulation to the intestines and liver, and increases movement through the digestive tract.
When your horse is in the rest and digest state he’s relaxed. He’ll yawn, sigh and his breathing will slow.
What happens when you feed your horse is that the mouth signals to the brain that food is coming. The brain then signals to the body to return blood to the intestines. This changes the neurochemistry and releases ‘happy hormones’. This is one of the reasons why the “Tsk” sound for desired behaviour (see ‘Direct feedback’,
‘Jenku’s training method is about direct feedback – everything is about precision and timing’
below), followed by a food reward, helps your horse to relax and focus. It’s in this relaxed state that optimum learning takes place.
“In a high stress situation, survival is the priority, not learning,” says Jenku. “People try to train their horse when he’s in a flight state and, when they can’t get him to relax, they put him in draw reins, side reins — something to physically force him into the ‘correct outline’ — but the neurochemistry is all wrong.”
Direct feedback
The equipment Jenku uses is minimal. He uses a “Tsk” sound to mark the exact moment a desired behaviour is performed, followed by a reward. Depending on the exercise to be trained, he also uses a schooling whip, a longer rope line, or reins to apply pressure to mark undesired behaviour. His training method is based on direct feedback — everything is about precision and timing. “I’m a very practical guy and everything is about marginal gains,” explains Jenku. “The simpler the equipment, the easier it is to give direct and accurate feedback. The more complicated your equipment and system is, the harder it is to give direct and accurate feedback. This means that your timing will be off, which inhibits input-output feedback signals between you and your horse. This is when I discovered that using a sound as a cue to mark desired behaviour works really well.” The “Tsk” sound cue has five criteria:
1 Easy to use
2 Distinct
3 Very precise
4 Unemotional
5 Audible over a distance