Clarity, and Communication in Force Free Horsemanship

When equestrians hear the term "force-free", often their mind goes to "permissive". Meaning the common perception is that allowing your horse the freedom of choice equals a lack of clarity and communicationn due to "simply letting your horse do what it wants" (A sentence I have heard too many times).

However, this could not be further from the truth!

In fact, Force Free Horsemanship done correctly, excels in both of these aspects.

Let's take them apart bit by bit and chat a bit about how Force Free Horsemanship, when applied properly, embodies those key aspects.

Remember that the primary principle of FFH is to allow the horse the freedom to choose to learn, to participate, and to work.

Communication

Good communication is a must, as without communication, we have nothing, no matter the type of approach we take; however, in FFH, communication is the foundation of everything.

We must remember that communication is a two-way street. Otherwise, it's not communication, but simply ordering, conditioning or directing your horse.

Good communication is created by having clear, consistent intentions and signals on our end, and by paying attention to our horses' responses and feelings towards those.

The problem is that many assume clear and consistent intentions are the same as being firm, or having fixed expectations, and that is where a force free approach differs.

We can have clear intentions but still allow our horse to guide us, and let them tell us how much is comfortable for them.

What does this look like? When we make a request of our horse or if we're teaching something new, we will show our horse what we would like them to do. If they understand it and are comfortable with it, great! If they struggle with the task, are confused, or feel uncomfortable with it, then this is their communication to us that we need to adjust our end of the conversation.

Which means we can ask differently, lower our criteria for the next couple of repetitions, check if we're using confusing signals, ensure that the horse is actually able to perform the request, modify our environment, and more.

The important thing here is that this isn't done because we're afraid of upsetting our horse or doing the wrong thing, but about setting the horse up for success and maintaining a constant flow of information back and forth between ourselves and our horse. Like a game of tennis, we're constantly giving each other feedback.

This is really what communication comes down to! Building good communication means learning to listen just as much as learning to say something, and how can you expect to listen if we don't allow them to speak! Giving the freedom to choose also means the freedom to communicate.

Clarity

Clarity goes directly hand in hand with communication, as once we have a communication system back and forth, clarity is what makes us progress as a team. Otherwise, we're just chatting away at each other without ever getting to the point.

Clarity is especially important in FFH, or else you will get a frustrated, confused and anxious horse, and such a horse that is given the freedom of choice will simply walk away from the training.

So clarity really comes down to being able to use your end of the communication system effectively and consistently. Things like paying attention to the little details, rewarding the small tries, having good timing, clear and consistent signals, honing your feel & instincts are where a lot of this is going to happen! This is pretty universal for all good horsemanship, and this is the same in FFH.

What's different in a force free approach, and what trips people up, is how to have clarity when a horse doesn't do what we expect. - The answer isn't to be firm and rigid in our request.

This goes right back to our communication and our intentions.

Once again, people assume "force free" means when horse disengages, it is where we simply stop on our end of the communication. Quite the opposite! This is where the real communication just starts to happen. Freedom of choice doesn't mean we just go "ope, well, I guess we're done." - if your student is struggling, you don't just leave them to figure it out right?

So we want to make sure not to keep our horse guessing. If we're making a request or trying to teach something new, and our horse is not responding as we expected, we then look at what our horse is communicating, and, according to our intentions, adjust our own communication!

This means you'll have to learn to read the difference between your horse disengaging because they're unwilling, unable, confused, distracted, or anxious.

Is your horse confused? Reframe your request. Is your horse distracted? You'll have to regain their attention before making the request again. Is your horse unwilling? Figure out why and proceed accordingly. Is your horse anxious? Resolve the cause of the anxiety first. (remember to check your own anxiety too!)

Because clarity is being able to adjust your approach to the horse in front of you. To "clarify" a request isn't to ask the same way but "firmer", but to make it easier for the horse to follow the request, and this is the basis of Force Free Horsemanship.

There we have it! Force Free horsemanship builds its foundation on freedom of choice, strong, clear communication between horse and human is not only the groundwork, but it's also a byproduct, ever improving and fine-tuning. Because we cannot, and will not, force our horse through our lack of clarity or communication, we have to step up and become our best version of ourselves.