You have probably heard about pressure and release techniques in horse training, specifically in natural horsemanship. There are many different explanations about how to use it, with the most widely recognized approach using pressure to motivate “the try” and/or “make the horse to do what you want.”
Let’s now take a look at what “motivating the try” means and what “making the horse” means. Both use pressure, however, one focuses on getting a “response” from the horse whereas the other focuses on creating a “reaction.”
While response and reaction are similar in meaning they can create two vastly different results. Creating a response in our horse means we have taken the time needed to help the horse think and figure it out. This approach requires skill and the use of feel and timing. Feel and timing determine the amount of pressure and timing of the release.
Creating a reaction in our horse on the other hand means we apply pressure until the horse does what we want. We are not considering the horse or using pressure to guide the process of learning. Instead pressure is used as negative reinforcement, meaning if the horse does not do what we want, we keep applying the pressure. In this scenario the horse learns to either avoid the pressure or react to it defensively.
An example of teaching your horse to respond to pressure would be teaching your young horse to move away from steady, driving pressure in the round pen and with calm, connection and relaxation.
We achieve this by going slow and taking into consideration how the horse is responding to our use of pressure and if they are figuring out what we want. By watching their body language and expressions we can determine how we go about using pressure. By going slow, we are best able to “listen” to our horse, allow our horse to teach us about them - what works best, how they feel about it and most of all develop them as confident learners during this process.
Creating a reaction on the other hand creates a quick and impulsive (non-thinking) response that is defensive or instinctively driven - the opposite of a thinking horse. If done too much, and too often, we develop a reactive, flighty, unconfident and unsafe horse.
In the end, we want to use pressure to not only help our horses think, we want to use it as a guide in developing a responsive, thinking, confident and safe partner. The release is equally as important as the use of pressure when teaching too. How we use the release, it’s purpose, will make or break the learning process. It should be used as a means of allowing the horse to digest what you are teaching, process the information and absorb the meaning. If we do not allow for the release, or understand its purpose, we have done the horse a huge disservice and injustice.
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