I posted the little clip of the 3 mat games yesterday to show an exercise that can be done on the ground and under saddle and because I thought it might inspire some of you to go out and play with mats. Reading the comments and thinking about it, I realized that it was worth discussing a little bit about matwork. For many people (and this was true for me initially), matwork is about getting the horse to stand on the mat. But in recent years, I have come to see matwork and many other exercises as just providing a little bit of structure to help you and your horse develop better communication. You can choose what aspect of communication you want to work on. I know a lot of people use matwork to encourage the horse to experiment and to fine tune their clicking skills (timing, rate of reinforcement, choosing criteria). I do that too, but for me one of the most valuable things I have gotten out of matwork is that the horse and I learn to work together to meet a common goal. Because I use a combination of self-directed and directed learning, the horse and I start to pay more attention to what the other partner is doing and we start to work out what it means to have a “thinking” partner. If this all sounds a bit too vague, then you can just think of matwork as a nice way to let some cues and stimulus control evolve. You can also see how similar the ground cues are to the riding cues which makes it easier for both of us. This happens during the process of teaching matwork, and I think of it as a limited window of opportunity because once the horse knows the behavior (stand on the mat), they do it mostly on their own. While you can fine tune details, it is not quite the same. You learn different things at different points in the process. So with this thought in mind, here is a little commentary on what is happening in the video clip. 0:03 walking to the mat. She knows this well so I can just walk her toward the mat and “release” her to the mat. I wrote about this earlier after the Groton clinic and it just means that a step or two out, I take my hands off the reins. She places herself on the mat. Front feet on the mat is the strongest of her mat behaviors as it has a huge reinforcement history. She is pretty square (which I also shaped) so that’s good. 0:10 I use the rein to ask her to come forward and put her hind feet on the mat. This is the newest of her mat behaviors and the one that needs the most work. She has a tendency to step up with her hind feet more than she moves her front feet so she ends up standing a little underneath herself. I’m not sure I can just shape this to improve it as she is sure this activity is about her hind feet so I am teaching her to inch her front feet forward and will put that one cue and then plug that back in here. 0:18 I am using the rein to bring that RH a little more forward. Then she does too much, but that’s ok. I am not after her standing perfect, but building in the connection between the rein and her hind foot. 0:30 I use the reins to draw her forward off the mat. It took a while to teach her that I just wanted a step or two. She uses my body position to know if I am walking off or if we are just stepping off. If I wanted to lead her off the mat and go somewhere else, I would be facing forward. 0:39 I ask her to back on to the mat. I am controlling her feet with a little rein pressure and I ask her to take her RH back farther. Ideally I would like her to be square on the mat but I am mindful of how her position affects the stability of the mat. If she has her feet too close to either edge (both of them), the mat sometimes tips a bit and I want her to feel secure on the mat so if one foot is positioned near the edge, I will place the other foot so the mat will stay solid. Again, this is something I will pick away at over time, but right now my focus is on 2 feet on the mat and her being comfortable. 1:11 she approaches and steps on the mat with her front feet. This is a pretty fluent behavior for her and I can just let her do it. 1:30 I ask her to start moving forward. You can see that initially she offers to reposition herself on the mat, so I just ask for forward again. 1:40 She’s got her hind feet on the mat but they are on the back edge. Can you see the front tipping up? I ask her to step forward a bit so the mat lies flatter but she thinks I want her to go forward off the mat. Then I have to use the reins to stop her. Probably I should have clicked for her hind feet on the mat, even if they were close to the edge as I confused her by not accepting it. 1:48 I ask her to bring just her RH forward using the rein and a little leg and she does do it. This is something we have been working on. The first time a clinician asked me to move one hind leg forward while standing, I said “what?” because I had no idea how to do it. Through matwork we are learning a bit about how to ask for this. 1:56 she’s got her back feet on the mat and is in a better position. 2:01 I ask her to creep off the mat and she thinks I want her to back so she does that instead, but then goes forward too much and I have to stop her. Sometimes I forget I have a verbal whoa which would be better to use in this situation. 2:30 she backs nicely on to the mat (I do cue this) and places both feet on, but then moves the LH forward off the mat. I do click and treat but then ask her to LH back on the mat. She listens to my request and moves the correct leg, but then overshoots and it comes off the mat. I just wanted one step but when she keeps backing I realize she is resetting herself to the mat with her front feet. I decide that’s a good idea and let her finish and then click and treat it. 3:18 this time she gets both hind feet on the mat. 3:26 we creep off the mat. You can see she tried just picking up the LH and replacing it first, but then when I didn’t click and kept thinking forward, she took the steps off the mat. 3:28 She’s off the mat. I did finish the sequence and am not sure why I ended the movie there…
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:06:02 +0000