Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Edward Gal's Masterclass Video

The amazing rider, Edward Gal has had some record breaking rides with his horses in dressage the past few years. There are so many parallels between training horses and training dogs. This video, while it is 25 minutes long, is jam packed with training advice which is similar to training dogs. If you come from a horse background, you already understand how much there is in common and for those that ride (or rode), there is a "feel" of rhythm and tempo between the rider and the horse.

In the video Edward talks about the importance of control and reacting to what the horse is doing  to get that control and keep the horse in tempo.  He is constantly balancing the training session with control when the horse wants to run or move faster and out of tempo. When he feels the horse is anticipating a move, even if he was going to do that particular maneuver, he will do something else to ensure that they are still in balance. I love all the analogies between training the horses and training dogs and how he is constantly working on the foundation pieces of each exercise and not going further until the bottom brick of that maneuver has been laid.

My very favorite quote in the video, applies to dog training is this: "When you lose control, you don't have anything.".



Enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. Nancy-

    I agree, there are a lot of parallels between horse training and dog training. I have read one book by Ray Hunt and a book by Bob Avilia and enjoyed both of them. I subscribe to a couple of horse magazines because of the similarities in training. We have also watched Clinton Anderson on RFD too. I will watch this video when I have 25 minutes to devote to it.

    Thanks for sharing,
    Kathy

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