{"id":431,"date":"2015-12-17T08:06:02","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T08:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/?p=431"},"modified":"2015-12-17T08:06:02","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T08:06:02","slug":"failure-a-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/failure-a-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Failure: A Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I find it helpful to relate horse training to life.\u00a0 One thing I have learned while training horses is that they can only learn through failure.\u00a0 If they never do the wrong thing, there is no way for them to differentiate between the right thing and the wrong thing.\u00a0 Let’s say you were trying to train your horse to stand in one spot without moving a leg.\u00a0 He might stand there for an hour without moving, but he’d never understand that’s what you wanted him to do until he moved a leg out of place and you corrected him.\u00a0 He would never associate a word you said with staying in place, unless he heard you say that word after he failed to stay in place and you moved him back there.<\/p>\n

In a similar way, the saying “learn from your mistakes” is not entirely helpful.\u00a0 Instead, the saying should be “make mistakes so you can learn from them.”<\/p>\n

This is one reason why working with and riding many different horses is a catalyst for becoming a better horse person.\u00a0 If you always work with one horse, that horse might forgive your mistakes or overlook them.\u00a0 But even if one or two horses accept your mistakes, ten horses will not.\u00a0 So you are bound to learn a better way of doing things.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Failure is a very good friend.\u00a0 I have learned to stay on horses by failing to stay on horses.\u00a0 I have learned how much pressure is too much for horses by applying too much pressure.\u00a0 Likewise, I have learned how much pressure is too little when horses failed to respond to it.\u00a0 I have learned that certain training methods will not work for every horse by trying out those methods.\u00a0 In the process I have learned much more than I would have if I’d never failed.<\/p>\n

It is natural to feel discouraged when you fail, and I’d like to instead feel that now I have a new opportunity to learn.\u00a0 Today I failed to get my horse to trot in a perfect circle, so now I have a chance to learn how to teach a crooked horse how to use her body differently.\u00a0 I’ve succeeded in getting many horses to make a beautiful circle, so this failure is a good opportunity for me.\u00a0 Should I start on a smaller circle or a larger one?\u00a0 Should I work her first in long lines?\u00a0 Should I start with four steps of a circle and then go back to a straight line?\u00a0 The learning opportunities are endless.<\/p>\n

Here’s wishing you also will have many failures in your future with horses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” I find it helpful to relate horse training to life.\u00a0 One thing I have learned while training horses is that they can only learn through failure.\u00a0 If they … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Al1H-6X","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoofforum.com\/square\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}