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reddragdiva... No.
The theory doesn't hold, so if you want to build further theory on it you're out of luck. (Wikipedia summarises the problems pretty well: the models are provably incorrect, it appears oddly hard to teach and communicate, and advocates even try claiming science is inadequate to analysing it.)
The master hack for getting people to do what you want is confidence: simply, to confidently tell them to do what you want. NLP works insofar as having a theory at all, even an erroneous one, increases your confidence. And what NLP actually sells is getting people to do what you want. So NLP delivers what it's selling. Sort of.
(I said "simple," not "easy." But that is the actual answer.)
Many other such marketed mental hacks work the same way, including ones that sell themselves as therapies rather than control techniques. They pretty much all work by applied confidence. Some with an admixture of exploiting cognitive biases.
If you don't buy that and think I'm just mired in pseudosceptic negativity, you could always try using NLP for weight loss, psoriasis or to cure cancer.
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Date: 2011-06-11 07:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 07:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 08:05 am (UTC)(They also came out with the gem of 'if you feel like you have to wear a helmet when you ride, you obviously aren't in tune enough with your horse, so you should do our classes and then you'll be safe and won't need a helmet.' - Paraphrased, but pretty close to the actual quote. Because horses are not flight animals that randomly freak out at stupid things no matter how well trained they are, and they never slip and fall or trip or misjudge a jump...)
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Date: 2011-06-11 10:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 06:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 03:21 pm (UTC)One of the gotchas with horses is the traits that make horses instant reactors to aids tend to make them instant reactors to scary hats, too. Donkeys and onager have a more aggressive style in dealing with problems than horses do. (Onagers so aggressive that when humans tried to use them to pull chariots, the onager had to be muzzled). Mules tend to be much less skittish than horses, and not quite so quick to pay attention to the bit and the heel.
My grandfather, who had worked with horses and mules since he was a child, said that you can't break a horse to a book and would turn me loose in the summer on a mule, not a horse.
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Date: 2011-06-11 06:52 pm (UTC)Someone who owns mules once told me that one of the big differences between horses and mules (and presumably donkeys) when trail riding and that sort of thing is that mules have a much better developed sense of self-preservation, and have no problem whatsoever looking at a situation and going 'you are NUTS, I am not going there' - like crossing a flooded stream or an old bridge or something like that - whereas most horses are more willing to follow the rider's guidance, even if the rider is an idiot.
(I suspect people with Appaloosas would argue that their horses are more like mules, but properly bred Appys - not the ones that are just spotted Quarter Horses - do tend to have a lot of attitude and intelligence, so I could believe it.)
I think some ponies can be more like mules in that regard, also, which is what makes some of them really excellent babysitter types. Of course, some of them are nasty little things because it's hard to train a pony properly in the first place if you don't have access to a good kid or a small adult, but if you get one of the good ones, they tend to be REALLY good. They'll respond perfectly happily during a lesson or something, but as soon as the kid wants to do something dumb - nope, not happening. (Said ponies are also very good at the "I can't HEAR you" game where you can poke, pull, tug, swear, and otherwise drive yourself nuts trying to get it to do what you want, and if it's not convinced it's a good idea, it's just Not. Happening.) (One of my friends has a rare breed pony who's like that - he's good as gold in most situations, but has no problems conveying quite clearly when he thinks you're being dumb.)
Horses are awesome when people aren't being stupid on and with them. :)
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Date: 2011-06-11 07:34 pm (UTC)A friend in rural Virginia had a work pony who liked pulling logs but hated being ridden. They could trust the pony to drag logs from the forest to the truck and come back for a new log (hippies heating with wood). Riding? Not happening. "I'm your partner, not your bitch" seemed to be the attitude.
I'm in a country, Nicaragua, that still uses horses (and some mules) for transportation and for working cattle. The average daily use horses are small, often gaited. I'm tempted, but probably too out of practice for riding again, and a bit too old to recover from getting thrown quickly. The hipico (horse parade) show horses are quite a bit larger.
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Date: 2011-06-11 09:22 pm (UTC)Feh. I miss horses, I will triumph! :)
But yes, I know what you mean about ponies/mules/donkeys often having that attitude. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. (Actually, I think it's a good thing for a lot of kids because kids are not known for their judgment skills and sometimes, having a pony who'll go 'are you NUTS? I'm not doing that!' will save their bacon. :) )
Oddly, to some extent, that is also an attitude that, as I understand it, people who do Three Day Eventing or hunting look for in their horses - maybe a little less so (because they do want the horses to trust them to jump something that might look odd but is actually safe, since course designers like to make odd-looking jumps as a test) but they definitely want a degree of self-preservation because when you're jumping mostly fixed jumps and fences and that sort of thing that won't fall down easily, you REALLY want your horse to be willing to go 'you know, we're not going to clear this, I am going to stop/run out' instead of trying, chesting the jump, and flipping over and squishing you flat. Though apparently this is a trait that seems to be getting harder to find.
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Date: 2011-06-11 09:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-15 11:48 am (UTC)(Not that I think that a novice kid should be tossed up on a green or rank pony, but there does seem to be much more of an attitude in the UK where once you've got the basics, it's expected that you'll just learn to deal with training issues and if you fall off, unless you're seriously hurt - which is pretty unlikely if you're wearing proper safety equipment and on small ponies - you just get back on and carry on with what you were trying to do.)
So basically in the US, we teach ponies that if they get the rider off then they get a break while everyone fusses over the rider's bruise and debates if it needs an hospital visit, and in the UK they teach ponies that if they get the rider off the rider is more than likely to just get right back on. (And if that particular rider is too injured to do so, there's probably someone else who can fill in just long enough to put the pony through the paces so it doesn't think it's gotten out of working.)
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Date: 2011-06-15 01:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 07:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 08:11 am (UTC)Oh, I am SO not surprised at ALL.
(The Parelli system is, apparently, based, amongst other things, on a horse having a 'horsenality' where he's right brained or left brained and introverted and extroverted or something like that - and then there are lots of bizarre 'games' you play that are supposed to help the horse develop other parts of his 'horsenality' or get him to trust you... I'm not sure of the details because honestly I don't have the stomach to watch any of the crap they do because it all boils down to horses who look confused and miserable to me.)
(Except for the ones who have been purchased by middle-aged timid ladies who get into Parelli because they think it'll help the horse love them more, and it gives them an excuse to never actually ride. THOSE horses generally look like they're having a grand old time because they do, like, NO work at all, basically, and hang around and get fed treats and if they don't want to do something they just make a nasty face and their owner comes up with some Parellified reason why it must not be the right time to have a bath/pick out hooves/whatever. I'm pretty sure THOSE horses are reasonably content, at least as long as they don't get sold on to someone who won't put up with that crap and has to spend considerable amounts of time on retraining.)
Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-11 08:35 pm (UTC)The people with money buying horses today aren't buying small, easy going, smooth gaited horses without a whole lot of collection -- they buying flashy fast horses that can jump or which are gaited with high leg action. The old school people who used to race thoroughbreds or show five gaited horses had someone else, generally trained from childhood as a groom or jockey, ride the things for performance. Mounted hunting, falconry, and combat were the exceptions, and I wonder how much hunting prior to the Enclosure Acts involved jumping.
So, modern adults who want horses buy what they can afford that looks romantic, big, and flashy, and are often in way over their heads. They might have been happier learning to ride on an old calm generic riding horse, or even a mule, but that isn't the image they have of themselves on horseback. They also buy into the idea that they can hire experts to transfer that expertise to them in intellectual ways.
Good horsemanship is a combination of muscle memory and having ridden enough to have considerable empathy with horses, to be able to read the tensions and relaxations in the horse's body, and to have developed a reasonable level of confidence in handling horses in general, plus being sure that you have the right basically to be on top of the horse (confidence, which is a good mental hack in many situations with a range of species).
I don't remember any of horse whispering from my kiddie days of being a horse mad girl -- and I read quite a bit. Lessons involved actually being on top of a school horse and getting my posture corrected. The prevailing idea then was that until a rider learned how to ride reasonably well, on a range of horses, training a horse was not something the novice needed to think about and might never need to think about. Learning to ride well took several years, often on horses that were not exciting to ride for at least the first year. I suspect this was because people were closer to actual using horses in the 1950s and 1960s than they are now. Exciting horses are fun to watch, probably fun for some riders to ride, but nobody rides them into town to do shopping here. The local horsemen who use horses on a daily basis ride the little Spanish horses that don't flinch over buses, motorcycles, trucks, or brass band parades.
Re: Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-11 09:13 pm (UTC)The really big market for Parelli types seems to be women who were horse mad as kids, but didn't necessarily get to take lessons (or didn't take GOOD lessons where horsemanship was part of what you learned) and now that they're middle-aged or a bit older (kids are off to college) they have the money and the time to buy a horse. But rather than buying Old Dobbin (who they SHOULD be getting) they do tend to go for either the status symbol horse (expensive something-or-other) or the pretty 'dream' horse and then they're not ready to ride the thing. (And most horses will totally take advantage if they know you're intimidated.)
So Parelli type rubbish gives them an excuse to not ride, and to stay on the ground and play 'games' and if they get intimidated to put the horse back on the grounds of it not being in the right mindset or something rather than having to admit they're afraid.
To be honest, there is nothing wrong with having a horse you don't ride - my mom loves horses but she has mobility issues so the chances of her learning to ride are basically non-existent, but when she retires she's been talking about maybe getting a place where she has some land so she can keep a horse or two (one for me!) because she enjoys them. I have no issue with that - there are certainly horses out there who are pasture sound but not sound for riding who'd love a good home, or horses who need some extended time off to recover from an injury.
My issue is that the stupid Parelli-and-related crap a) provides lots of chances for horses to learn bad habits about avoiding work and b) tends to teach horses to do things that are contrary to the standard way people expect horses to behave. I know lots of people who are in the business of retraining horses (off the track race horses, for example) who will RUN the other way if they're told a horse has been Parellified, because it's just so much work to retrain the thing so that it behaves sensibly. So basically Parelli has set up a system that encourages/supports people in buying too much horse for what they can sensibly handle, and then proceeds to turn those horses into training nightmares that a lot of professionals don't want to deal with, which is seriously bad news for the horse if it needs to be sold on somewhere down the line.
(I am personally of the opinion that even if you think you're going to keep a horse the rest of his life, you should do what you can to keep him as appealing as possible to the sale market - not necessarily for big bucks, because some people do want a horse for casual riding, they don't all need to be superstars - because you simply never know what will happen in the future. Horses are expensive and, for most people, they're luxury items. Sometimes shit happens and you just can't afford the costs anymore - at which point the better prepared your horse is for the sale market, the more likely he is to land in a good home instead of someplace crummy.)
Re: Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-11 09:16 pm (UTC)Re: Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-11 10:07 pm (UTC)What we have equivalent here are large, gaited Paso Finos, some Andalusians, and some big Arab-looking horses for horse parades. Watching those is exciting, but the riders aren't having anything remotely like a relaxed experience with the horses. Nobody who rides for transportation would bother to own one, but I wouldn't be surprised if some rich Nicaraguans also don't get into more horse than they can manage for much the same reasons. And it's not just women. I think this will make you smile.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1975143308180&set=a.1975153388432.2120135.1530998076&type=1&theater
Re: Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-11 09:42 pm (UTC)I may or may not have taught the mule I rode how to neck rein -- if she hadn't been taught before, I did. Or I refreshed her memory (her primary function was in front of plows). I got the impression I was the first rider of a plow horse that got a slow canter out of her -- and she seemed to have actually been pleased that she'd figure out what I wanted. But these level things don't require huge amounts of intellectualizing, which I suspect was my grandfather's point about not being able to break a horse to a book.
Trying to do figure eights on an ex-barrel racing pony teaches something about persistence of earlier training (he did the barrel racing zigzags without the barrels because that's what those aids meant to him), and learning how to get a canter out of a horse that mistrusts your balance is also something that teaches you why balance is important.
Makes sense to teach a horse the system that most of the people in the regional riding community use. Not much market for hunters trained to snaffle bits in Nicaragua; probably almost no market for horses trained to hackamores and neck reining in Fairfax County, Virginia. Even if you don't have to sell a horse, you may need to have someone else ride it.
Re: Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-15 11:55 am (UTC)"Natural Horsemanship" and particularly Parelli with the games can introduce behaviors which are completely at odds with what the majority of horse folks would expect when handling a horse. So rather than having to tweak small things or introduce a new bit, you have to figure out how to UNTRAIN all the silliness before you can make progress, and some horses just get mentally fried from the games (because they can't figure out the point to them) and you end up with a big old mess. It's like going out of your way to make your horse difficult to manage for the general horse-buying public. (And you will see a lot of ads that say "selling to Parelli home only" or things along those lines, and likewise run into a lot of trainers who will just refuse to touch a Parelli'd horse because it's too much of a headache.)
Re: Nicaraguans appear to ride from babyhood
Date: 2011-06-15 03:10 pm (UTC)What made horses valuable to the old school farmers was the work they did together with the animals. I suspect the horses and mules had a better sense of being valued because of that work than they'd have gotten from Seven Games. People talked about animals who put in the extra effort, who had heart, who learned how to lift a wagon out of mud by pulling up against the collar. If the work mattered to the man, I suspect the animals responded to that. Perhaps that's why the pony who refused to carry riders would happily pull logs without a driver and go back to get another one. The work mattered to the people, so made sense to the pony. They didn't need to ride him; they had a truck.
Someone somewhere pointed out that a lot of the games and retreats and stuff that corporations do was basically disrespectful of their employees, treated them far more as tools to be managed than if they would have if they'd simply assigned meaningful tasks that contributed to the bottom line of the company, and left people alone in their free time and hadn't tried making work a total institution (see Goffman for discussions of total institutions, but the basic ones are monasteries, insane asylums, and prisons). This crap seems basically condescending, too, treating all humans as automatic executives/herd leaders and all horses as things to be managed based on some stereotypes. Green riders learn from old wise horses. Green officers who don't want to be fragged learn from older enlisted men.
Cultures that treat employment as a total institution seem to have more, not fewer, problems with work ethics. The best workers here work for themselves to avoid the workers as family crap.