April 18, 2022

Calibration: How do horses and riders become attuned to each other and their environments? A conversation with Dr James Stafford and Warren Lamperd.

1 hour 31 minutes

Welcome to the River Tiger equestrian podcast.
In our first episode I am joined by two fabulous guests, James Stafford who completed a PhD in perception-action coupling in skill acquisition, and international rider, level 4 equestrian coach and MSc in coaching science, Warren Lamperd.

This episode builds on the topic of 'calibrating perception and action: how we become skilful at timing our movements.' We discussed how two different sentient beings (horse and human) become attuned to each other, and learn to skilfully calibrate movement with each other and their environment. This was a fascinating conversation and we ended up talking for 90 mins. Listen in sections, or pop it on for your next long drive.

During the conversation we cover many topics, including:
- Understanding the timing of movements, calibration to individual action-capabilities, and the implications to riding. We focus on jumping with horses as an example.
-Balance and other fundamental skills in sports and how they can be applied to riding.
- 'Affordances' and why this is such an important concept for all sports, especially for understanding horse behaviour.
- What the implications of these ecological concepts are in designing practice. The importance of variable practice and making mistakes in training.
- Perception-action coupling and what information (visual, auditory, haptic, kinaesthetic) is important.
- Implications for the design and use of technology in either supporting or thwarting perception-action coupling and learning to be skilful.

Links to my guests:
Warren Lamperd. Warren is a British Equestrian Federation UKCC Level 4 coach for British Showjumping and UKCC level 3 British Eventing Warren has a Masters Degree in Coaching Science, a Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practise in Sports Coaching and a Bachelors Degree in Agricultural Science. https://warrenlamperd.com/content/coaching

James Stafford is an experimental psychologist. He completed a PhD in perception-action coupling and the development of calibration and timing of movements. He is currently the Business Development Lead at INCISIV Action Intelligence. www.incisiv.tech. Check out and example of VR technology MOViR (https://youtu.be/mGjTvgGYWng)

Hosted by Marianne Davies. Marianne is a PhD candidate at Sheffield Hallam University researching the application of non-linear pedagogy to equestrian sports coaching. Marianne is also a director at Dynamics Coaching. https://dynamics-coaching.com/