This is Part 3 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. Svenja’s horse, Daryan, has been giving her a master class in teaching stillness and relaxation.

In Part 1, Svenja introduced us to Daryan her Arab barb cross. She described the early steps she used to teach Daryan to stand still.

That was just the beginning. Daryan was a challenging horse to work with. He needed more than foundation level standing still. In Part 2 Svenja shared how she taught Daryan how to settle and relax into stillness. We ended with stillness becoming a default behavior.

In part 3 Svenja expands this to show you how you can use default behaviors to clarify your cues and further reduce frustration in your learners.

We’ll begin with a question Dominique asked at the end of part 2 about how does a horse know if he’s supposed to default into stillness or try to offer behaviors in an attempt to get you to click?