Page 64 - ST November 2013

education I

BY KRISTI SMITH

Shifting

The Context

H

ave you ever considered what it impact on our communication and partnership. But,
fully means when Pat says, “horses do you put that much efort into other context shifts?

are perceptive to people, places, Pat tells us that he does not just play the Seven

changes, and things”? It means Games, he plays seven categories of games. If we can
that horses are contextual learners. learn to think categorically about the Seven Games,

Anything that they learn, both we will improve our understanding of how context “

positive and negative, is dependent upon the context shifts afect our horses as learners. It could be said
that knowledge is presented in while it is still in the that Level 4 is nothing more than the Seven Games,

teaching and controlling phases of learning. It is not being played in all ive zones, in all Four Savvys, at

until the information has gotten through the rein- Phase 1. Once you have shifted the context of all
forcing and reining stages of learning that the in- Seven Games to that degree, then you will have taken

formation is solid and the context no longer matters. the information through all four stages of learning,

This can happen in as little as three repetitions.
and the horse will no longer rely so strongly on the
So what constitutes a change of context? There context of your request to be able to come to a “yes.”

are obvious context shifts like a change in environ- As we grow as horsemen, we will need to learn

ment. I believe that most of us expect that, if we take the sequence of context shifts that will enable us
our horses away from their normal environment at to help our horses to feel successful along the way

home, they may not perform the same. We may even and not overwhelmed. Often we run into opposition

put efort into exposing our horses to as many dif- relex when the context has been shifted drastically.
ferent environments as possible to help ensure that The horse is then unable to bridge the gap between

environmental changes eventually have little to no

If we can learn to think

categorically about the Seven

Games, we will improve our

understanding of how context

shifts afect our horses as learners.

62 | Savvy Times November 2013