An interesting session with Mini yesterday. The theme became "Friendly Game". On this occasion it was the very basic applied stimulus of rhythmically swinging the carrot stick and string with low body energy and looking for relaxation in Mini's demeanour.
The response was surprising, Mini was pretty upset about the practise. He started regularly, couldn't relax, backed all the way to the end of the 22 foot rope and stood staring at me. I had of course allowed him to back up trying to establish a distance threshold at which he would be happy. There didn't seem to be one, although the reaction was just unconfident staring when 22 feet away.
Now I would like to make the distinction that he was not right brained about this, which would have implied the instinctive "run away" response. He was blinking and therefore thinking throughout. But his thought process was "I am not sure I feel confident about this, I'll keep a very close eye on it in case it attacks", at which point I guess he would have gone right brained and run away.
Thus he demonstrated clearly for me the difference between right brain instinctual responses and left brain unconfident responses.
After a good long time and slightly sore arm muscles I decided that this was not going to improve any time soon and I needed a new tactic. I had tried approach and retreat with no difference at all except he stepped back quietly as I approached and stood still as I retreated. I tried walking backwards whilst facing him, which resulted in him following, but at the end of the rope. I tried walking facing away from him and he came almost to my shoulder. Interesting. (My arms were now getting seriously tired, but I was also fascinated to find a solution. Saved going to the gym !) In fact with my backed turned he even put his head down to eat. Being a bit slow on the uptake I thought that maybe we were getting there so turned to face again, to find him slowly but purposefully backing to the end of the rope.
Maybe the key was my body angle to him. I tried standing at 90 degrees to him, but still out ahead of zone one. He seemed to relax somewhat. I tried walking sideways as I approached him. Much better he stood still until I actually stood in front of his nose facing sideways, still swinging the stick. I moved away sideways and turned my belly more towards him, he started looking unconfident so I turned back. Eureka ! The answer was the angle of my belly button relative to him. Point the belly button at him and he felt pressure, turn it away and it released the pressure. Now I have heard of this many times before, the belly button acting as a laser of energy projecting from you, but I had never seen such a dramatic demonstration of it.
This also gave a new meaning to approach and retreat. It was not related to distance at all, nor to the intensity I swung the stick and string, it was related to body angle. All I had to do to approach was turn my belly button towards him and turn away to retreat.
With this key in place we made swift progress and soon I was standing very close to him with a relaxed Mini. In fact this seemed to improve his whole attitude towards me and we had a brief but fun travelling circle session before putting him to bed.
The response was surprising, Mini was pretty upset about the practise. He started regularly, couldn't relax, backed all the way to the end of the 22 foot rope and stood staring at me. I had of course allowed him to back up trying to establish a distance threshold at which he would be happy. There didn't seem to be one, although the reaction was just unconfident staring when 22 feet away.
Now I would like to make the distinction that he was not right brained about this, which would have implied the instinctive "run away" response. He was blinking and therefore thinking throughout. But his thought process was "I am not sure I feel confident about this, I'll keep a very close eye on it in case it attacks", at which point I guess he would have gone right brained and run away.
Thus he demonstrated clearly for me the difference between right brain instinctual responses and left brain unconfident responses.
After a good long time and slightly sore arm muscles I decided that this was not going to improve any time soon and I needed a new tactic. I had tried approach and retreat with no difference at all except he stepped back quietly as I approached and stood still as I retreated. I tried walking backwards whilst facing him, which resulted in him following, but at the end of the rope. I tried walking facing away from him and he came almost to my shoulder. Interesting. (My arms were now getting seriously tired, but I was also fascinated to find a solution. Saved going to the gym !) In fact with my backed turned he even put his head down to eat. Being a bit slow on the uptake I thought that maybe we were getting there so turned to face again, to find him slowly but purposefully backing to the end of the rope.
Maybe the key was my body angle to him. I tried standing at 90 degrees to him, but still out ahead of zone one. He seemed to relax somewhat. I tried walking sideways as I approached him. Much better he stood still until I actually stood in front of his nose facing sideways, still swinging the stick. I moved away sideways and turned my belly more towards him, he started looking unconfident so I turned back. Eureka ! The answer was the angle of my belly button relative to him. Point the belly button at him and he felt pressure, turn it away and it released the pressure. Now I have heard of this many times before, the belly button acting as a laser of energy projecting from you, but I had never seen such a dramatic demonstration of it.
This also gave a new meaning to approach and retreat. It was not related to distance at all, nor to the intensity I swung the stick and string, it was related to body angle. All I had to do to approach was turn my belly button towards him and turn away to retreat.
With this key in place we made swift progress and soon I was standing very close to him with a relaxed Mini. In fact this seemed to improve his whole attitude towards me and we had a brief but fun travelling circle session before putting him to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment