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What Horses Taught
Monty Roberts About Wisdom In Parenting
October 2007
By Norm Lee
norm@bmi.net
www.nopunish.net
www.projectnospank.net
Part I
Be firm but never harsh. Never lose
your temper with a horse. Reward him with kindness when he does what
you wish. - Xenophon, Greek cavalry officer, 300 BC
Readers of John Steinbeck know that
the California town he called home was Salinas. It was there that he
wrote the books set in Monterey County, about Cannery Row and the
lovable but ne'er-do-well bums he knew so well. It was about the
same time the Upright Citizens of Salinas drove John out of town for
writing that "immoral" book, The Grapes of Wrath (which won the
Pulitzer), that Monty Roberts was born.
For a young boy in Salinas in the
Thirties, it was exciting times. Even as a small child, Monty always
attended the local rodeo, with its calf roping and "bronco bustin'".
He was the son of Marvin Roberts, reputably the best horseman as
well as the toughest man in Salinas. Best of all, his father was
owner and manager of the annual event, and of a riding school as
well.
Before he could walk, the boy was
spending full days on the horse's neck ahead of his mother as she
gave riding instructions to local students. At four years old he was
competing in horse shows - and was quickly spotted by a Warner
Brothers representative. Soon he was stunt-doubling for Roddy
McDowall in films, later for luminaries like James Dean in "East of
Eden" and a hundred or so other films. Monty's father handled the
business, took the money the boy earned, and kept it. ("Who buys
your food? Your clothes? You owe me years of room and board!")
In his book, The Man Who Listens to
Horses, Monty describes the method his father used on horses - tough
love without the love; that is, he "broke" wild horses using total
dominance, brutality, and terror. "You hurt them first, or they'll
hurt you," he instructed his son. Monty later said, "My father's way
of breaking horses was what I would describe as conventional - but
that is to say, cruel."
The boy knew how it felt to be
physically manhandled by his father, and had plenty of bruises to
show for it. "He showed great tenderness to members of the family,"
Monty recalls, "but I never saw that side of him... I never got
hugged by him. He would pass me on the street and not say hello.
From the outset, he turned a cold and critical eye on me. Generous
with others, he demanded perfection of me. He was unforgiving and
scrutinized everything I did, more often than not holding it up to
ridicule. As a boy I was serious and polite, and when I look back on
these times, I see that I never was a child." While he respected and
feared his father, he was determined he would not grow to be that
kind of man.
Monty loved horses and knew them to
be gentle, lovable creatures, so breaking the spirit of those
beautiful animals seemed unnecessary. As he watched his father
brutalize a young stallion, born in the wild and imprisoned in a
coral, the boy's stomach churned, not the least because Monty
himself was routinely so brutalized. He was once actually
chain-whipped by his raging father, and a heavy chain it was. Today,
at 72, he talks in a trembling voice about his "lifetime of
rejection" - starting early on by his father, who "taught
discipline" through frequent beatings.
By the time he was seven, Monty was
spending much time alone in the high desert of Nevada, watching
through binoculars the behavior of the herds of wild horses there,
how they related to each other. He would watch for eight hours of
daylight, then strained to see them by moonlight, observing how they
subtly communicated by positioning their bodies. Thus, Monty very
gradually learned the language of horses. He decided he would learn
to relate with horses in the same way. It was from what he saw in
the wild and what he learned from practice in the breaking ring that
he developed the now-celebrated Monty Roberts "horse starting"
method - the new horse-training paradigm he is now famous for.
"To destroy the willingness in a
horse is a crazy, unforgivable act," he announces to the groups of
horsemen and women who come to watch him do his magic. "Inherent
generosity is among the dominant characteristics of the horse and,
if nurtured, can grow into the most rewarding aspect of their
working lives...I have marveled most at their willingness to try for
me, over and over again." A method of gentleness, patience, and
quiet encouragement brings cooperation, even devotion. What a novel
idea!
Gone is the "breaking" of horses to
saddle and rider, gone is the violence, the terror, of his father's
brutal, traditional method. "My ambition was immense: to change the
way humans relate to horses." He set out to form a natural bond with
a wild horse. And where his father took three or more weeks of daily
abuse to break a horse's spirit, Monty - in twenty minutes - has a
saddle and rider on a formerly wild, now calm and cooperating horse.
Because he learned the language of horses, he is open to their
communications.
"Hold in your mind the idea that
the horse can do no wrong, that any action taken by the horse -
especially the young unstarted horse - was most likely influenced by
you. Though he hungered for his father's approval, Monty quickly saw
his hostility to any suggestion that his old ways could be improved
upon. On pain of violence, he had to keep from his father the
valuable skills he had acquired. The rageaholic would not be proven
"wrong" by his son and never accepted the revolutionary method,
despite the honors and fame his son earned.
Monty endured the all-but-unanimous
scorn of the horsemen who grimly stuck to the traditional "breaking"
of horses. Few would accept that you can communicate with a brute
beast, win their trust, and teach them without whips and spurs.
Horse owner John Franks wonders why Monty's way is not universally
accepted and practiced. "I'm a geologist, and when something new
comes along in geology, we all jump on it." But in the horse world?
"Everyone goes his own way, and it's hard to change a trainer who
has done it his way all his life." In 1989 he was invited to Windsor
Castle by Queen Elizabeth of England, herself very knowledgeable
about horses. She asked Monty to show her just how he did his magic
with horses. After seeing it, she suggested he write a book. So he
did.
Monty's priceless gift to the world
is a way of showing the horse that a saddle and rider are not to be
feared, indeed, they can be enjoyed. The task is to bring the horse
to its first rider without instilling anxiety and stress. "The horse
is a flight animal who feels vulnerable 24 hours a day ... the same
vulnerability a woman may feel when she is alone in an elevator and
a burly man gets on." Monty learned on his own what Mary O'Hara
wrote in My Friend Flicka in the voice of a rancher to his son: "A
horse can tell you a lot of things, if you watch, and expect it to
be sensible and intelligent. Pay attention to the little signs - the
way it moves its body, the ears, the eyes, the little whinnies -
that's her way of talking to you ... and it's for you to understand
her. You'll learn her language, and she'll learn yours - never
forget that they can understand everything you say to them."
Monty lectures widely,
demonstrating his technique. "What I can do with horses is the
result of long hours watching them in the wild. It's essentially a
simple thing based on common sense ... It is an undiscovered
language - primitive, precise, and easy to read. The silent language
uses the movements of the body - 'signs' - that can be read. ... I
believe this a universal 'tongue', understood not just by all wild
and domestic horses, ponies, mules, and donkeys, but also by other
'flight' animals such as deer. Once learned, the language allows a
new understanding between human and horse."
In My Friend Flicka, author O'Hara
has a character say, "Under the eye of a human being, an unbroken
horse is in terror." As for the traditional way of "breaking" a
horse: "It ruins the horse! He loses something, and never gets it
back. Something goes out of him. He's not a whole horse anymore ...
he is marked with fear and distrust, his disposition damaged - he'll
never have confidence in a man again." From the preface of Monty's
book: "The old way: putting a horse in a corral, lassoing him, tying
him to a post and then getting on him with a pair of spurs - [is]
unbelievable. Now we use round pens, we teach the horse that we're
not going to hurt him, that we're his friend."
Monty has "started" (he never uses
the term "broken") some ten thousand horses at his ranch and all
over the world, and his gentle communication with a horse has never
failed. Alone in a circular pen, Monty - without ever touching the
mustang - has him trotting 'round and 'round it. Key signs come in
succession: the horse cocks an ear, sticks out his tongue, and
lowers his head to the ground. "I want to talk," says the horse. He
is away from his herd and alone; as a flight animal his instinct
tells him he's now vulnerable to predators. And Monty is offering
him another herd. "When to face the horse and make eye contact, when
not to, where to touch the horse first, whether to move slowly or
quickly, all this Monty knows, for he has learned his equine manners
and grammar", wrote Lawrence Scanlon.
Monty: "I don't do it for the
people. I do it for the horse." It's not about people with horse
problems, he explains, "it's about horses with people problems".
It's about the horse as teacher. And it makes humans more humane.
"The horse has much to teach humans about listening."
And he says, furthermore, that what
he's learned has much to teach parents and teachers about dealing
with children. "We can do little to teach the horse; we can only
create an environment in which he can learn. Likewise with people:
the student who has knowledge pushed into his brain learns little,
but he can absorb a great deal when he chooses to learn."
"The point of my method is to
create a relationship based on trust and confidence...For centuries
humans have said to horses [and children] you do what I tell you or
I'll hurt you. [But] inflicting pain does not work ...I am convinced
that my discoveries with horses also have value in the workplace, in
penal and school systems, and in the raising of children...."
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Part II
[When] cowering under his blows as
a child, I knew that one day he would not be able to hurt me
anymore. - Monty Roberts at his father's coffin
"My father seemed only five feet
tall, and the flesh had almost disappeared from his bones. I had
waited for this moment most of my life. When I was ten, I knew that
one day there would be a funeral, and then I could touch him. Only
then could I finally shake his hand."
Monty Roberts describes this
emotional casket-side scene at the end of his book, The Man Who
Listens To Horses. We have learned much about Marty Roberts'
brutality with horses, and more about how he viciously and
frequently beat his son. The father and son had been estranged for
almost all of Monty's life. Now Marty Roberts was dead.
He remembered the time when he was
a young boy that he watched with horror as his father, then the
village cop, beat and kicked to death a man robbing a bar. He
recalled the time his father punished a horse by tying its leg up,
leaving him to suffer for hours tethered tightly to a post. Monty
could not bear to see the suffering and released the horse, planning
to re-tie him before his father returned to the ranch. But he
returned early and, in a wrathful frenzy, beat the boy until he
feared for his life. He had never known a moment of acceptance or
affection, much less love, from his father.
"For most of my life I had longed
for the moment when I would stand over my dead father. This was
precisely the picture I had had: he in a wooden box, me looking down
on him. Through his punishments and beatings, that image had
sustained me. Cowering under his blows as a child, I knew that one
day he would not be able to hurt me anymore. It was a cathartic
moment, and though I have shed many tears in my life, I did not shed
one as I gazed into that coffin. The anger lived on, as if he had
thrashed me yesterday, though that was more than forty years
earlier."
Monty was not like other men and
moms, who simply passed their rage on to the succeeding generation.
With remarkable insight into himself, he tells us how he prevented
his internal violence from transferring to his own loved ones: "I
knew the triggers that led to violence. I, too, have felt that anger
rise in me, felt the urge to strike out at someone in my family. But
I put my grip on that anger. I swore that this man in the box would
be the last link in the chain of violence and anger aimed as much at
humans as at horses."
Here is one of the qualities that
distinguishes Monty from other survivors of abuse: Awareness of the
rage within him, and the determination that the violence stops here.
Though he is famous worldwide for his genius with horses, his
contribution to the literature of childrearing may prove to be, in
the end, Monty Roberts' most important and enduring legacy.
Monty's approach in a nutshell
"We all want a well-behaved, happy,
and willing horse at the conclusion...he should not be traumatized
... Remember, let your animal be free. Do not restrict. Make it
pleasant for him to be near you ... No pain. ...The point of my
method is to create a relationship based on trust and
confidence...The first rule of starting a horse is no pain. You, the
trainer, will not hit, kick, jerk, pull, tie, or restrain ...Suggest
to the horse that you would rather he did, but not that he
must...Above all, stay calm." [Emphases are Monty's]
"Hold in your mind the idea that
the horse can do no wrong; that any action taken by the horse was
most likely influenced by you. We can do little to teach the horse;
we can only create an environment in which he can learn. Likewise
with people: the student who has knowledge pushed into his brain
learns little, but he can absorb a great deal when he chooses to
learn... If we refuse to believe that the horse can communicate,
pain can be used to train him... But pain is needless and terribly
limiting..."
Monty's audiences are spellbound
when he talks about communicating in the same way with wild deer in
the forest. It began with rescuing and tending a doe that had been
wounded by wolves. To his surprise, she responded to his "horse
language" in much the same way as wild horses - and burros, mules,
and all "flight animals." In the passage of time, wild deer came to
his ranch and frolicked with him on his lawn, at times walking into
his kitchen, following him like a dog.
Lawrence Scanlon writes in the
Afterword that Monty likes to call himself a "horse psychologist".
At Cal Poly he studied human psychology, then used in the corral
what he learned in class. "He had experience working with outcasts,"
writes Scanlon, "from wounded deer, and horses bound to the
slaughter house, [then with] violent, druggy, physically abused
street kids. After he and his wife Pat had three children, they
began taking in the children nobody wanted, and raising them as
their own."
Over the years, the Roberts took in
a total of 47 children, most of them age 12 to 14. Some stayed for
years living like brothers and sisters to Pat and Monty's three
kids. "Some had tangled with school authorities, or the law, some
had been dismissed as backward, some were hooked on hard drugs or
suffered from eating disorders. Most came from dysfunctional
families."
Of the 47, 40 of them by Monty's
count, stood on their feet after leaving and made a life for
themselves. "The rest landed in jail or returned to the streets and
died there." But given the afflictions they arrived with, the
changes in the kids vindicated the relationship Pat and Monty built,
which was not dissimilar to the approach with horses: basic
kindness, gentleness, patience, trust. And this is the approach that
Monty wants us, and the world, to consider.
Monty teaches horse starting
"For centuries humans have said to
the horses, 'You do what I tell you or I'll hurt you'. Humans still
say that to each other, still threaten and force and intimidate. I
am convinced that my discoveries with horses also have value in the
workplace, in the educational and penal systems, and in the raising
of children. At heart I am saying that no one has a right to say you
must to an animal - or to another human." Just as trust has to be
won with a horse, so must it be won between people and their
employers, between parents and their children.
Since 1990, thousands of educators,
physicians, corporate officers, and others - more than 240 firms and
organizations from around the world - have come to Monty Roberts to
hear what a man, known for his horse skills, has to teach about
people skills. "It used to be OK to beat a child or for a husband to
beat his wife...It's wrong, and not effective either," Monty tells
them.
Both his corporate and childrearing
philosophy is rooted in respect, and ends in expectations clearly
defined: "People must be allowed to fail," he says, "but do not
protect the lazy or incompetent; above all, people must be allowed
to succeed and be rewarded if they meet or exceed the terms of the
contract." Thus Monty's discipline is defined. He (also) hopes that
in future our understanding of human-to-human interactions will take
great leaps forward.
Some 790 years ago, when Genghis
Khan occupied Iran, Afghanistan, & Turkestan, his horses "spoke" the
language. "But no one saw it," notes Monty. "No one tried to see
it...Like many who profess to love the horse - and do love the horse
- the Mongols broke their young horses in the cruel, conventional
way....Horses had no answer to the Khan's cruelty, they had no
voice. But they did have a language...And that language has probably
existed for 45 million years, virtually unchanged...The absence of
communication between human and horse has led to a disastrous
history of cruelty and abuse...Our loss has been considerable..."
On Monty's character, lifework
and teachings
Monty's genius lies in somehow
mastering himself, triumphing over his internal rage at his father,
just as he mastered the art of animal communication. His saving
advantage was that he had a caring mother, from whom he acquired the
softer, gentler side of life. Ever hoping for reconciliation between
her husband and her son, she tried, in her final years, one last
time. She persuaded the old man to sit in the bleachers and watch
while their son performed with a wild horse, just as he had done
well over 10,000 times before applauding crowds, and before an
admiring Queen of England. Monty carefully explained to his father
every move, every communication, in this one last effort to reach
him with what he'd learned. A half hour later, when the horse was
saddled and being ridden around the arena, his father stomped off,
muttering and snorting in disgust.
For us, Monty's application to
children of what horses taught him is most significant and
important. We can easily suppose that without learning to listen to
horses, Monty's internal violence - passed on from his father
through him to his own three children - would have been devastating.
They would have suffered beatings, plus seen their mother attacked
and abused during their father's fits of rage. But Monty looked
inside himself, acknowledged the violence there, and trained himself
to stop it short. He learned to mindfully check the violence
impulse, refusing to make his family pay the emotional price for his
father's brutal treatment. I think that, among his extraordinary
accomplishments, deserves most tribute.
Visit Norm Lee's Web site
www.nopunish.net
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