I am in Tennessee for a clinic at Larry Whitesell's to work with a group of his gaited horse people.
This lovely pink elephant was across from my hotel. It got me to thinking about the expression "don't think of pink elephants" because, of course - that was all I could see. But the intent behind the phrase has a lot to do with what happens to riders.
You know what it is like....
The instructor says "don't use your hands!", "don't pull on your horse's mouth", " don't look down!" What happens? You do exactly what they tell you to do - use your hand, pull and look down.
Why is that? Well it has to do with how our brain responds to the word "don't".
When we hear this word it is like saying to someone "pay attention!".
Then what ever is said after "don't" is what they pay attention to.
This in modern terms this is called Priming. When you say to someone, pay attention to something, that is what she will focus on regardless of what else is happening. Therefore when someone says "don't pull on the reins!" you hear "Pay attention - pull on the reins!"In this statement "pull on the reins" is the thing your attention is drawn to because it is the only action given in the statement.
Unfortunately many instructors tell us what we don't want to do instead of what we want to do.It would be far better to say "press your hands forward" or "look up" because this is what you want to do. You can do the translation if you are paying attention. Whenever you hear "Don't ....." rephrase into the action of what you want to do!
