Today we’d like to introduce you to Alessandra Deerinck.
Hi Alessandra, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
At Human Horse Sensing what we do with horses is many different things, spanning from riding in the arena and learning dressage or jumping to riding on trial and endurance or even into town and real life. If students are interested in learning, I teach to ride but also to take care of all of the horse’s needs and well-being, from nutrition to hoof trimming. I was born and raised in Milan, Italy, but now I live with my husband and three children in San Marcos, California. I speak fluently Italian and English, have a degree as Doctor in Veterinary Medicine, and work as a horse trainer and clinician at Human Horse Sensing. As a freelance, I have been writing articles regularly on several equestrian publications in Italy and in the U.S.
I have ridden, competed and trained horses in various equestrian disciplines such as jumping, dressage, endurance, and was a jockey for 12 years in Italy in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The focus of my activity, which begun about 40 years ago at the racetrack has always been aimed to better the direct communication between human beings and horses. As a clinician, I have conducted horsemanship clinics and presented at events such as Equine Affaire (Pomona), Norco Horse Affaire, the Mane Event, and CavalliaMilano (Milano, Italy) while developing HH Sensing. The purpose of this new approach to the human to horse communication is to build a spontaneous and solid foundation for the relationship from human to horse. Once you can efficiently communicate with any horse you can do anything you wish in the field of the existing equestrian disciplines. HH Sensing highlights the roots of equine behavior, their social relationships, and how to communicate with horses by reaching them through their senses in a way that they understand. Working with or without tack, going through spontaneous interactions rather than just through trained behavior, HH Sensing builds a relationship that supports any kind of activity involving human beings and horses. Human Horse Sensing Horsemanship is the subject of a book published in English and Italian on Amazon and by Edizioni Equitare.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We all have a way to look at our life and have feelings about it. I always try to achieve my goals, and when I encounter obstacles, I work to overcome them and to not fight even with people that are very negative and even try to slender me. We have power on our choices and behavior, and we can inspire others to behave, but we cannot make them do what we want unless they willingly make this choice.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My riding experience spans across different disciplines, but in all of them, my focus is on horsemanship as the performance tool because it is where the communication that supports the performance happens. I look at horsemanship as an always dynamically changing state and think that can be instantly managed through an ongoing code of communication with the horse. For this purpose, I formulated Human Horse Sensing, a method that works through the constant evaluation and management of human and equine behavior, and where we concentrate on developing the horse’s interest for the horsemanship and on communicating through the most appropriate of the horse’s senses in every situation. The key elements of this method are natural for horses and expressed by them in terms of space, movement, and time. These concepts are always present in the horsemanship because they have a social meaning that is independent from the action that is happening in the performance. In other words, no matter what we are doing, I can always tell if a horse is comfortable being with me in the space where we are if he trusts me if he respects me if he is willing to execute what I ask of him, if he is paying attention to me, and these are elements that we can monitor and act upon. In Human Horse Sensing horsemanship, we make an important distinction between spontaneous interactions and the ones unfolding through training. Spontaneous interactions are the moments when the horse openly expresses himself and his personality in the relationship with human beings. This is something that normally happens anyway, and it is also where problems normally arise in horsemanship. Interaction through trained behavior uses the horse’s ability to execute a learned action in response to a fixed stimulus that we give him and cannot cover every instance we live with our horses.
If we observe how a horse behaves, we can see it is definitely related to the surrounding area and also reflects its personality. All of this is true for a human being too. Horses are always aware of the space that surrounds them, above or on the ground, which is perceived by the way of the senses.
In managing the behavior of a horse, I keep a close eye on it and balance between giving the horse a choice in the action and guiding it. This is a process that builds memories that will influence the future and is where learning comes into play. I prefer to let horses learn in a cognitive manner rather than by the classical training methods. Different input to the brain, coming from different sensory receptors, can actually develop different behavioral responses, which is the reason why in the saddle, where we communicate with the horse by touch, we cannot train for a response we want just by doing it from the ground where we work through the sense of sight. Most of the time, emphasis is put in the timing and rewards used in training, not understanding that there is much more to the learning process than just what we are controlling. While the individual that is learning is affected by the timing and the reward, he also is affected by his mind disposition at the time, and the sensory input of the surrounding, which will be associated with the behavior he is learning. The elements I am talking about are the interest of the horse in the action and the visual aspects coming from where the training is happening, along with the auditory, olfactory, and the possible input from the sense of taste that are present at the time. All of those elements are part of what can trigger the display of a certain behavior at a later time. Human Horse Sensing intends to give a new way to be detailed while training horses; where traditionally the detail is on timing and reward, we modulate the horse disposition for the action, the message content, and the sensory channel used to reach the horse.
It is important for human beings to realize how deeply they reach inside the horse with their actions and how much they keep reinforcing wanted or unwanted behavior because they do not change their own. One thing I do not compromise is to leave force and fear out of horsemanship. It has been scientifically proven that fear leaves changes at the cellular level that reflect on behavior of the animal that has experienced it. The behavior that comes from fear can be out of the voluntary control of the animal, which is undesirable in horsemanship, and modifying it can be very difficult.
Sometimes people punish the horses for not complying with something that the animal can’t even understand because of how we communicate or because horses do not even have it as a concept. This statement brought me to add an important chapter to Human Horse Sensing Horsemanship about how the horse views our actions. This means for us to keep in mind the equine’s feedback from the interaction and build our relationship to be dynamic and not static, like what we get from just relying on the trained behavior or punishment. Building a social relationship that has sense for human and horse is creating meaningful shared communication elements that are like our spoken human language, which we can manage with purpose in the relationship, and at any time give us a way to turn it into a positive one.
When we set the goal to establish this kind of dynamic relationship with the horse, we need to give our actions a meaning that horses can understand, so they will want to participate instead of being forced to do so because they are coaxed into it, or inconvenienced if they do not participate. When horses experience a pleasant interaction, they always end up looking at horsemanship as a desired time, even when it involves the practice of an equestrian discipline. This kind of attitude for horsemanship will always result in a better training.
These points are not an easy goal to achieve, but is definitely worth trying, given the difference it makes in how the horse feels about horsemanship.
I believe that horsemanship plays a determinant role in any moment between human and horse. Being able to understand in-depth, and to manage in detail the human-to-horse relationship, can make it go from a fearful experience to one that we would always want to have, and this is true for both equine and human.
Alright, so before we go, can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People that would like to work with me can visit my website www.hhsensing.com contact me by phone or email, so we can truly connect and achieve their goal
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hhsensing.com
- Facebook: Human Horse Sensing
- Twitter: Alessandra Deerinck
- Youtube: Alessandra Deerinck
