So I think there are multiple things going on here. I categorized them as follows.
- Human physical integrity vs adaptability
- Task integrity vs adaptability
- Speed of escalation of pressure
All of these things are on a spectrum. So all loosey goosey and floppy and following whatever is all the way on the left, and then being rabidly rigid in this is precisely what we are doing, precisely how we are doing it with rapidly increasing PSI is all the way on the right.
- Humans physical integrity vs adaptability is about whether or not I am going to plant my feet and maintain my integrity, or whether I am going to be pushed or pulled off my intended place. Sometimes if a horse is running backwards its really helpful to unstick my own feet and go with them (more adaptability). And sometimes its really unhelpful. Sometimes if a horse is coming into my space its really helpful to plant my feet and be like, nope, I'm not moving at all (more integrity). And sometimes thats really unhelpful.
The human intregrity vs adaptability is not just a thing when my feet are still, its also a thing in motion. If I decide to walk a circle but my horse drifts the circle in or out and so I move my own feet off my intended line in response - thats me being more adaptability, less integrity.
- Task Integrity vs Adaptability Is about whether I am going to persist in asking for a specific task, or whether I am going to change the task or allow the horse to change the task in the moment in response to what the horse is offering.
For example, if I was asking a horse to pickup a canter lead in a big open space, they gave me the canter lead I wasn't expecting - I could make a judgement call to just smooth over their mistake by circling off in the other direction (task adaptability) or I could bring them back to trot and ask again (task integrity). And it would be contextual what is helpful. Sometimes I ask a horse for something and they offer something else waaaaay cooler (first piaffe inhand a few months ago with Ayla!) and sometimes I end up fishtailing my pony all over the arena instead of stepping her shoulders over (today).
I think there is a subcategory here of aid vs task - like maybe I keep trying towards the same task but switch my aids or downgrade my expectations of quality but whatever I'm not writing a novel, I'll think about this later.
- Speed of escalation of pressure. If I maintain task and human integrity, pressure will inevitably escalate on its own over time until the horse responds. This happens even if I don't change the PSI because of how time escalates pressure. This is the fixed hand escalation of pressure
We could sum it up as pressure is PSI multipled by time
PSI*time=pressure
I can choose to escalate pressure at a faster rate than what time does by deliberately increasing the amount of PSI of my aids. For example - tapping faster/harder, bigger body language, adding a secondardy aid like voice or whatever. Ok I know technically not all of those are PSI but gosh I didn't want to make this any longer lol.
Note this may or may not end up being experienced by the horse as ultimately "more adversive" depending on how an individual horse experiences time vs PSI in the pressure calculation.
We add to our calculation (x) = how the horse feels about the PSI of the aid and (y) = how the horse feels about the duration of the aid.
PSI(x)*time(y) = horses experience of the adversiveness of the pressure.
Once explained like this we can see several benefits to escalating PSI during an aid. a) I shorten the amount of time I need to maintain task and human integrity for. b) Sometimes horses experience time as a more frustrating escalation than PSI, and so will find more PSI faster less frustrating than a static PSI over a longer duration. We might choose to frustrate the horse more or less. I suspect that horses who know they will get a click+treat once they do the thing might sometimes experience time as extra frustrating because the horse wants to hurry up and get the treat.
We can also see several benefits to not escalating PSI during an aid a) Sometimes the horse needs the longer time to think through an unfamilar task, or to organize their own physical integrity in a way that is difficult for them b) Sometimes horses experience PSI as a more frustrating escalation than time so will find more PSI faster more frustrating than a static PSI over a longer duration. We might choose to frustrate the horse more or less.
IN CONCLUSION I, Zoe, want the ability to move fluidly up and down each spectrum of human integrity, task integrity and escalation of PSI/time in response to what is useful for me and the horse in the moment. There are various contexts where I might get great use out of any combination of places on any of those 3 spectrums.
However, at the moment we have identified that I am mostly defaulting to lower spectrums of integrity and lower spectrums of PSI. This is a useful part of the spectrums to have access too BUT NOT IF I'M STUCK HERE.
I'm sitting on the part of the spectrum that was necessary working with Sasha and uses skills that are veeeery valuable in some contexts. However, IT DOESN'T MATCH MY CURRENT CONTEXT WITH UNA. Defaulting to this place on those spectrums demonstratably causes unnecessary frustration, uncertainity and delay with Una at this time.
In order to reach my eventual goal of being able to fluidly move around the spectrums in response to the context and the horse I first need to unstick myself from my current out-of-context default.
That means now adopting as habit with Una more task integrity, more human integrity and a willingness to escalate PSI.
From there in the long term I gotta work on noticing myself when my positions on the human/task/PSI spectrums don't align with the context in a useful way and being more adaptable to the context and the horse, instead of just projecting onto them what feels normal or natural for me.