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Shift and Disrupt



Jingles was his name.  He was my first "real" horse.  Of course "Cheta" had taught me to ride and was now teaching others.  But Jingles was mine.  He was as stubborn as a mule and incredibly persistent.  If he did not want to move then...he would not move. 

With lead-rope in hand I would strain and pull on his head until I was absolutely furious.  Knowing as I looked in his eyes that  he was laughing hysterically at this 10 year old little girl. 

"How's that working?" Dad asked simply as he looked on.  "Seriously??" I wanted to yell.  "Do you think that you are going to out muscle him?" he inquired.  The only thought going through my head can't be put on this blog.  He continued, "So if you can't pull him then try something else.  Pull him sideways to get him off balance and he will have to follow you."

Jingles looked confused when I let up on the rope and stared him down.   Moving to his side I pulled on the rope and much to my surprise and his...he moved.  So for the years that I rode him-it became second nature to "do the unexpected" and "shift" course on him so that he did what I wanted and not what he did.

When I began to work with children, I subconsciously used this same technique and it wasn't until later that I learned that doing the unexpected is an evidenced based strategy.

So the article  "What Vietnam Taught us about Breaking Bad Habits" on NPR on January 2nd struck a cord.  This article by Alix Spiegel discusses how changing environment can change habits. 

For example, "To battle bad behaviors then, one answer, Neal and Wood say, is to disrupt the environment in some way. Even small changes can help — like eating the ice cream with your non-dominant hand. What this does is alter the action sequence and disrupts the learned body sequence that's driving the behavior, which allows your conscious mind to come back online and reassert control."  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/01/02/144431794/what-vietnam-taught-us-about-breaking-bad-habits


Who knew that Jingles and Dad were genius and the ingrained strategy really works!  Now to eat with my left hand....

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