When you read about the great communicators, the one trait they all seem to have in common is their ability to listen. Only in listening will he find out whether or not he is being understood. This is doubly important in riding because the horse's perception of the rider’s command is immediately turned into action. This action then becomes the answer. So far it is easy! What happens if your horse misunderstands you? You receive the wrong answer! The result is a rail down, a bad score, or many other unwanted consequences. After years of lessons and years of training your horse, mistakes still do happen. That is not what you expected. Can they be prevented, and how to do it? Eckhart Meyners has written several books on the subject, and I have a feeling he is still not satisfied that he has exhausted the subject and will write some more. Please bear with me as I try to put all the threads together so that it will make sense. Before you skip to the end to find out whether the good or the bad guy wins let me give you the good news. Most mistakes can be prevented. The bad news is that you must be very good and work very hard to be able to do that. I would like to make it clear one more time that we are talking strictly about the act of communication; about being misunderstood by your horse, not other mistakes like miscalculating the distance to a jump or allowing the horse to go onto the forehand.
     A great deal of our time is spent listening and talking to other people. We naturally often repeat what we just heard to make sure we understood correctly and then answer. We can do this in a one on one dialog or in a group of many. The good communicator will always through skillful questioning and repeating of statements make sure he understands and is being understood correctly. In our dialog with horses we do not have the opportunity of questioning the horse to make sure he understood. Or do we? I think we do! As you speak to your horse in preparing him for a command, his response will indicate to you whether he is interpreting your aids the way you meant them. The moment he is not responding as expected you immediately correct him to avoid a mistake. The difficulty is that you must listen while you speak. Here you are busy half-halting and yet you must still be sensitive enough to feel his response and make sure it is correct before you tell him more. This takes a well trained "inner eye". I would like to add the "inner ear" as part of the rider's tools. The eye observes and controls you while the ear listens to the horse's response. Too complicated? Not really! I would like to tell you about how I learned to type.
     In the past, when I wanted to write an article, I would take a notepad, scribble my thoughts down, scratch, add, underline, insert, rewrite, etc. until it looked like a chicken had been turned loose with a crayon. This I would then turn over to April. She then would type what she thought I had written, double space it, and return it to me. Now I had a chance for the first time to study what I had written. Sometimes it still made sense, but usually needed more correcting. After that April would return to the computer and make those changes. I was always amazed how easily this was done. Thus began my whining. I felt left out, watching April's fingers just fly over the keyboard, the curser moving faster than the eye can see, single click, double click, cut, paste, etc., etc. How was I going to learn that? It appeared much too complicated. So I continued to whine. In order to not have to listen to that any longer, my students gave me a computer for Christmas. I went out and hired Mavis, a typing instructor. April installed her on the computer, and I had run out of excuses. In the next two months I found out things about