Sacha Houck and Ringling Brothers’ Circus Liberty Act
Back in the day when the Circus Acts still included horses, Allen became friends with Sacha Houcke, the head trainer for Ringling Brothers’ Circus. He was allowed to watch some of Sacha’s practice sessions.
Helpers in the circus were plentiful and Sacha employed them daily. After Sacha had planned out the Liberty Routine, the helpers would lead the horses through the exact pattern during every practice session. When Allen inquired about this, Sacha said that he called it Error Free Learning and stressed how important that the horse not learn a mis-step as it would set back the training. Error Free Learning while it seemed time consuming actually led to faster learning of the patterns because there were no corrections necessary.
Error Free Learning was a huge awakening moment for Allen! This is where one of his favorite sayings originated which is “Slower is proven to be Faster!”
Sacha also saw to it the horses learned simple patterns and individual moves which he called “The ABCs”. Later when he implemented new acts, he shaped Behavior Chains out of the basics. This is the linking together of single moves to create a chain or part of a routine.
In the IAH method of Liberty Training, we also teach the horses individual moves which we later use to create complex Behavior Chains.