I am not an artist so I apologize for the terrible illustrations, but I hope you understand. Ringling has now made an elongated European Circus so the animals all enter through the back, European or American. Ringling now longer owns their own cage act like Gunther and Charley were and use only independent acts as I was in 88. Independent meaning already built and not built for Ringling. Charley and Gunther had a suddenly different environment and adapted with a combined American and European style. Neither of them realized it initially but once they realized they had dozens of different directions to move an animal the did some incredible things. Steve you mention folks from your country wanting to come to America. They may think they are good given they have been in the same environment for their career. Then their environment reverses and everything they learned is back ward. Some adapted well, and some did not. The same applies to Americans going to Europe to work an act. There are only individual styles depending upon whether their environment changed or stayed the same for their career.
Monday, June 23, 2008
These are the 3 environments available in America
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
Hey, I didn't check the site for mechanical drawings. I have found the discussion interesting and informative. You point out there's a lot more to animal training than blowing up the beach ball or snapping the whip. I even understand why you had that additional chute on RBBB.
Jim,
I'm amazed daily when fellow performers will say, "the public's wrong, and they need to be educated." And a lot of don't really have a clue. There a lot more to how a car runs then just turning the key. Unless you understand pistons and camshafts, etc, you just understand the basics. Floor plates are often pointed out as sign of inadequacy because the reason for them is not understood. Years ago a person who's son has floor plates in his act trained by the talented Dickie wouldn't show me a video of his act because they didn't want me to see the floor plates. When I finally did see the great act, they said," aren't you going to say something about the plates?" When I said, "no, why?" They said, "I just figured you would." They had heard the negative remarks about them over the years, and they assumed they were "crutch". Worse this person has presented animal for over thirty years, plus worked an act in that style, and had no idea what they were for.
With the exception of the time I got to spend around Charly and Gunther the most educational for me was at Marineland, and to watch the training of sea mammals. Often someone would see something being trained and say, "I wonder how they did that". When I would explain, they would reply, how do you know, you have never trained a whale?" I would reply, "no, but I understand pistons and camshafts and targets." 7 sea mammal trainer would watch me do something with the tigers or elephants, and 4 would be amazed and 3 would tell them how I did it.
My wonderful years there was like sitting in a room at NASA discussing space.
Back in the day they were doing some incredible things with sea lions, Jim. Has anybody taken it to a different level, or has it kinda stayed the same? Also, what is protocol in sea mammal training profession for designating "trainer". Is there any or is everybody all the same?
Wade
Wade
My observation about sea lion training is that trainers keep re-inventing the wheel as far as the tricks/behaviors are concerned. Joseph Woodward trained a ball balance before 1900, Capt. Winston had sea lions riding on ponies on the Barnum and Bailey show, and Roland Tiebor held a sea lion doing a front-flipper stand over his head in the 1940s. All pretty serious training. "Circus tricks",e.g. ball balancing, seemed to go out of favor at marine parks. There were some different behaviors trained, many used the available water moats. A few years ago at an IMATA (marine animal trainers) conference they showed some old film of acts in the 1950s. When they showed a sea lion balancing a ball some young members were amazed at this new behavior. "Everything old is new again."
What has progressed is the improvement in the description terminology used to describe training. There's more to it than just making a sea lion want a fish (look at the size of the animals working today). A trainer should be able to explain the successive approximations (steps) used to guide the animal to the desired behavior. My thought is that many early trainers were intuitively good at their craft. They understood positive reinforcement, patience, and had ideas about tools like targets, or whatever they called them. The late Wally Ross, one of the early dolphin trainers in addition to his circus background, told me that listening to the US Navy behaviorists was like listening to "space pilots". Many of my IMATA colleagues are fine trainers who can properly describe how they achieve their animal's behaviors -- and they'd be pleased if they could train some of the behaviors trained by Woodward and Winston over a century ago.
Sea lions are like elephants and some other animals that aren't always presented by the person who trained them. As I understand, the Captain was the trainer, the others "herd workers" (not to demean the skill of presenting animals). Today with most animals being trained in parks, the Captains are still around but they're probably called Sr. Behaviorist,III.
Jim,
Thank you. You being as qualified to talk sea mammals as Dianne Olds Rossi is to talk horse, I assumed at much of your brilliant response.
You mention improvements in descriptive terminology. It's why I cringe at terms like "seat broke", or "saddle broke" as I have always interpreted broke to mean not working or busted. Not only explaining the approximations but also who it is happening. You would be amassed at how many people don't know why something is working or not working.
The point about a ball no longer being PC reminds me of the Toronto Zoo staff heaving a sigh of relief, when I told them I was going to use natural wood hurdles, and not chrome circus hurdles to jump the pigs over.
I spent some time around Wally Ross in 1975, and I use some of his advise/tips today. Is there anything he couldn't train?
Using the water moat, speaks to changing the environment as I have attempted to address. You would be in awe of the different things possible. Stretching/sitting up on a pyramid is something we don't see to often, just like an elephant sitting up on tub. I think what happened was people were taught how to train that, but weren't actually taught to train an elephant. If they did know how to train and changed their environment a bit, they might have come up with something different by now.
What would have happened to the Marine Mammal training profession if the position of Sr Behaviorist III, had been given to the cheapest or the cutest. Imagine if it had been given to your nephew, or other family members.
The first year I went to Marineland there was a guy there named Bill Roberts, who became a good friend. I was told he trained most of the animals, and had been there almost since its conception.
The next year I went back and Bill had left because of a dispute over husbandry and was driving a dumptruck and helping construct the eventual amusement park. One month into the season stuff quit working Jim. At times the killer whales wouldn't come out of their holding area for 3 days. Jimmy, I and others would go nuts, because we would be half dress, and somebody would run and say hurry up, the dolphins have cut the show, or the sea lions won't stay on their seats, so hold up so we can spend additional time with them. Before the season was over, Holter told Bill to shut the truck off, I fixed the sea elephants pen, and get over there. Bills only job until he retired was to sit and babysit and be on call to "fix it when it broke."
Regards friend,
Wade
Jim,
Thank you. You being as qualified to talk sea mammals as Dianne Olds Rossi is to talk horse, I assumed at much of your brilliant response.
You mention improvements in descriptive terminology. It's why I cringe at terms like "seat broke", or "saddle broke" as I have always interpreted broke to mean not working or busted. Not only explaining the approximations but also who it is happening. You would be amassed at how many people don't know why something is working or not working.
The point about a ball no longer being PC reminds me of the Toronto Zoo staff heaving a sigh of relief, when I told them I was going to use natural wood hurdles, and not chrome circus hurdles to jump the pigs over.
I spent some time around Wally Ross in 1975, and I use some of his advise/tips today. Is there anything he couldn't train?
Using the water moat, speaks to changing the environment as I have attempted to address. You would be in awe of the different things possible. Stretching/sitting up on a pyramid is something we don't see to often, just like an elephant sitting up on tub. I think what happened was people were taught how to train that, but weren't actually taught to train an elephant. If they did know how to train and changed their environment a bit, they might have come up with something different by now.
What would have happened to the Marine Mammal training profession if the position of Sr Behaviorist III, had been given to the cheapest or the cutest. Imagine if it had been given to your nephew, or other family members.
The first year I went to Marineland there was a guy there named Bill Roberts, who became a good friend. I was told he trained most of the animals, and had been there almost since its conception.
The next year I went back and Bill had left because of a dispute over husbandry and was driving a dumptruck and helping construct the eventual amusement park. One month into the season stuff quit working Jim. At times the killer whales wouldn't come out of their holding area for 3 days. Jimmy, I and others would go nuts, because we would be half dress, and somebody would run and say hurry up, the dolphins have cut the show, or the sea lions won't stay on their seats, so hold up so we can spend additional time with them. Before the season was over, Holter told Bill to shut the truck off, I fixed the sea elephants pen, and get over there. Bills only job until he retired was to sit and babysit and be on call to "fix it when it broke."
Regards friend,
Wade
Post a Comment