What groundwork exercises does Warwick Schiller recommend for building connection rather than just obedience?

Warwick Schiller's approach to groundwork has shifted significantly in recent years from a primarily obedience-based framework toward what he describes as connection-oriented work — exercises whose goal is not compliance with a command but the development of a genuine, voluntary relationship between horse and handler. His distinction is subtle but practically meaningful. One of the core exercises Schiller recommends for building connection is what he calls 'walking together' — simply walking with the horse at liberty or on a loose lead, with no particular destination and no particular demands, noticing when the horse's attention drifts and gently recapturing it through a change of direction, a stop, or by making himself more interesting. The goal is not to make the horse stay with him through spatial pressure but to make himself interesting enough that the horse wants to stay. Schiller also uses a specific exercise where he stands still with the horse loose in a pen and waits. He watches the horse's attention — where is it? What does the horse find more interesting than the human? When the horse notices the human and voluntarily turns toward him, Schiller acknowledges the try with a quiet rub and then steps away, giving the horse space to come further if it wants to. This 'magnetic' approach, where the human becomes the attractive rather than the directing force, develops a qualitatively different kind of attention than pressure-based longing. For horses that are anxious or shutdown, Schiller recommends doing groundwork that keeps them in the window of learning — movements slow enough and demands light enough that the horse remains in a regulated nervous system state throughout. A horse doing slow, quiet, thoughtful transitions on a circle is more engaged with the handler than a horse being driven at speed through endless direction changes. Schiller frames the ultimate goal of groundwork as producing a horse that is with you emotionally and mentally, not just physically present. Obedience without attention is compliance; attention without pressure is partnership.