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Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Grass is Always Greener…

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 

 

The Grass is Always Greener…

Spring is springing here in the Northwest and a brilliant emerald carpet is emerging everywhere, green with the lush irresistible scent of spring. Though Myrnah is out on the pasture with her herd every day, there is that irrefutable idea: The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

The paddocks we are holding aside for Myrnah to foal in and use as her nursery are the most beautiful places to graze in the valley. At this point they are also the driest and easiest places for Myrnah and me to practice our skills each day. I think this works both for and against us. On the one hand, Myrnah is often frustrated when I insist on practicing our movements together instead of allowing her to eat nonstop as would be her preference. On the other hand, that green, green grass becomes a perfect reward for extra effort and remarkable moments of development.

In the middle of this paddock we have been practicing in, there is a small jump- a simple cavaletti that can be rolled so it is a pole on the ground, or a pole raised a foot or so off the ground. Here is a sequence of pictures taken the first time Myrnah followed me over that obstacle.

Upon reaching the other side she touched my hand with her nose, and I dropped down to let her graze for awhile; little did I know how incredibly powerful that reward system would turn out to be. In no time at all going over that cavaletti was all she wanted to do. So I added challenge to the game. As soon as she started to step over the pole I would run away, so she had to run after me to touch my hand before she could have her coveted bit of grass. The runs became longer and faster, and for the first time ever I had Myrnah cantering WITH me.

Setting up a pattern Myrnah understood, with a goal in mind that she wanted to get to, all of a sudden made the practice of speed a viable game for us. I had been trying to figure out how to develop our canter together; I just had no idea she would want to start jumping before she was inspired to canter with me. As I made the game faster I thought she would lose interest, but surprisingly I was wrong. That jump was still her favorite game. Over and over again she wanted to play. I even challenged her by seeing how long I could steer her away from the cavaletti before I finally allowed Myrnah her jump, canter away, and grazing moment. She certainly was frustrated by my game of keep away, but a few minutes of frustration seemed to feed her desire. Not only is the grass greener on the other side of the fence, it is also greener on the other side of a jump!

Now I am sure, being pregnant, and less than graceful right now gives Myrnah good reason to prefer grazing and grooming and quiet still games with me, over the speed and riding games I continue to want to play. So if I can add a little incentive of coveted grass beyond her everyday travels of the pasture, I think that is a good thing.

Riding is progressing beautifully. Yes, we still have our willful moments where neither of us wants to give over leadership to the other. Those moments are shorter and shorter lived though and our patterns of travel continue to develop. Walking, stopping, and backing up are all pretty easy for us now, though our walks are broken up by a multitude of volunteered stops where Myrnah asks if she can please graze now? Bending to a stop, my fingertips on the side of her neck asking her to bring her nose around and touch my foot is a solid skill, since I usually ask for that just before I let her graze. Turning and changing direction at walk are still a major discussion point; Myrnah is not sure why I get to make so many decisions when she is the one carrying me.

The most fun though is the trot. Today, for the first time, Myrnah started offering the trot and maintaining it for longer and longer stretches. Her trot has a sort of passage feel to it- light and elevated- I think because with every step she is wondering if she has gone far enough to have earned a grazing break. She doesn’t really want to go anywhere; she is just doing her best to please me so we can get back to the eating part of the exercise.

When I am riding I make sure the jump is at its lowest setting with the pole right on the ground. Small and simple as it is, I am still thrilled when Myrnah decides carrying me over an obstacle is fun, and trotting away from the jump becomes patterned and simple for us. I have a feeling we are still a long way from riding a canter together, but who knows… progress is never linear. Sometimes it moves in leaps and bounds when you least expect it to.

For now I will continue to revel in the beautiful moments, reward Myrnah often with the time grazing she longs for, and develop our skills one small step at a time.

The grass is always greener when you have to work a little to earn it. May our challenges always be in balance with our rewards.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

She Has a Mind of Her Own!

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 

 

 

 

 

She Has a Mind of Her Own!

Training Myrnah seems to have more resemblance to raising a child than training a horse some days. This week was like that. As she is getting more and more comfortable in her new pasture space and with her new herd mates, working with me seems to have become passé. She still loves to see me, hanging on the gate when I am working with the kids and their horses, walking right over to greet me whenever I come in the pasture. She loves her grooming, and follows me whenever I invite her to come with me. However, in our morning work sessions she is growing up and seems to need to prove she has a mind of her own!

On Tuesday when I needed to trim her hooves, we spent forty-five minutes attempting the task. She picks her feet up just fine, but, on this particular day, she didn’t like the feel of the rasp. She isn’t scared of it, she has certainly fallen asleep many times while I trimmed her hooves, she just didn’t feel like letting me trim on this day. With any other horse I can use some negative reinforcement, enough to let them realize the right thing (standing quietly while I trim hooves) is easy, and the wrong thing (pulling their feet away from me and being fidgety and impatient) is harder than the alternative.

The interesting thing about training Myrnah is she always has a third alternative- walking away from me. If I try to prove a point by making her life difficult, she can prove her point- that she can just leave me if I am going to be difficult.

Training Myrnah I have no choice but to patently persist. I can make the wrong thing a little hard, but I can’t make it so hard that she chooses to leave me. I can make the right thing as easy as I can imagine, but sometimes I have to get something done, like rasping her hooves. If Myrnah decides she doesn’t feel like it is easy enough to be worth tolerating, sometimes I just don’t have enough patience.

Tuesday, after forty-five minutes of patiently persisting through the struggle of trying to rasp Myrnah’s hooves, I had to admit defeat. There was no more patience left in me, and she had a mind of her own that would not be swayed to my way of thinking.

Wednesday, after a good night’s sleep, I was there bright and early ready to work this out. Myrnah reminds me of a teenager with a beautiful new found independence determined to oppose any request sent her way. I love that she has a mind of her own, and feels she can have an opinion about life; I just need to keep balancing that with a respect for community, specifically the community of us.

It seems Myrnah had had a good night’s sleep too and was ready for me, all contrarian purposes at the ready. We left her horse companion in the paddock and headed up the hill to the arena. Once there, instead of following me through the gate, she spun around and trotted gaily down the driveway. A little concerned that she would get it into her head to go out and play with the cars on the road, I ran after her, got her attention, and we walked back to the arena. This time at the gate, she spun away and cantered down the hill back to her friend in the paddock below. I went running after, got her attention again, and we started walking back up the hill. Halfway up I thought I should stop and ask her to back up so we could check in with each other. No sooner did I reach my hand toward her chest than she chose to evade me and sprinted off up the hill past the arena and back out the driveway. I sprinted after her and thought to myself this would be quite fun if I wasn’t worrying about the cars we might run into if we went too far.

I decided that was enough flirting with danger, and once I had gotten her attention again, heading us back toward the barn together, I had her duck though a side gate into the pasture where I could close it behind us, blocking the exit route down the driveway.

Just as I turned my back to close the gate she took off at a gallop down the hill with twists and bucks all the way. What fun to watch so long as I didn’t take it personally.

I ran after her, and, once we were connected again, we resumed work in the lower paddocks below the barn. This time I asked very little of her.

If Myrnah was going to be contrary, I would give her as little as possible to be contrary about. All I needed from her was to spend time with me. If nothing else, we would simply spend time building a habit of community together.

Grazing was not allowed; if she tried to graze, I asked her to move her feet. Other than that we walked or stood still together, side by side, operating as one whether she liked it or not. Eventually she got tired of that, and stopped at the old tree stump asking me to get on. I think she thought, maybe I would let her graze if I was riding.

I got on, but still insisted she just exist with me, no grazing allowed yet. We stood still for ages. All I was aiming for was building the habit of being together. When Myrnah’s back seemed like it was starting to shake from the weight on it, I would encourage her forward, knowing it is easier to carry my weight in movement than standing still. She would take five or ten steps and then stop again. I knew if I pushed for more movement right away, it would be just the fight she was looking for today; so I sat and did nothing, only asking her to move again when it felt like her back needed a break from static carrying.

Eventually she got tired of this, and took me back to the stump as if asking me to get off again. I declined, and told her I would get off after she agreed to a few turns, walking us together into the next paddock. Oh, the head shaking and foot stomping I got from those requests! Finally, she took a deep breath and pretended it was her idea to walk into the next paddock. The walk was fluid and forward and relaxed, so I took my chance to praise her, signal her to drop her head to graze, and jumped off, calling that enough riding for one day.

I wasn’t done yet though. Her hooves had to be trimmed and I had an idea. She was allowed to eat grass so long as she let me trim her hooves. The moment she pulled that hoof out of my grasp, off to work we went. I was banking on her wanting to graze enough that she would try to work it out with me instead of running away. Otherwise I could see myself running a marathon with her through the pastures. I took the risk, got lucky, and won my bluff.

The first time Myrnah yanked her hoof out of my grasp, I excitedly jumped up and down: Lets play! She was not impressed, and did not want to run and play; she wanted to graze! So, after a brief run (actually, I ran in a circle around her, and she spun in one spot with her ears pinned) I called her softly back to me. She touched me gently with her nose, I told her she could graze, and proceeded to pick up her hoof and start again. It took five or six repetitions of this, and then all of the sudden she relaxed and stood quiet as could be for the rest of her hoof trim. She didn’t even seem to care that much about grazing. Sure she put her head down for a nibble now and then, but mostly just fell asleep while I rasped away her excess hoof. It was like a relief flooded over her when she realized it was OK to relax and let me do my job, letting go of all the fight and contrary attitude.

Like any parent, I am proud of my charge developing independence and a mind of her own. I trust that her character is developing, and all the trials and tribulations of growing up will help her blossom into the fullness of herself. My job, as I oversee her development, is to help her keep a healthy balance between her sense of self and her sense of community. Both are important.

She has a mind of her own, this mustang Myrnah does. My job is to nurture and develop that in a balanced way, and I pray to all that is that I continue to have enough patience and ingenuity to do that with grace. Wish me luck!

Elsa Sinclair

Equine Clarity.com

Sitting on the Edge

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

 

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 

 

Sitting on the Edge

 

Buffeting winds, snow storms, and rain coming in sideways… indeed, here we are in March. With the elements at extremes this week, Myrnah and I found ourselves sitting on the edge of comfort as we rode together. The new wide-open pastures, herd mates to keep an eye on, and weather to brace oneself against have all lent an exciting edge to our practice.

 

Myrnah is settling into her new home flawlessly; from watching her go out in the pasture every morning to watching her saunter in again every evening, she seems the picture of relaxed contentment, completely at ease with all her new horse friends. I find myself wishing I had done all my training in such an open, natural, herd-based situation. Yet the weather I mentioned above has left the ground a sopping-wet, squishy, squelching mess to walk around in, reminding me why we pull horses into the dry paddocks for the winter months. So Myrnah and I tread lightly, pretending we are just kids playing in mud puddles, and trust that summer is indeed just around the corner.

 

After her move, I gave Myrnah a couple of days adjustment time in her new space, asking very little as she got used to her new surroundings. Come Monday it was time to get back to work, regardless of the wind. Walking around the puddled grass paddocks, side by side, practicing our turns and stops, backups, and transitions of speed gave me a chance to assess Myrnah in her new space. What I found was my seemingly perfectly adjusted mare was carrying a level of tension imperceptible to the casual eye. My hand resting in her fur could feel the clench of muscles and the unusual brace against requests from me. She was trying to do all I asked, yet her internal comfort was on the edge of panic. Between the new space and the weather and the life changes, Myrnah’s confidence was stretched thin.

Like a mountain climber who sits on the edge of cliffs with nonchalance the rest of us envy, Myrnah too needs to get comfortable on the edge. Her edge is more metaphorical in nature, yet it is an edge that will always be there as life throws unexpected twists and turns her way. This week, for Myrnah and me, was about sitting on the edge of comfort and getting comfortable with the added energy and uncertainty of life.

 

Monday we practiced our groundwork, and then, when I got on from an old stump in the paddock, I could feel Myrnah humming with excitement, every muscle braced for flight. I got on and off, and walked with her some more, and got on and off again. Finally, when I thought she could handle it, I stayed on. The wind was howling, and I could feel her struggling against the gusts as she balanced my weight and hers. The exercise that felt so easy the week before in the calm of the high valley paddocks now challenged Myrnah to the very edge of what she could handle. In order to get comfortable with this higher energy, she needed a way to keep lowering her internal stress, and we needed to be careful we didn’t add to it. Like a mountain climber sitting on the edge of a cliff, there was not a lot of room for error here on the edge of comfort.

 

So Monday, I suggested she just graze while I sat on her back. The calming, repetitive ripping of new green shoots gave her just enough relief from the other tensions around us that she was able to sit with me and be less than comfortable without needing to run from the feelings. For me, the feeling of her bracing against the gusts of wind as she moved one hesitant step at a time to reach the next bit of grass was completely thrilling in its own way. Every step I asked myself: Can she handle this? Can I sit on her a little longer without overwhelming her? To find the answer was yes again and again, was intensely gratifying in the simplest way.

Tuesday, we did more of the same, only this time venturing farther away from the herd to explore new spaces on the hill above. Not so much wind, but swirling white snow blizzarding around us, lent its own dizzying excitement to the adventure. The first time I asked Myrnah to walk when I was riding, I found I had pushed the edge too far and all her muscles bunched up in reaction. I jumped off as she threw a couple of little bucks, and so we did some more ground work together until her tension lowered and we were able to find a place on the edge of comfort that didn’t feel so precarious. When I got on again, we took travel one very tentative step at a time, stopping often to graze, traveling just a little, and then stopping to graze again.

 

Wednesday, we stayed closer to the herd, but found we were ready to graze less and travel more, even with me riding. When I would feel Myrnah’s muscles bunch up and stress start to overwhelm her, we would just stop and sit with it. Given time, she would take a deep breath and let me know she was ready again. It was a dance through the sideways-sleeting rain. Travel, feel the stress, back off, stop, think about it, realize it wasn’t as frightening as was thought before, and travel again: these things take time, yet have immeasurable value. The ability to push oneself to the edge of comfort and not panic increases the ability to learn, increases the day to day enjoyment of life, and lets the unexpected things that come up become fun instead of frightening.

 

All in all, I am brilliantly impressed with my three-year-old mare, Myrnah. The challenges she has faced with grace over the last couple of weeks are really quite amazing. How many horses do you know who can join a new herd in a new pasture, and then be ridden bridleless and bareback away from the herd to explore new spaces? In my experience that is asking a lot of a horse, and Myrnah has far surpassed that when you consider she is only seven months off the range, three-years old, and been ridden perhaps only ten or fifteen times in her life so far.

This mare has me sitting on the edge of comfort too. The feeling is both thrilling and calming, an intensity of focus and uncertainty, excitement and quiet reassurance from deep within, all melding into a way of being that feels beautiful beyond belief. It takes time to develop, and yet having that comfort on the edge pays dividends that make it well worth the effort.

 

So here is to wind and weather, new spaces, new horizons, and sitting on the edge of comfort until it too becomes comfortable.

 

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Winds of Change

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

 

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 

 

 

The Winds of Change

My home is tucked in a valley. Between a hill to our backs and a dense forest in front of us is the most beautiful gem of garden and green. The wind hardly ever touches us here; by the time it filters down to us from the world outside, it is just a breeze kissing skin and fur with a playful caress. It is a peaceful place and has provided a perfect beginning for Myrnah and me. In keeping with our locale, the winds of change have been gentle and forgiving as we develop together.

 

This week it became time for change to blow through us a little stronger, and for the larger world to become our playground. With spring growing in strength, the green grass coming on lush, and the ground beginning to dry out, the larger pastures of Plumb Pond beckoned. It was time to move Myrnah from the dry, quiet, high ground of my home to the larger windswept pastures a mile down the road.

 

I think this has been the most apprehensive moment I have weathered yet with Myrnah. The night before the move I felt sick with worry. Was she ready to move gracefully into the larger herd of horses? Would these winds of change tear through our relationship like a storm, fraying our connection and weakening our bond? Would she feel grateful to me for bringing her to a new family in a location that feels like heaven on earth for horses, or would she fault me for changing everything she knows, and throwing her head first into an unknown herd?

 

Even the logistics of getting her to her new home felt challenging. I pulled the trailer into the top pasture where the ground was hard and dry enough to drive on. From there, as Myrnah stepped out of the trailer, we could see the current herd of four grazing the midlands below the pond on the other side of the barn. Myrnah is wary of new horses; I knew this from playing approach and retreat with the various horse paddocks at home. Her first choice is to run to a safe viewpoint and watch them from afar. To my surprise, on this windy Thursday in March, Myrnah showed an unexpected boldness. We alternately walked and stopped to watch the herd, and walked again making our way almost all the way to the barn in short order. Then Myrnah’s youth and inexperience took over and she turned around to retreat up the hill again- a safe vantage point to view the new herd from a distance. I was ready for this change of heart and simply retreated with her.

 

Over the next hour we advanced down the hill to the barn, lost confidence, and retreated back up the hill several times- more and more time for Myrnah to spend ears pricked and focused intently on the herd below. Finally the winds of change blew her confidence up a notch, and we were able to walk past the barn, over the hill by the pond, and proceed out through the electric wire gate into the field the horses were in.

 

The bald eagles called to each other above us, the Canadian geese grazed next to the pond beside us, the deer traveled the lowlands on the far edges of the pastures, and Myrnah’s new herd watched us intently as we made our way down the hill to meet them.

 

As we reached the middle of the pasture, all four of them came at us at a run as horses sometimes will. Myrnah stood the charge with her customary quietness, and I pushed the running horses to the side into a circle around us. When they ran back down to the bottom of the pasture, Myrnah and I followed quietly and gently, stopping to graze when we got close. Antheia, the beautiful grey two-year-old mustang was the first and most friendly of the herd. Coated head to toe in the fresh mud she had found to roll in, she sauntered over so say hi, first to me whom she knows and secondly to Myrnah. Myrnah, mostly interested in grazing and cautious of new horses, was reticent yet patient with Antheia’s inquisitive nature. The other three horses mostly ignored us, allowing us to tag along behind as everyone munched the new spring grass. It wasn’t long before I felt I had facilitated what I needed to for Myrnah. She was here and as confident as I could set her up to be; the rest was up to her.

All in all our herd is thirteen strong, soon to be fourteen when Myrnah’s baby is born. For the next few weeks Myrnah’s herd will grow a few at a time as we move them all from winter paddocks to summer pasture. At first, day times spent grazing and nights in paddocks adjacent to the pasture, eating dry hay all night to soften the change of diet. Little by little they will stay out more and more until they are out on grass full time. Myrnah will continue to come in every night until she foals. Once she is on full grass her nighttime lodging will be the lushest pasture of all, the pasture above the barn where all foals at Plumb Pond have had their beginnings.

 

There is a balance I am aiming for here with Myrnah: between her comfort and adjustment to her new large family on the one hand, and a quiet space for her to retreat to as she becomes a mother to the new little one.

 

It will doubtless be interesting to see how our riding and training progress with all the new changes. Wednesday, before the move, we had our best ride to date. Confidently walking all around the drive way, stopping, backing and turning on cue, Myrnah doesn’t seem to mind carrying me at all anymore, even going so far as to trot a few steps now and then when I ask. It really does feel like a gift, all that she does for me.

 

Now that the space and the herd have changed for Myrnah, we shall see how her relationship with me evolves. The winds of change blow stronger in the pastures of Plumb Pond as the herd and the space broaden Myrnah’s focus. I am thrilled to be part of the evolution and promise to keep you all posted.

 

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

Attention

 

 

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range

One trainer

No tools

Just body language

 

 

 

The Goal:

To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.

 

 

 

Attention

All of us are either moving toward something we want, or away from something we don’t want. Usually it is some combination of the two that motivates us; however, if we can break it down to the simplest equation, life gets easier to understand. What are we paying attention to, and are we moving towards it, or away from it? Are we moving towards the life we want? Or are we running from the life we are afraid of?

This past weekend I attended a workshop put on by a mounted policeman, Bill Richey. Two days of smoke bombs, flares, lines of fire, hanging plastic, bridges, barking dogs, police cars, sirens and lights. I had intended to ride my mustang, Saavedra, through all this; however, she hurt herself a few weeks beforehand and left me without a ride. Several people jokingly suggested I take Myrnah and I laughed saying, maybe next year.

This time around my dear friend, Heather, jumped at the chance to send her four-year-old Gypsy horse Sage through the course with me. So Friday we loaded up the trailer with Cameron’s horse, Maharrah, Maggie’s horse, Joy, Sage as my mount, and we were off to Butler Hill Equestrian Center. For any of you interested there will be more of these clinics offered at Butler Hill. They do a wonderful job of putting them on, and everyone walks out of the clinic far more confident in day to day life than they arrived.

Throughout the workshop I had a great deal of time to watch and think about how things work. Sage, true to his Gypsy lineage, is a pro at handling chaos; so I got to sit back and watch the show everyone else put on as we walked through the obstacles. Starting with a simple sheet of plywood we formed a line and walked over it again and again until most everyone was OK with it. Then we added a bridge, walking around in a circle over the bridge and then over the plywood until everyone was fine with that… and so the obstacle practice continued. For the less tangible obstacles like noise, we rode drill patterns weaving in and out of the other horses, walking steadily on until the horses got used to the whistles, sirens, barking dog and so on. By day two everyone had progressed to navigating bridges with visually impenetrable smoke billowing from beneath, crossing lines of fire, and walking under hanging tarps and swinging curtains of clattering pipes.

All day I watched horses wrestling with the choice to run away or move forward where their riders asked and I came to this conclusion: a bridle is simply an attention-getting device. As you ride a horse toward an obstacle he is afraid of, his first instinct is to look for his escape route, and then run away. The bridle, depending on its severity and the horse’s willingness to have his attention directed, allows us to insist the horse pay attention to where we want him to go. If you cause enough pain, you can grab anyone’s attention, at least for a moment. Once the horse is looking in the right direction, pressure on the bridle releases, pain goes away, and the horse starts thinking perhaps the thing he was afraid of is actually less painful than the escape route he thought he wanted to take. And so, little by little, the horse learns that moving toward something his rider directs him to is far more pleasant than running away from something he thinks he might be afraid of.

We are all constantly weighing our options with more or less awareness depending on our stress levels. What feels better- what feels worse, it doesn’t have to be logical or rational. It is just that simple emotionally: we all want to feel better, and we will do whatever it takes. Horses run into burning barns because the familiarity of their stall feels better than the unfamiliar outside. People on a runaway horse will scream at the top of their lungs, not because it’s the smart thing to do, just because the scream makes them feel better.

We all do stupid things sometimes in an effort to feel better. What kind of pain, or attention-getting device would it take to redirect our attention and look at the other options? Here is what I think: the lower the stress levels, the more aware we can be about redirecting our attention. The higher the stress levels, the more pain it will take to redirect our attention. The beautiful thing about taking Sage, the Gypsy horse, through the course this past weekend was, he naturally doesn’t carry much stress. So riding him in a halter was easy. Add to that the nature of the course and the constant rhythmic walking we all did for hours on end, whatever stress was coming up was constantly being drained away. The less stressed we are carrying, the smarter we get and the clearer we can see options of where to move forward instead of panicking and running away.

So that brings me back to Myrnah and our training with no tools. If I don’t have a bridle as an attention-getting device, what will I do when she wants to go somewhere I do not want to go? What do I do when she decides something is frightening and she needs to run from it?

For now the working hypothesis is: Attention Attention Attention! I have to train her to bring her attention back to me or back to the the direction I choose over and over again. I have to train that habit in her so strongly that I don’t need pain to get it. I need to use persistence and timing to teach her to yield to the pressure of my fingertips. She needs to become patterned to yielding her attention whenever I ask, over and over and over again in low stress situations, so when stress increases in any given situation she has a pattern of behavior with me that will hopefully circumvent the need for a bridle.

This week we took our riding outside the paddocks and around the circle driveway. Slowly Myrnah’s confidence builds and she is willing to walk twelve steps instead of just seven, and then fifteen, and then more between each pause to gather her thoughts. Her deep breaths come more often, and I can feel the stress draining away as we travel together. My rides still only last for five minutes or less, but after a rest I jump on and we play again.

Wednesday we encountered a slight downhill, and as my weight shifted Myrnah lost confidence and gave a scoot and a buck. I jumped off and had her practice backing up the slight incline. Shifting her weight back will help her balance my extra weight as she carries me over terrain. If I had a bridle on her I could have quickly redirected her attention, helping her find her balance on the slope. Without a bridle and with her current stress levels about carrying weight, I didn’t have enough pressure to redirect her attention while I was on her. So I do whatever I need to do. Jump down, talk to her from a position she can hear me from, and then I can get back on to see what we can do together- after patterns of attention directing have been reestablished.

I never said this was the fastest way to train a horse, but I am without doubt learning more about how everything works through this process and Myrnah’s help. When Myrnah and I do get it right and I can get her attention with a whisper instead of a shout, every moment we spent getting there feels worth it.

So here is to redirecting attention and getting smarter as we figure out how to move forward into a life that feels better.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com