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.
Specificity and skipped steps
It seems Myrnah and I have reached a step in the process that is not as graceful as all the previous steps have been. Specificity is proving to be more difficult for us than anything we have done yet. I don’t know if I am excited by the challenge, or disappointed in myself for not setting up the course of learning better. A little of both I think.
Last week was all about traveling together, developing our ease and relaxation in movement. Myrnah more or less got to choose where we traveled; I just asked her to keep moving. Everything Myrnah and I have done together so far has had a large element of choice on her part. If I wanted to trim her hooves, I let her decide where she wanted to stand to have them done; and, if she changed her mind, I picked up my trimming tools, followed her to the new spot, and started again. If I asked her to turn, I wasn’t too particular about where we were headed so long as she yielded the direction asked. If I asked her to back up and she turned around in the process, that was fine too, so long as she stepped back for me. We were building a basis of communication, and I wanted all the pieces to feel easy. Little by little she became more accurate in her responses and I was thrilled.
This week I set up a pattern to build specificity. Walking together, rest in movement, the gate open between the woods and the arena, Myrnah could take me wherever she liked. New addition to the game: I added a couple of tires, double-stacked in the arena. If Myrnah was interested in investigating them, we could stop and rest there; everywhere else we needed to keep moving.
The idea is to teach Myrnah to sidle up to something (like a stack of tires) to let me get on.
From the first step of investigating the tires to get a rest from perpetual movement, we built to my standing on the tires while we both took a break. 
Getting Myrnah in exactly the right spot beside the tires was challenging for her. Anything so specific is new to us, and she didn’t want to do it. While I was happy to give it up and go walking instead, she didn’t want to do that either. She wanted to just rest at the tires in any position she chose, and so Myrnah started pinning her ears at me.
This is where I think there is a balance to be struck. “Confidence-in-one’s-self” and “confidence-in-others” need to be in balance. Myrnah has a great deal of natural self-confidence. When her confidence in me is lacking, it is easy for her to start being angry. Wednesday she had a perfectly good idea of what we should do together: (standing relaxed at the stacked tires) My idea of alternating walking and standing at a specific spot next to the tires seemed like a terrible idea to her. Too much confidence in herself and not enough in me lead to some angry gestures.
I am generally intolerant of anger, so I jumped right on it, and thought, what do I do with my other horses to build their confidence in leadership? I work on our yields: front-end, back-end, and sideways. Myrnah’s front-end yields are soft and easy; her back-end yields are relatively undeveloped. Back-end yields are something I kept putting off until our bond felt stronger. Well obviously here was a gap in her education and a missed step in the process.
What happened when I went to push her hind end away from me Wednesday? She told me NO. I pushed harder and she showed me she had feet to kick me with… hmmm, pushing harder obviously wasn’t going to get me anywhere I wanted to go. (and yes I was thinking all this would be so much easier if I had rope right now and could just make her do it).
So take a deep breath and break it down. We take a walk and then I play with gently putting my hand at the back of her belly to suggest she just look toward me with her nose. If her nose tips toward me, her hip will at least energetically yield, even if it isn’t physically apparent. The problem is she won’t even do that. On this day a hand on the side of her belly puts Myrnah into a strong opposition reflex, sending me running out of the kick zone. So I yell and jump up and down and clap my hands and run in circles driving her nose away from me until she looks at me with curiosity, and comes back with her ears forward. Then I sit on the ground, breathing hard, and wishing I hadn’t put off this step in the training. Breath caught, we try it again.
Sometimes, if I get my tact just right her nose comes toward me when I place a hand on the back of her belly, and I quickly reward that by moving my hand onto her withers and simply walking with her. 
A horse’s confidence in others is based on their respect and their respect is based on their willingness to yield physical space. Willingness equals a positive attitude. When Myrnah started showing aggression, I knew her confidences were getting out of balance and we needed to build a little more respect and confidence in me, her person, and hopefully her leader.
I wish I had spent more time teaching her to yield her hind end earlier in the game. Without rope or stick I wasn’t sure I could, but now I see it is a critical piece that is fundamental to later progress.
On the up side, Myrnah’s extreme opposition prompted my own desperate measures, which caused her to look at me in a new and curious frame of mind. Her ear pinning seems to be melting away, her specificity of standing exactly at the mounting block has improved dramatically, and her offers of focus, arc and softness in her body while we walk together are so beautiful they make me want to cry.
So thank you to the exercise of specificity for showing me our missed step in the process. I love everything I am learning through this, even if I don’t always get it right the first time.
Elsa Sinclair
