July | 2012 | Meditations on Equestrian Art

Monthly Archives: July 2012

What Kind Of Hurry Are We In?

July 27, 2012 – 3:16 pm
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged advance, contrast, Control, Development, foal, friend, Horse, journey, life, Mustang, Natural Horsemanship, Photography, Positivity, potential, practice, Project, relationship, Training, Yes, zen
Comments (6)

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.

What Kind Of Hurry Are We In?

Two weeks from now is the one year anniversary for Myrnah and me. The one year anniversary for a one year project is a monumental moment. As we bring this year to a close I find myself in consideration: Did I accomplish more or less than I thought I would? The answer is both I think. The project took on a life of its own and led me along a path I couldn’t have guessed at. On the one hand, I have been pushing all year long to prove how much could actually get done without any tools to force cooperation in the training process. On the other hand, every day the question arises between Myrnah and me: What kind of hurry are we in? Do we really need to progress any faster than we are? If we are always hurrying on to the next thing, what lesson did we miss out on in the moment we just left behind?

I think if I have learned any one thing from this year with Myrnah it has been: given the choice to hurry and push for progress, or wait for change to evolve in its own time while I attend the moments and smell the roses along the way… the latter choice is always the more satisfying.

The beauty of the mustang project with Myrnah has been the requirement to always show up. Rain, shine, cold, or heat, day in and day out, I have a commitment to a project. I have a blog to write each week, photographs to organize, video to capture and edit, and the ceaseless question: How much can I do in one year, training a wild mustang off the range, with no tools to pressure her into working with me?

The beauty of the mustang project has also been its limitations. Without any tools, I can only push so hard. I have been forced by the design of the project to wait for change to evolve in its own time while I attend the moments and smell the roses along the way.

I have pushed and hurried Myrnah as hard and fast as I could to learn and progress. Given the limitations of the project, that wasn’t very hard or very fast. Overall I would say I am thrilled with the balance that has been struck between rushing ahead and enjoying the slow unfolding of the moments.

At the start of the project I wasn’t sure if Myrnah would ever let me ride her. She did let me ride her, and so much more.

I dreamed that perhaps at the end of a year we might be able to ride a dressage test, or jump a jump course, or take a trail ride, or ride with other people, or trailer to a strange location and work together in unfamiliar territory. Each one of those things Myrnah has done a little of, for and with me. Perhaps not to the completeness I envisioned, but really, what kind of hurry are we in?

Within a year this wild mustang mare has learned to follow me and carry me. She has offered to walk, trot, and canter with me on her back. She has started offering the precision of dressage with turns and changes of speed on a mark. She has learned to jump a small jump with enthusiasm. She has walked out on long trails with me, and carried me on short trails. She has carried me in group ride situations. She has even traveled in the trailer to work with me in a strange location. All of those things have been successful, and while I will always want more… what kind of hurry are we in?

Everyone asks: What next?

My answer is: More of the same, with less of the hurry.

Myrnah and I will continue to work without tools to train. I will continue to blog about it each week. Only now that our first year has proven what it set out to prove, we will push less, hurry less, and settle back to enjoy the evolution of the process.

In the coming year I will add the use of a halter for safety situations. Anywhere cars create a hazard, Myrnah and I will add a halter to our connection- a safety net allowing me to know without a doubt I can keep her out of harm’s way.

We will also add a saddle to the equation. As we add time and distance to our riding practice, a saddle will keep it comfortable for both of us, distributing my weight across Myrnah’s back on a broader surface than my two seat bones.

Other than that, all will continue along the same lines.

Myrnah has taught me so much in the last year, I can’t wait to see what she brings to my attention in the year to come.

I can’t wait, and yet, really…. What kind of hurry are we in? The more I sit back and enjoy the evolution of each moment, the more satisfied I am on the whole.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

Don’t Argue, Just Move

July 20, 2012 – 5:37 pm
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged advance, art, contrast, Control, Development, emotion, foal, friend, fun, game, Horse, journey, life, milestone, Mustang, Natural Horsemanship, No, Photography, play, Positivity, potential, practice, Project, relationship, shared, space, Training, Yes, zen
Comments (1)

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.

Don’t Argue, Just Move

As I sit down to write I am thinking perhaps my title should be: Don’t Argue, Just Write. I can think of a hundred other things that could be calling my attention tonight and there is a voice in my head arguing that any one of them might be more important than writing. My mantra in the face of such distraction…. Don’t Argue, Just Move.

A good life is a healthy balance of action and inaction. Arguing is neither. Arguing neither relishes the peace that could be experienced during inaction, nor does it revel in the constant evolution movement creates.

Arguing is a desperate plea for attention and connection. Arguing becomes a coping mechanism that can bond individuals together, but never to the full satisfaction of the parties involved. Only a healthy balance of movement and stillness can bond individuals together in a way that satisfies everyone.

Now this blog marks a certain amount of personal growth for me. I am one of those people who loves to argue. I am always seeking that closer bond with the world around me and sometimes an argument seems like the answer to that longed for connection. I think that harmony of individuals working together toward a common goal is what life is all about.

Put that lofty goal of individuals working together toward a common goal in the context of horses and humans, and it is easy to see the frustration, the desperation, and the arguing set in. Devices such as bridles and spurs become commonplace as a means to cut the arguments short and get the horses moving in harmony with the rider.

Tools have their place, and I do believe they speed up the process of training a horse to be a good partner. The question is: Do those tools that speed up the training of the horse, also, perhaps deny the rider the training important in making a human into a good partner for the horse?

That has been what the year with Myrnah is for me. I am three weeks from the end of our experimental year and the lessons just keep rolling in. Myrnah has taught me more about what it is to partner with a horse than any other horse I have ever known. She has challenged and pushed me to think beyond the normal lines of horse training. She is an incredible teacher.

Last week I talked about developing the habit of yes with Myrnah. With no tools to push through an argument I need to be aware and learn tact and timing about all the requests I make. Each request I make has to result in either movement or stillness, where we can enjoy each other’s company. The more time we waste arguing, the more I am building a habit of Myrnah saying no to me, instead of the yes we need to make this relationship functional.

This week Myrnah seems to be feeling a little more energetic. I have been able to spend a little more time each day riding- mostly at the walk. We work on training those first steps of responsive yes when I ask for more movement. Myrnah constantly suggests we stop and rest; I constantly suggest we go faster and explore more of the world. The connection we build together is from an equal game, spending time enjoying the movement and the stillness-alternately what she wants and what I want.

Not only does she need to build the habit of saying yes to me, I need to build the habit of saying yes to her. When she stops I say yes, and then ask her if she can turn; she says yes, and then usually ends up walking forward out of the turn (that turn unsticks her feet and lets us move together). Then she stops and I say yes, I will stop with you, we are stopped together. Then I ask for a turn, or a go, or a back up, whatever movement I think she is likely to say yes to. It is a conversation between the two of us. If one of us starts saying no instead of yes, then it becomes an argument instead of a conversation.

This conversation of movement and stillness, this is how we build a partnership. As our connection brings positivity, I find Myrnah and I can spend longer and longer simply existing, enjoying each other’s movement or stillness without the need to constantly counter with another idea to discuss. Myrnah is willing to trot for longer, and turn more lightly; I am willing to breathe when I feel the desperate desire to argue- breathe while I think carefully about what requests I can make that will build the habit of yes between us. Yes to movement, yes to stillness. Yes to being together, moving or being still. Both Myrnah and I need the practice, and love the results. Don’t Argue, Just Move.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

Making Peace With The Things We Would Rather Not Do

July 14, 2012 – 10:42 pm
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged advance, colt, contrast, Control, Development, emotion, foal, friend, fun, game, Horse, journey, life, Mustang, Natural Horsemanship, Photography, play, Positivity, potential, practice, Project, relationship, shared, space, Training, Yes
Comments (2)

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.

Making Peace With The Things We Would Rather Not Do

Sometimes we have good reasons for avoidance or resistance; sometimes we avoid or resist simply out of habit. The bigger the habit of resistance, the smaller the reasons can be to cause it. Horses and people are alike in this way. This blog is about making peace with the things we would rather not do.

Myrnah and I are building a relationship and a training method together that relies heavily on the building of positive habits. Because I have no way of forcing her to do anything, I HAVE TO build a habit of her saying yes to my requests. She needs to make peace with the things she would rather not do.

Every time I ask Myrnah to do anything, I have to consider what her likely response will be. If I want to turn left and I think she has a reason to oppose that, I have to consider: Do I have enough pressure to change her mind from opposition to cooperation? If I don’t, I had better just wait for another time to ask. Otherwise we are building a habit of saying no, instead of a habit of saying yes.

Here’s the rub. This week Myrnah has had big reasons to resist and oppose, bringing our training progress almost to a standstill.

Reason number one for Myrnah to oppose me, I talked about in my blog a couple of weeks ago– simply low energy levels. Any mother who has ever lived through the first few months of nursing a new baby will empathize. As much as Myrnah loves working with me and is happy to carry me around, when I ask her to trot or canter, her enthusiasm is limited. I can see her muscle loss since Errai was born and the resulting weakness can be felt when I ride. He is nursing the nutrients right through her and leaving little behind for her own energy expenditures. When I ask her to take a sprint across the field with me, she has bigger reasons to resist than she has to move with me. Grazing and resting and raising her little one are her priorities for now.

I said I was going to try to supplement Myrnah’s diet to help her, but it has taken some trial and error over the last few weeks to understand that this newly domesticated mustang does not consider grain or pellets to be food. She will pick all the carrots carefully out of the grain and leave the rest behind. During the winter I did convince her to eat some hay pellets and vitamins, but, now that green grass is in more abundance, she won’t touch the concentrated feed. The only concentrated feed I have been able to get her to eat is alfalfa hay, and even that only in a limited quantity.

This brings us to the second big reason Myrnah has to oppose me lately. Concern for Errai, his safety and well being, take number one priority for Myrnah, as it should be. Yet, that means sometimes she is too preoccupied with being a mother to even walk away from the herd for a moment to come eat some extra food with me.

This week we introduced a new mare named Red into the herd. Errai, being the bold and inquisitive creature he is, was very interested in her. Nickering, he would gallop over to Red. Myrnah, not knowing if she could trust this new character, would gallop after, determined to chase the new mare away from her precious foal. Theo would then chase after them too, not wanting to be left behind. Then the four of them would gallop a lap around the field before Errai backed off, only to do the whole thing again a few minutes later. Errai looks as though he thinks this is a great new game to get everyone running with him. Myrnah looks frustrated, and Red looks a little overwhelmed by the intensity. I never know quite what Theo thinks, but he definitely doesn’t want to miss out on whatever is going on.

So, as you can imagine, my time riding and training with Myrnah has been altered somewhat by the demands of our environment.

The question remains: What CAN we do together during these times of challenge to keep progress going?

The working theory is to train the first step, to train the habit of yes, and to make the tasks easy enough to accomplish without too much of a fight. We have to make peace with doing the things Myrnah would rather not do, even if it is only those first steps we are able to practice right now. Even if we can’t travel exactly the speed I would like, we can often practice a couple of steps of speed, resting and rewarding each positive effort.

The first few days Red was in the herd I had to pick times when everyone was at their most peaceful, only then asking Myrnah to walk up to the trailer to eat alfalfa. I had to consider her taking a few bites a success, because a few bites was all she would take before she went running back to be close to Errai. Each day she gets a little more relaxed about the new herd structure and is willing to stay and eat a little more. Little by little she is making peace with the things she would rather not do, trusting this new horse, leaving her foal and trusting the herd to take care of him.

The riding Myrnah and I do follows the same patterns. I have to pick a time when Errai is not pulling Myrnah’s attention elsewhere. Then, if she can tolerate a little focus on me, we can work on training those first steps of turns, and trots, and canters.

Just like a person, Myrnah is going to weigh her options and decide if she has more reason to work with me or to work against me. The more practice she has saying yes to my requests (even if I have to keep my requests small to get that yes) the more peace she will acquire about doing the things she would rather not.

The more peace Myrnah feels about doing things outside her comfort zone, the more she learns. I could be frustrated when the environment throws challenges our way, or I could just take it as part of the evolution Myrnah and I are working through together.

Making peace with the things we would rather not do is part of the process for both Myrnah and me. She would rather not be pulled off her job of mothering when she is distracted by its challenges. I would rather not have to take our training so slowly. Regardless, here we are, and we are both going to learn from being outside our comfort zones- that is just the way it works.

Here is to making peace with what is.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com