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Monthly Archives: December 2015

Freedom-Based Training

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One Trainer, Many Students, Communication through body language, Tools used only for safety, never to train

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The Goal:

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

 

Freedom-Based Training

 

In all my years with horses, the year I focused with Myrnah to learn something new and film “Taming Wild” was the most powerful learning I have ever done.

 

Why you might ask?

Because of the freedom involved.

 

It sounds like a contradiction in terms, freedom-based training, and I think it is in the very best way. The contradiction and balance of extremities adds such richness to this life.

 

Freedom: The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

 

Training: The act of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behavior.

 

With horse training we aim to develop a certain range of skills and responses we can count on in the relationship, so where does freedom come in?

 

I believe freedom is something we all long for, and relationship is something we all want also. The very basic importance of relationship to each one of us curbs our freedoms. Can we actually fully say or do what we want in relationship without fearing the consequences?

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Will the relationship still exist in the way we want after we say or do whatever we wanted in the moment? How can that sense of freedom coexist with living in community in a way that feeds and supports us?

 

How do we do that?

 

I believe the more specific our needs of someone else, the less freedom they have to be who they are and do what they need to do. However, if we have no requests at all, the relationship and sense of community suffer.

 

The more tools we use to train a horse (food rewards, bridles, sticks, ropes, fences etc.), the more specific our pressure gets. Do this and get what you want, or do this and avoid what you don’t want. We use tools to expedite training in the directions we want it to develop. I want to be clear; I don’t think this is wrong because I believe good training builds good partnership and a sense of community that is beautiful.

 

However, when we add awareness of how essential the need for freedom is in life, that is where our individual natures get to shine within the setting of relationship.

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When Myrnah and I took away all the tools that were not our bodies, we greatly limited how fast we could get specific about training. Training still happened and helped us develop a relationship, but in a very gradual way that also honored her basic need for freedom.

 

Here is how it works.

 

Body movements are the words that make up conversations between horse and rider. Stillness, quietness and harmony are the punctuation and emphasis. When we move in ways that are different from each other, it is a basic request for change that would create harmony. When we move or are still together, it emphasizes how much we enjoy our togetherness.

 

Myrnah had the freedom to make her own choices; however, it was important that I be honest with her about which choices I felt comfortable with and which I didn’t.

 

Wait, but doesn’t that limit her freedom?

 

Yes, however, she has a whole range of choices she could make with very minor consequence, and that is pretty close to freedom. The only thing she gains by making choices that keep me happy, is my harmony with her.

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The real training we are doing together is learning how to harmonize with each other.

 

Here are the nuts and bolts of the process:

 

  1. I can always ask Myrnah to move.

(What she does after she moves is up to her.)

 

  1. If movement results in something that feels connected, we harmonize. If movement leads to disconnection, we simply keep moving until we find connection.

 

That’s it.

 

Freedom means, if I ask for something that is too difficult for Myrnah and she can’t find connection, I have to give up that specific idea for the moment and ask for something she is willing to do.

 

Freedom-based training is very slow. Freedom-based training is very deep. Freedom-based training allows us to be who we are, while slowly adapting to the needs of our environment and our community.

 

I believe spending a year focused on freedom-based training developed me more than anything else I have ever done, and it was also one of the hardest things I have ever done.

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This project was so challenging for me, I have still not chosen to do it again fully with any other horses.

 

What I have done is incorporate periods of time in all of my other horse relationships where we walk through the same exercises Myrnah and I did together. That in itself has had a profound impact.

 

Freedom-based training does not need to be one hundred percent of the time, or one hundred percent of your life in order to be incredibly beneficial.

 

I believe freedom-based training pays dividends you have to experience to believe, and it is worth every moment spent.

 

I encourage you to consider freedom and training and the beauty and balance of their seeming contradictions.

 

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

TamingWild.com

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This blog aims to be an ongoing weekly inspiration, for all of you readers- long time, occasional and new to the group -welcome!

 

The book “Taming Wild” is in process and will describe and explain more in detail the process and the work Myrnah and I did together in our first year. We hope to have that finished and available in 2016.

 

For those of you who might like to be part of a larger community, there will be an on-line course starting in the Fall of 2016 where in I will start with a new horse and walk through the process step by step with you. The course will be designed to be useful as an add-on to the other training and living you do with your horse, or a complete system for those of you who like to dive in the deep end. Any amount of time spent in freedom-based training is beneficial in ways you can only know when you have experienced it. I look forward to sharing the journey with you!

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One Trainer, Many Students, Communication through body language, Tools used only for safety, never to train

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The Goal:

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

 

Missing, Wanting, and Dreaming

 

“Dreams”

 

“Hold onto Dreams

For if dreams die

Life is like a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

 

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.”

 

Langston Hughes

 

This blog is recognition, that in all the joy and wonder and awe that making a movie contains, there is also a yearning and a hunger for the original work that created the movie.

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This is a recognition that missing, wanting, and dreaming are vital and beautiful in their own way.

 

I am thrilled beyond belief that “Taming Wild” has made it into its butterfly stage of a movie. I am excited to share it in Seattle on the big screen this week. I am thrilled I get to stand on stage with mic in hand and play at questions and answers and theory, batting words back and forth with old friends and new.

 

This movie has a life of its own to revel in and watch with joy as it inspires people to follow their own dreams with their own horses.

 

I find myself also, in this long evolution of making a movie, missing the caterpillar stages of the project – the slow, long hours with Myrnah where we poured hours and hours into each other in an endeavor with an unknown outcome.

 

I find myself wanting more time with my fingers in fur and less time with them tapping away at a keyboard.

 

I find myself dreaming of what comes next, and yet more simply than that, I find myself dreaming of time lost in the flow of BEING with horses. That way of losing time is so very precious to me.

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This week I had a rare day in which there were no lessons to teach, no travel calling me away, and the movie business needed a little less attention. The rain paused for a few hours and I grabbed hold of my chance to get back to the work I love.

 

Myrnah and I spent an hour moving together, practicing our skills and remembering what together felt like. I had a million things more I wanted to do and feel and remember with her; and then she told me it was naptime, lying down in the pea gravel, dropping her nose to the ground, shutting her eyes, and drifting off to dream land.

 

I could have pushed her back to work; I could have made action more important that stillness. However, that is not this work we do together. Dreaming is every bit as important as doing. Wanting is every bit as important as having. Missing is poignantly beautiful.

 

So I curled up next to Myrnah, feeling the heat of her body emanate through me against the chill of the day, and we both fell asleep.

 

There will be more days full of riding, galloping down trails, exploring new places, honing movements together and building the intensity of the things we can do.

 

Some days though, are just for curling up and dreaming about what might be ahead.

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Enjoy your success.

 

Enjoy your dreaming.

 

Enjoy your missing of things you hold dear.

 

That chrysalis of longing is so very beautiful in its own way.

 

Hold it tenderly until it is ready to become the work and the evolution we long for.

 

Myrnah and I send you all our love in your dreaming.

 

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

TamingWild.com

What and How

The Project:

One Mustang directly off the range, One Trainer, Many Students, Communication through body language, Tools used only for safety, never to train

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The Goal:

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

 

What and How

 

I believe with horses we generally have a pretty good idea of WHAT we want. It varies from relationship to relationship in the details, of course, but it generally falls somewhere in the category of wanting the horse to want to do the same things we want to do.

 

We all crave a sense of community.

 

Community is built with relationship.

 

Relationship is built with interaction.

 

We can play, we can fight, we can be still, we can be active, we can collaborate, we can train, we can coerce, we can bribe. The list goes on, and, regardless of what comes after it, WE is the part that feels important.

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The part that is usually challenging is the HOW.

 

How do we have interactions that draw us closer together? How do we avoid interactions that splinter us apart and cause us to feel there is no WE. If there is only me and you going in separate directions, that sense of community we all crave is being ripped from us. All too often we don’t know HOW to find our sense of community again.

 

Often I hear stories of a rider having a fall off a horse and having their confidence shaken. Falls can be hard and injuries can occur. Yet there is something about a fall off a horse that seems to strike a primal chord of fear in people above and beyond normal. I think it’s that loss of community, that feeling that the creature you thought was there for you wasn’t anymore.

 

The hardest part about a fall off a horse or any dramatic separating of the ways is: though we know what we want (being part of community), we often don’t know how to get there or bring it back when it comes apart.

 

This developing of HOW, learning how to build a sense of community, this is what Taming Wild is all about.

 

I was asked, why the title “Taming Wild” when it perhaps seems more like I let Myrnah stay somewhat wild with all the freedom I gave her in our training. While that part may be true, the title “Taming Wild” reaches a little deeper than that. When we realize we crave community, we realize each one of us needs to tame the wild independence we carry in order to build strong community.

 

Wild independence usually means we want WHAT we want, WHEN we want it. Then we realize if WHAT we want includes another living being, either they must become subservient, or the WHAT and the WHEN have to soften in the face of the HOW.

 

Taming our own wild independence becomes a necessary part of learning How to get what we want in the realm of building community.

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We crave community so much that, when we don’t know how to build it, we will often settle for subservience; however, we all know deep down that a community of the dominant and the subservient is never as satisfying as a community of collaborative partners.

 

This is what “Taming Wild” is about.

 

If you are in the Seattle area in mid-December, come watch “Taming Wild” with us on the big screen. We will not be selling tickets, come one come all, donations accepted at the door.

Tuesday, December 15th–  Seattle- Location to be announced. (updates will be posted on Facebook, TamingWild.com and in the blog.)

Wednesday, December 16th – Cinnebarre Theater in Issaquah.

8:00 Start time at both Venues, both dates!

This journey into community we are all on, it just keeps getting more satisfying as we figure out the HOW to go along with all the WHAT. I am glad to have you all along with me as we figure out better and better ways to build community.

 

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

TamingWild.com