Meditations on Equestrian Art

The Project:

Horses from many walks of life, communication through body language, tools used only for safety, never to train.

The Goal:

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

The Big Red Button

It is right there – red, shiny, catches your attention. What would happen if you pushed it? You know you shouldn’t, it doesn’t belong to you, but the curiosity flares every time you see it. Big Red Buttons beg to be pushed!

Now there are some personality types for whom this is not an issue, but for me this is a lifelong dilemma. When there is a button there and you are not sure what it does, don’t you just want to push it and find out?

Or sometimes, even when you do know what that button does… you have to push it anyway, simply because nothing else is happening at the moment and something happening would feel more productive than nothing happening.

I am sure by now you have figured out I am not really talking about a plastic red button on an otherwise empty wall; I am speaking as I often do, metaphorically.

As I work with a horse, I am working to develop our comfort zones so that we will have more and more things we can do together that bring us joy. There are of course the learning stages of tolerance and acceptance that need to be worked through on the way to joy, and that is what I study and teach in Freedom Based Training.

In this blog post I want to talk about Intolerance – those things the horse says NO to. When the horse says I won’t do that, I can’t do that, I don’t feel like doing that. Most of us horse trainers are taught to find those things and then work them out. That is our job!

Most of us who aspire to be horse trainers think this is what horse training is.

The common saying is the comfort zone is only growing when you are uncomfortable.

I would like to challenge that.

A student asked me the other day if she should take it personally that some days her horse didn’t seem at all interested in doing things with her when she came to see him. So I had to turn that question around and ask, should your horse take it personally that you don’t seem interested in hanging out at the hay pile with him while he eats?

Part of being in relationship is the basic premise and fact that we will bring interest and diversity into each other’s lives. Taming Wild is about taming that wild streak we all have within us that wants everything the way we want it right away. When we tame that wild streak, we open the door to being curious about all the things we could enjoy together.

There is a problem though; we get bored with someone else’s desires and we want them to want what we want.

And if the horse does not want what we want, how many times do we need to ask them and make them say “no” to us again and again and again?

I find the horse saying “no” is the biggest irresistible red button for people.

If a horse loves to jump jumps, what do people do? They keep asking it to jump higher and stranger things until it says; “No, I can’t do that.”

If a horse likes to walk through the fields, what do people do? They want to canter or gallop until the horse says; “No, that scares me and I just want to run home where it is safe when you ask me to go that fast.”

This seems to be our human nature; we always want a little too much from our partners.

I am as much to blame on this account as anyone is and so I find myself asking WHY?

Why do I get bored with what the horse finds enjoyable? Why do I find myself wanting to reach for that “NO” answer from the horse and push us right over the edge of the comfort zone? Why is my wild streak so incorrigible sometimes?

Part of me wants to say it is simply my training, because horse trainers are generally paid to work horses through the things they are intolerant of until they accept or enjoy what was once an answer of “no”.

However, I know now for a fact that my best training comes from being curious and gently exploring all the possible fun things I can do with a horse. Why am I always tempted to reach for the red button and make my horse say “no” to me yet again?

I think the answer is in our understanding of stress levels.

Stress is a good thing, it helps us grow and learn and develop, and when it is at a functional level it bonds us together with our partners.

When stress is at a dysfunctional level, all of us will tend to take actions of Fight, Flight or Freeze that alienate us from our friends.

Recently I have been spending some time working with a beautiful grey Arabian mare. As I do my passive leadership work, I get a chance to watch Lily interact with her herd mates. When she is at a functional stress level she has friends, the other horses will flow and find harmony with her, but, when her stress levels increase beyond a certain point, she goes looking for ways to bring them down to a functional level again.

The two things that bring stress down are:

1. Leadership – Someone who makes decisions that are accepted by others.
2. Movement – The contraction and extension of muscles in a rhythmic way that moves energy through the body.

So when Lily’s stress levels increase, I watch her reach for that big red button just like I do. She walks around the paddock pushing on the other horses until one of them says “NO” to her in a big enough way she accepts their decision. As soon as that happens, you can see her stress dissipate, and she can fall into flow and harmony with the leader she just found for herself.

As a horse trainer I am a little different. I am not going to accept the answer “no” from a horse because I don’t see that as beneficial for anyone. “Yes” answers grow the comfort zone; “no” answers keep the comfort zone rigidly in place. Yet watching Lily lower her stress levels by pushing on her friends until they set a boundary for her makes me wonder if that is why I reach for the red button also? Am I making horses set a boundary for me to make me feel better? Even if I push through their intolerance to get a “yes” answer of some sort before finding harmony with a horse, did I first have to set them up to give me a boundary so my personal stress levels would go down?

It is a question worth thinking about.

Acting on this premise has led me to a brilliant set of sessions with horses lately. When I am tempted to go push that red button and do something the horse is likely to say “no” to, instead I ask myself the question, what can I do to take personal responsibility for my stress levels.

The two things that bring stress down are:

1. Leadership – Someone who makes decisions that are accepted by others.
2. Movement – The contraction and extension of muscles in a rhythmic way that moves energy through the body.

So I apply those principles to myself. Leadership – make a decision for Elsa that will be accepted by the horse I am working with. Movement – walk rhythmically around my horse until I feel better.

Once my stress levels are at more functional levels, I am more likely to ask my horse for things they will say “yes” to.

The same goes for my horses, The more functional level their stress is, the more they will ask their friends for things that might evoke a “yes” answer, leading to harmony and flow.

The less functional the stress levels are, the more likely the boredom/freeze, flight, or fight come into play and the horses go looking for those red buttons, those “no” answers, and those boundaries given by a moment of leadership that bring the stress levels down temporarily.

What we do in Freedom Based Training is work to bring stress to a functional level for everyone involved by taking personal responsibility for our stress and letting the horses take personal responsibility for theirs.

The other day at the end of a three-hour training session with Lily, I stood with her as she ate some Alfalfa. Then we walked together as she smoothly stepped in on Daisy’s pile and Daisy moved easily away to find a different pile of hay, between them an easy flow and harmony with no need for any display of boundaries. Then you could see Lily’s tension rise; she needed that red button, so into Mouse’s stall we went, too strong, too fast and Mouse felt pushed enough to kick out at Lily, giving her leadership and a boundary and making her back off. Lily seemed to feel better instantly, THEN she took a breath and very gently worked her way into flow and harmony at Mouse’s pile. One step forward and pause, another step forward and pause, one step back to give him a moment, then one step forward again. When she made it all the way to the hay pile, she didn’t eat right away. She looked around for a little while, showed some interest in the hay and then backed off and watched the barn for a moment again before she reached down and took a bite. Before long they were munching side by side in flow and harmony together.

Like any good horse trainer, Lily didn’t take “no” for an answer in that situation. She persisted until she got the answer of “yes”. She used advance and retreat (movement and leadership) to lower Mouse’s stress level until his likely answer was “yes”, then she took a bite of his hay.

The question simply is: Did she really need to come in so strong and fast in the beginning and make Mouse kick at her before she did it right?

How often are we all guilty of the same process where we need to push that big red button and get a big “no” answer before we slow down and develop our relationship and the things we do together in a fully functional way.

Perhaps if we put a little forethought into our actions, we might see where those big red “no” buttons are and resist pushing them to ease our own boredom or lower our own stress.

When we refuse to push the button that makes others create boundaries for us, then we truly start to take responsibility for our own stress, our own wild streak, and our own capability to make everything better for everyone.

Hooves and Heartbeats,

Elsa

TamingWild.com