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 Happiness of Here and Now

The Hawthorn flowers are in full luxurious bloom and I picked a branch of them to carry with me out to the horses. Something new, something different, I love the smell and I was curious what Ari and O would think.

Ari was unsure about the long, oddly wiggling branch of flowers, and preferred to keep his body at a distance at first. Occasio was sure eating them was the best solution to stop them from moving around with me.

There are a million different experiences we can have with our horses, our friends, our families. The thing that interests me most is why we choose what we choose?

I think all of us want two things. We want to feel normal, and we want to feel better.

Normal is our comfort zone where everything is safe and predictable. Everyone wants to stay in the comfort zone unless we feel stuck in “normal” for too long, and then we want something just a little interesting to break the boredom and help us feel better.

“Interesting” is the interaction between the self and the rest of the world that can never be fully predictable. Just the right amount of interesting makes life better, too much interesting and the defense systems of of fight, flight and freeze start to be activated.

This relationship between the comfort zone and interesting is why I train horses in freedom, and is why the process endlessly fascinates me.

When a horse is free of tools that restrain or motivate they give you more honest feedback of what they feel in every moment as it is happening.

When you train with pressure and release, or positive reinforcements such as food rewards, the horse starts to focus on how they will feel after the thing you are experiencing together.

I call this bridging of association, and while I use it for training in my own subtle way, it isn’t as interesting to me as the shared feeling of happiness in the here and now.

For example: if I invite a horse to step onto a wooden bridge they might do it to avoid the pressure of the lead rope or stick, they might do it because they think there will be a food reward after they do it, or they might do it because the sound of their hooves on the platform is interesting to them and brings up a feeling of curiosity.

I understand how to train a horse all three ways, and each way of training has its benefits, however, it is the third way that is the most interesting to me.

When we can do things with a horse because the thing we are doing is interesting for the horse, we are using the happiness of here and now to develop the relationship between us.

Can I use my feel and my timing of when I move that flower covered branch around Ari and Occasio? Leaving it close only as long as it is interesting, not long enough that it needs to be defended against?

If we dive deep into the art of training, do we know how to set up every experience so that moment is its own reward?

If we don’t know how to do that yet, we can always bridge associations in any number of ways. We ask the horse to try something too far outside their comfort zone and they will do it for us because we have built a consistent reward or release of pressure into the second part of the sequence.

If you do this, then you get that.

I do use this in my training, but it is not my ultimate goal. It is my fallback plan.

When I stroke Ari’s shoulder with the branch of flowers, I see I have overstepped the mark. It is too strange, too far out of his comfort zone and I see the freeze starting to build in his body. Ari is comfortable enough in this freeze I can wait for the slightest ear flick (thinking) and then I release the pressure he feels by moving the branch to his nose where he can smell the flowers.

Smelling the flowers is easier for Ari than being touched by the flowers, but it is still only in the tolerance phase of learning (he can only do it for a limited time.) So before it is too much for him, I pull the branch farther away to a distance that is more comfortable for him.

We bridge one thing to an easier thing, and then to an easier thing again. This bridging of association helps Ari broaden his comfort zone and learn to do a bigger variety of interesting things in his life.

The goal though, is to do this in such a way that we don’t need to build bridges as often.

The goal is to pet Ari with the flowers and watch him feel the moment and feel the emotional progression without the need for self-defense.

In an ideal world, as the flowers stroke Ari’s fur, I can see the stress signals move his ears between freeze and thinking as he experiences tolerance. Then he becomes more comfortable and accepting of the experience with the flowers and starts to shift his focus to the world around him and back to the flowers and then out to the world again. Then finally as it moves into enjoyment for Ari, I see the breaths become deeper and more regular, there is perhaps a snort or a lick and a chew, and that is where I take the flowers away to a new place or a new distance, where we might find our way to enjoyment yet again.

With good feel and timing, everything we do, in every place we do it, has the potential to become its own source of enjoyment.

If that doesn’t seem likely because the horse’s defenses are showing up in fight, flight, or freeze, then we learn to use advance and retreat and the bridging of associations to find happiness together.

I am glad I know about pressure and release training, and positive reinforcement training because they are good ways to build bridges of associations when training horses.

Most interesting for me though is the research I do in learning more every day about feel and timing and what it might take to do more of our training using the power of happiness in the here and now.

Ari will tell you I have a lot to learn still, and I am going to need my bridges of association for a long time to come even if I choose to use the subtlest forms possible.

The long game is to develop feel and timing to a point where the bridges are no longer necessary, and each moment becomes its own reward, building relationship between horse and human.

I guess you might say, I am both a dreamer and a researcher.

If you are curious to see my ongoing development of both dreams and understanding, join us on Patreon.com where I post weekly update videos.

https://www.patreon.com/tamingwild

Hooves and Heartbeats,

Elsa

TamingWild.com

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.

If Only I Were More Perfect…

Over the last few weeks… No, correct that, over that last few months, Atlas has pushed me again and again to reframe what success is for us.

I know that the path to success isn’t linear, and there is often a jumbled or confusing path of progress on the way to “success”, whatever that means to the individuals experiencing it. Atlas seems to be walking me through this confusing maze of double back, turn the corner, head right, think you are headed toward success… only to find yourself turned around again not sure where you are headed at all.

It would be easy to blame Atlas’ past trauma for our difficulty in progressing forward in this relationship, but more often I find myself blaming my lack of perfection in personal choices.

If only I had not scratched my nose in that moment… then he would still trust me instead of going galloping away again. If only I had moved more slowly to avoid triggering the anger, pinned ears, and threatening gestures from him. If only I had finished my session before the wind picked up, if only I had remembered to put both coats on before we started so I wasn’t shivering, causing him to doubt my confidence, if only I had better rhythmic breathing that would continually prove to Atlas I could be counted on… if only, if only, if only.

Whatever Atlas’ past trauma was, it has left a residue of perpetual tension in him that is unlike anything I have ever experienced in any relationship with horses before this. No matter how hard I try, I never seem to be perfect enough for him. No matter how hard I focus, and study, and plan, and breathe, I still consistently fall short.

Often, we get a few days of brilliant progress where his trust starts to blossom, where everything falls into place. Then something as simple as the wind picking up spins us around in a dizzying, frustrating, jumble of events leaving us far apart from each other yet again.

I blame my greed for wanting too much too soon when Atlas cannot meet me in that kind of trust yet. I blame my worry when I look at his hooves needing a trim and I can’t in good conscience continue to practice partnership at a distance. I blame the horrible people who broke Atlas’ faith in humanity to begin with. I blame anything I can think of, to lessen the guilt I feel for not being perfect enough today, to be trusted by Atlas.

Blame won’t solve it though; only consistent effort to build again will get us where we want to go. No matter how many times we get torn down or turned around, we simply must build again and learn to do it a little better every time.

In the beginning of the project, my plan with Atlas was to make personal choices around him with good feel and timing so he experienced good feelings in association with me. This passive leadership style would ostensibly lower his stress levels so we could build a relationship of consistent trust and good feelings.

When I came to understand that was not working for Atlas as readily as I had anticipated, I bowed to reality and added movement to our program. You can read about those realizations in the blog post “Walking A Horse Down”.

https://equineclarity.org/2019/03/03/walking-a-horse-down/

Movement and leadership lower stress, so if I reach the conclusion that my passive leadership choices are not consistent enough; we must use movement to help him feel better in my company.

In order to get that movement I used dominant leadership (the willingness to make him uncomfortable on the way to getting comfortable doing what I ask). However there is a problem for me, and that is: I don’t like being dominant. Because I don’t like being dominant, I keep trying to slide back into being an assertive leader instead.

Assertive leadership is where we ask nicely and the horse agrees nicely, no discomfort necessary… but you cannot just be an assertive leader, you have to earn the right to be an assertive leader with the quality and quantity of your passive and/or dominant leadership history.

When you try to be assertive without enough good history of passive or dominant leadership to back it up, you just become irritating. The more you irritate the horse, the higher you raise their stress in association with you and the worse the relationship gets.

When I realized my walking with Atlas was starting to irritate him more every day instead of lowering his stress as I had intended, I had to change my plan yet again.

More dominant, less assertive: I had not earned my assertive leadership yet when it came to causing movement.

A passive leader makes more personal decisions than their partner (moves their own feet more).

An assertive leader makes decisions for their partner (causes their partner’s feet to move) while moving together in harmony.

A dominant leader makes decisions for their partner (causes their partner’s feet to move) while moving less than their partner.

In order to stop being irritating to Atlas I needed to be willing to make him uncomfortable to cause movement, but then I needed to be still while he carried out that stress reducing action.

I brought a chair into the round pen, I used my rope to cause him to move off at a walk, and then I sat down. When Atlas would stop I would stand up from my chair and use my rope again, sitting down as soon as he was walking again. If he was angry or irritated I would toss my rope in his direction to cause him to trot or canter for half a lap, then step in front of his drive line to bring him back to walk before sitting down in my chair again.

Within a very short time all of Atlas’s irritation disappeared, and his walk became consistent and rhythmic around me. It seemed Atlas was willing to do almost anything to keep me sitting down in my chair.

When it felt like Atlas had lowered his stress enough through the rhythm of his walking, I would stand up and walk to the opposite side of the arena, which would cause him to stop and look at me. Then I would play with my passive leadership, moving my body around him with feel and timing. Different from what I had done before, I did not try too hard to be perfect; I just did a casual job of being normal in my efforts.

Because movement and the dominance to start the movement had become part of the plan, I welcomed Atlas becoming irritated with where I chose to stand, or fearful with how I chose to move. Either of those responses from him would be my signal to send him walking again and go back to sitting in my chair. If my efforts at passive leadership were not good enough to lower his stress, then we would simply switch tactics and use dominant leadership instead.

Atlas is a horse that will spend five hours at a stretch standing at one feeding station without moving. Atlas is a horse that does not let other horses move him, and he is not inclined to move himself. Atlas’s trauma leads him to be distrustful of any social engagement and the choices that anyone (horse or human) might make for him or around him with any degree of closeness.

I have realized it is important for me to reframe my idea of success with Atlas. Our relationship is no longer about discovering how much trust can be built working from passive leadership gently into assertive leadership as the original goal of this project was. Our relationship is simpler now and my job is to use any tools I need to consistently help Atlas lower his stress enough, to choose social engagement.

All night, every night, Atlas has unlimited hay and the companionship of his best friend Zohari who is an uncomplicated friend. Zohari is happy to be a companion at distances that don’t irritate Atlas, and he seems content to be there for Atlas without needing anything from Atlas.

During the day Atlas goes in the round pen and I do four to six sessions a day with him. I start with passive leadership and if my choices around him are not good enough to inspire trust as I get closer, I then ask him to move and I go sit in my chair to wait until he feels better, then we repeat our passive and supportive leadership practices. When I feel we have reached the best moment of trust possible for that session (Atlas is showing signs of relaxation while I am closer to him) we end and I go get him some hay or grass to eat.

The rhythmic movement helps Atlas process any residual stress he is feeling and let it go. The dominant leadership of me causing him to move while moving very little myself, and then the passive and supportive leadership of my moving around him with good feel and timing also help lower his stress when I do it well. The new food delivered at the end of the session and at the peak moment of trust in that session helps bring good association with what just happened and helps motivate him to reach for that feeling of trust again next time he is in company.

We repeat this four to six times a day with variations to keep it interesting. Some sessions we do with just Atlas and I, some sessions Zohari joins us for the walking and the interacting, some sessions Occasio joins us instead of Zohari. Some sessions the horses choose to walk a bigger circle and step over the small logs I have placed around the round pen, some sessions the horses choose to walk a closer circle next to my chair and the feed bins they know I will fill at the end. Some sessions I stand in the middle still and breathing, or I sit in my chair, play music, read a book, and in some sessions I even chat with friends on my phone as the horses walk around me. Sometimes I walk to the other side of the round pen and then back to Atlas to initiate interactions, other times Atlas gets brave enough to walk right in and join me where I sit in my chair.

One of the brilliant side effects of this plan is the sand of the round pen we walk in is helping Atlas self trim those hooves I can’t touch or trim yet. The more he walks, the healthier he becomes, and the healthier he becomes the better relationship we are able to build.

This is a routine that seems to be working for Atlas and he is starting to choose interaction instead of isolation more consistently.

I get to be human and less than perfect when I practice my passive and supportive leadership. On the days and in the moments I get it just right, we are back on track with the original intent of the project. In the moments I am just not perfect enough in my personal choices around Atlas to help him, we use the tools of round pen, rope, and food rewards to set him up for success in the relationship and life together.

Atlas gets to feel better in my company four to six times a day, in whatever way that is possible for him.

I get to sit back and wait for him to process whatever residual stress he has that keeps us apart and unable to relate. Atlas’ stress isn’t my fault when I am not perfect enough. I can give it my best shot to be perfect enough for him, but when I am not, I now have solid alternate plans to help him.

I have reframed what I consider success for Atlas. It isn’t about how much we can do together anymore, success for Atlas and I is now about how much he voluntarily engages in the social interactions of life, with me and with the other horses.

When Atlas can play successfully with Occasio and there is no fight I have to break up between them, it is a win. When he volunteers to smell up and down my arm investigating and discovering human smell it is a win. When he messes up my hair and knocks the sunglasses on my head gently askew it is a win. When he reaches out repeatedly to touch his nose against mine it is a win.

I think I am learning more every day how to set Atlas up for those wins, but I promise I will keep studying and sharing what I find as the horses continually set me up for more twists and turns of progress on the way to whatever success is for us tomorrow.

If you are curious to see in action any of what I have described in this blog, join the group on Patreon.com where I post weekly video content about it all.

https://www.patreon.com/tamingwild

Hooves and Heartbeats,

Elsa

TamingWild.com

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.

To Ride Or Not To Ride

In the world of humans and horses there is all sorts of debate about the morality of riding horses and it is something I spend a great deal of time thinking about.

Ari and I are getting close to a time where riding may be one of the things we can enjoy together and I find myself hesitating. The question is: Why am I hesitating?

Is it due to the morality of the subject? Were horses meant to carry weight on their backs? Do we as humans have any right to ask them to do so?

These are questions worth asking, but no matter how many angles I look at it from, the answer must be that it depends on the situation.

I firmly believe horses want some balance of easy harmony with friends contrasted by diversion and entertainment. The variety they experience of both harmony and entertainment determines the richness of their life experience.

In an ideal world all harmony and all entertainment would be healthy for a horse, but in the real world healthy is a matter of perspective.

If you really enjoy something you might choose to do more than is absolutely healthy in a physical sense, but the emotional component of enjoyment holds its own value.

For a horse, the factors of physical health and emotional health all weigh in as reasons to do anything. How much time is spent eating, how much time is spent playing, how much time is spent walking, how much time is spent running, how much time is spent doing what the horse wants personally, how much time is spent doing what a friend wants the horse to do? For any horse, there is a balance in all this that works for them and brings a quality of life.

I believe being ridden by a human can add to the quality of life a horse has as it adds both experiences of harmony with a partner, and diversion and entertainment in the variations of experiences that can be shared.

Many people would ask me, what about the damage that can be done to a horse’s back by carrying weight? My reply is: The factor of weight and physical damage is one of many factors that is considered, but I do not think the fear of damage is something that should rule every decision we make.

Quality of life considers potential damage but is not ruled by an absolute avoidance of it.

Horses eating grass is my favorite example of this. My mares are far too fat, and they are very happy. I believe they would be physically healthier if I put muzzles on them or locked them up so they couldn’t eat so much grass or forced them to exercise so they were slimmer and more athletic. However, I am not sure they would be happier. Given the balance of choices, they prefer to be as they are.

I believe it is not so much about questioning if riding is healthy, it is questioning if riding adds quality to the life my horse and I share?

My warmblood Zohari is in his early twenties and had a bit of a health issue this spring when he got bitten by a spider and stopped eating for a while. He lost a great deal of muscle across his topline and we have been slowly working on feeding him back up to full health. Recently I have started riding him again, for five or ten minutes a day.

I must weigh the pros and cons of the enjoyment we both get from this activity together, against Zohari’s less than perfect back health. There is no absolute answer of right or wrong when you take enjoyment of the moment into account. There is only what feels right and a million factors that weigh into that feeling.

For me, the choice to ride without tack helps me feel the horse’s engagement in the activity with me. It helps me make the choice to ride or not to ride. It brings a richer, more connected experience for me and the horse together.

I do believe in tack and all the reasons for it. Saddles make carrying weight more comfortable for a horse, halters and bridles bring safety in situations where you must change a horse’s focus more quickly than the horse might choose. Everything has its time, its place and its reason.

I would simply hope that quality of life for both horse and human become the driving force for any choices we make.

With Ari, I believe learning to carry weight on his back will allow him and I an interesting diversity of experience together.

Ari was an eight-year-old stallion living wild with a herd and thousands of acres to explore before he came to live with me. While I think he is grateful he isn’t starving anymore, has water easily available every day, and he enjoys his life here, it is not a very diverse experience. The things we can do together are limited by safe enclosure of the paddock fences.

Riding will open a new range of variations of experiences to share together.

Why do I still hesitate?

Two reasons:

The first is my interest in Freedom Based Training® and taking the time it takes to build enjoyment in everything we do together one tiny step at a time without any tools or incentives beyond our simple shared harmony. Every tiny step of diversity we learn to enjoy together brings richness to our shared lives. On the way to developing riding together, there is a vast and valuable range of experiences that do not need to be rushed, they want to be savored.

The second reason is more personal and harder for me to share. Fifteen years ago, I rode with skill and ease that I no longer have. I remember what it was like to handle any challenge on horseback with total confidence that I could be in the right place at the right time with the right balance to allow the horse to carry me forward with ease. My life was filled with galloping and jumping and technical trails. While doing all these things I lived for analyzing and improving on the perfect alignment of the human body in dynamic harmony with the horse’s body at every turn.

Life happens and I got sick. I ended up with bouts of vertigo that come and go with random unpredictability. The powerless feeling that comes when you cannot crawl from one side of a room to another without falling on your side repeatedly is one I would not wish on anyone.

Fifteen years later I am better, I no longer have vertigo bouts of that severity and I know how to take better care of myself than I did then. However, I am not the same as I was, and my balance is a shadow of what it once was.

Now when I sit on a horse, I thank that horse for their patience and their kindness to me. When my head spins for a moment unexpectedly I will need to grab hold with my knees, contracting with an uncomfortable tension as I fight to stay vertical and find my center again. I will find center again; I will relax and release with the horse in flow and harmony and there will be many beautiful moments we share.

I still believe those beautiful moments riding are worth the times I have to work through the difficult moments. The horses that know me well are comfortable taking a deep breath and stabilizing for me when I need it.

Ari has never carried a rider, and so I hesitate as I ask myself: Can I ride well enough, with enough balance and harmony to make this new experience good for both of us?

In all honesty, I don’t know, just as none of us can ever know the future.

I do believe I can do well enough for Ari as a rider, so long as I take it a moment at a time, a step at a time, and build one experience of enjoyment after the next with Ari. If we do this right, we will have as much patience as we need for each other when balance needs to be found again.

For now, until the time feels right for Ari and me to ride together, I will invest my time riding the horses that know me well. Honing my skills, rebuilding my riding muscles, and remembering how much fun can be had between horse and human in the whole range of activities riding includes.

For all of you who consider that question, to ride or not to ride. I would tell you, follow your heart, weigh each situation individually, and above all else, read the horse not the rule book.

There is no absolute right and wrong, there are instead a million variations in the ways we can improve the quality of life for everyone.

Consider them all and forge ahead into all the enjoyment possible for you and your horse.

Hooves and Heartbeats,

Elsa

TamingWild.com

If you would like to see a video about my perspective on riding, join us on https://www.patreon.com/tamingwild where I post weekly update videos on everything Taming Wild.