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Breakthrough!

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.

 

Breakthrough!

 

Progress with Myrnah is a meandering path of smelling the roses. We have plenty of goals we would like to reach; however, the journey is entirely more important than any destination. As you all know, I sat on Myrnah a couple of times back in October while she was eating hay, and she was completely at ease about it. Then abruptly she decided she didn’t like weight on her back, and we embarked on what seemed like an endless discussion developing her tolerance of my getting on and off. Our training in that area largely seemed to plateau, and every time I broke the process down, it seemed I needed to break it down some more, take it slower, wait with more quiet understanding, and enjoy the moments with her regardless. I am pleased to say yesterday we had a breakthrough!

 

Every day Myrnah and I practice moving together: walking trotting, turning, and generally traveling through space side by side with as much grace as we can muster. The fun part is, she continually asks me if we can stop at the mounting block and play that game instead. Even though she can’t tolerate my sitting on her back for more than a moment, she seems to trust me to respect her apprehensions and is drawn to the process of learning about weight on her back as much as I am. For months now all she could tolerate was a moment of my sitting on her. I would slide on, feel every muscle tense up for a reactive explosion, and I would slide off. If I wasn’t quick enough, I would be sliding off as she scooted forward or backward. Myrnah’s tension was instantly high enough in response to weight on her back there wasn’t any chance of asking her to bend her neck around to look at me, or really to ask anything at all of her. All we could do was quietly and patiently play advance and retreat, allowing her to realize the weight was only temporary.

This week on Tuesday and Wednesday came the breakthrough in riding. Myrnah and I had begun pushing the envelope a little in terms of trotting together side by side: another exercise which she was brilliantly relaxed about back in October, yet became averse to shortly thereafter. So each day we patiently played advance and retreat with the movements, enjoying the time together regardless of the apparent progress.

 

On Tuesday when we began to advance to trot more frequently (yet briefly) Myrnah became more and more insistent that the game at the mounting block was the one she would rather play. Once there I would take my time to settle with her and then slide on where, to my surprise, on this day, her tension would come up only slowly giving me a few more seconds to sit there each time before I slid back to the ground. It may not seem like much to the outside observer, but after months of approach and retreat the change felt dramatic and exciting to me.

 

Wednesday we played more of the same and were even able to start asking for a bend around, Myrnah’s nose coming over to investigate my hand or my foot any time I asked. And then we began to move together. The first few times it was a pure offer from Myrnah: a few hesitant steps forward followed by her reaching around to touch me as if to ask if we were still all right. Pretty soon I was able to ask for those few steps, my leg just behind her elbow asking her to move, just like we have been practicing using hand pressure when we walk side by side. We traveled no more than perhaps six steps each time I sat on her, and sometimes we just stood and didn’t travel at all. The breakthrough in interest between Myrnah and me about riding together felt amazing.

It really has been interesting to train Myrnah without any recourse of action when she says no. When I have tools I have all sorts of games of distraction I can play to get around a no. With Myrnah, all we can do is sit with it, play with it, let it be, and let her say no as many times as she needs to before she decides she is ready to say yes.

 

I honestly don’t know if this is the best way to train a horse. I don’t know if Myrnah is any happier or better off than any of the other horses I train using more tools of force. I do know, however, this process is teaching me more about horses every day than I ever imagined it would. Myrnah I feel is teaching me every bit as much I am teaching her, and the high of the breakthrough this week, simple as it was, means more to me than most of what I have accomplished with my other horses over the years.

 

I don’t know how it is that one simple little change can feel so monumental. This breakthrough is worth every moment I have spent patiently approaching and retreating for months. It feels like there are no words to convey the brilliance of this moment for Myrnah and I, but trust me, it’s all worth it.

 

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

Quality of Life

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.

Quality of Life

 

Life with horses for me is all about enjoyment. I am not going to the Olympics, nor am I facing life-or-death situations. I ride simply because I love each moment of the experience. Quality of life is what it is all about for me.

Myrnah, I am finding, also has a great deal to say about her quality of life. What she likes and what she dislikes she seemingly tells me without hesitation. Given her freedom to walk away from me any time she may choose, I have no choice but to listen and make sure she enjoys working with me as much as I enjoy working with her. Quality of life must remain high for both of us in order for this relationship to continue functioning. I like that.

This last weekend I attended a workshop all about liberty work with horses. It was taught by a woman who believes in letting go of the stick and ropes and simply using body language to communicate with the horse. I was excited to learn from someone who seemed to have similar ideas to my current mustang project, and though I brought a horse more traditionally trained, I hoped she would be able to shed new light and inspiration onto the work Myrnah and I do together.

Much to my disappointment, over this weekend the walls of the round pen became the tools with which to dominate. The teachings all rested on the concept of being able to push the horse away (using only body language) and ask it to keep running until it was called back to you. While I attempted to remain humble and open minded to ideas different from my own, in the end I feel I utterly failed in this situation.

I walked through the steps of the liberty process to the best of my ability, I let the teacher work me like a marionette: Go, stop, click, pressure, stop, get behind the horse, find the diagonal line, don’t block with your shoulder. I tried to make it work for me because learning comes when you step outside what you think you already know. With every step I watched the outcomes and felt for the connection between my horse and me. I tried to ignore the sinking feelings as I felt my quality of life degrade; I tried to trust the teacher and put aside my judgments; I tried to give her the chance to show me the light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to learn something new and beautiful that might in the long run raise my quality of life with horses and their quality of life with me.

The two-year-old Gypsin Gelding who had accompanied me to the clinic had stepped out of the trailer with a feel of joy and connection, and perhaps a little apprehension about the new spaces, however by our third session in the round pen, it broke my heart to feel I was no longer sure if he would come to me at all when I called. After being pushed against the rails of the round pen repeatedly and constantly- told he had not yet gone forward fast enough, or clean enough or long enough, our partnership felt disconnected, unfocused, and frustrated.

The very best feeling I got with my horse all weekend was ironically the part where I did everything wrong. Halfway through a very frustrating second session when I went to put pressure on him, instead of running off like he was supposed to he turned to face me and reared up. I chose that moment to trip over my own toes, fell headlong underneath him, and had to tuck and roll in order to narrowly miss his substantial hooves as they headed back to earth. He was surprised and startled and did his best to avoid me as I avoided him. I rolled to my feet and asked him to move off again, and he did so with the beautiful connected brilliance that is common for us when we play at home. I wanted to cry with relief as he pranced around me, and in those next few moments I wish I had called him in to reward and nurture that bond our moment of excitement had given us. Instead we continued the prescribed program, and the momentary brilliance was once again replaced with dull resistance from both of us as we tried to get the actions correct and follow instructions.

Now I have no doubt of the brilliant artistry of the teacher, and I have no doubt she can train liberty horses better than almost anyone. She may even have a joy and a lightness to her training that I was unable to find following her teaching. What I do know is: if I had to follow the courses of action I learned this weekend to train my horses, I would give it all up. I would sell my horses and do something different with my life. My present quality of life is too dear to me to trade for some eventual future outcome.

I ride and train horses because it brings joy to my life every day. I choose to ride and train in ways that feel good to both my horse and me more of the moments we share than not. I choose to train in a way that increases our quality of life perpetually.

There will be ups and downs, moments that feel better or worse as we push out into new territory to grow and develop. Overall, though, quality of life must remain high because that is why I ride and train. It isn’t about some future result; it is about the past and the present and the future all intertwined in what is my life, shared with those I love.

I aim to value the past, the present, and the future equally because all play a part in creating the life I want to live. If I can keep the quality of life high in the present, soon enough it will become the past, and the future will always be something pulling us forward into becoming the best of ourselves.

Thank-you, Myrnah, for reminding me every day that the quality of life right here in the present is just as important as anything we might be striving for in the future.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

“The Great Affair is to Move”

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.

 

“The Great Affair is to Move”

Robert Louis Stevenson said, “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move”

This week for Myrnah and me has been about just that. The love affair between us is what makes it possible for us to work and grow and learn together without any bonds of force. The ever analytical part of me wants to know how and why that works. Everyone else I know needs a halter and a rope and a round pen to build that bond between horse and rider… why is it that Myrnah and I get to skip those forceful steps and jump right into the voluntary love affair?

I believe the answer lies in movement and how we choose to use it. Our movement through space is the greatest love affair there is. If you have ever watched a talented dancer entrance a crowd with the twitch of a finger, or a brilliant comedian cause the audience to burst into uproarious laughter with the well-timed raise of an eyebrow… you know what I mean.

Everything means something, nothing means nothing… learning to place value in every movement, and reverence in traveling through space is an art and the best part about art is you can’t do it wrong. The trick is to enjoy it completely as you figure out the cause and affect your movement creates and learn from the ripples of change around you.

Because I have no tools to hold Myrnah close to me, my job from day one was to make movements that would cause curiosity, interest, joy, peace, and connection between us. I courted her with movement and strove to build a love between us.

Movement is what bonds Myrnah and I together. The more we move together, the stronger our connection. And so the quote seems quite fitting. “The great affair is to move”

I read a quote from a Natural Horsemanship trainer today that made me sad for a moment. “Remember the rules of Horsemanship: Whoever moves first, loses.” Perhaps it is true, but I wish to challenge the customary understanding of this statement. Is this relationship with my horse one where I want her to lose? I don’t know about you, but my answer is a definite no. I want my horse to feel like she has won every moment of every day with me. I want my horse to feel like she is in the best love affair ever and has won the lottery to be my partner. To achieve this I will, in the beginning, voluntarily assume the so-called losing position. I will move through space using advance and retreat and timing a balance of action and inaction to woo my horse into becoming my partner. Once those beginning phases of the relationship are formed then the real fun begins. Moving together is when the whole of our partnership starts becoming so much more than the sum of it’s parts. There is an energy and a lightness of being that can’t be bought or sold, it can only be earned through the devotion of movement.

During the snow this last week, Myrnah and I climbed a hill together with my daughter who took pictures for all to see. The next day we walked out through the woods in a different direction for almost two hours with my brother who videoed the journey for us. I question… would I be able to walk through the woods for two hours with any of my other horses? I have good liberty skills with many of them, but two hours out in the woods is a long time to stay connected and focused. No carrots, or sticks, or ropes. I don’t actually know the answer to that question, yet with Myrnah there was very little doubt.  

I attribute that confidence and that bond between Myrnah and me to our practice of movement together. The hours we have spent traveling in silence side by side, matched step for step, is the glue that binds us together. It isn’t my ability to make her turn, or stop, or go, it isn’t the things I have taught her, or the things she has taught me, it is simply the in between times. It is the times when we move through space with no change or directing necessary. Our ability to communicate left, right, stop or go is vital to our comfort with each other, however it’s our ability to simply move, in quiet harmony without communication, that connects us together like nothing else can.

Placing value in movement together is what allows this experimental training process to succeed.

So what of the riding part of the equation? Myrnah and I are in the courting stage of our relationship when it comes to riding. I do the movement, and she still is deciding if she wants to partner with me. Advance and retreat, a timed balance of action and inaction- the game is marvelous fun for me; and, while Myrnah still seems a little puzzled and unsure about it, I have no doubt that one of these days she will fall in love with the idea of carrying me higher and faster than my own feet can carry me. Our traveling through space together continually evolves and is an endless love affair of movement.

So I put this out to all of you. Value your movements, and observe the ripples they create through time and space around you. If you are looking for a partner and you want that brilliant feeling of connection, find a way to move together, step for step, breath for breath- more time spent existing in movement, less time talking, debating, and communicating about exactly what or how or when. Take the time to just be- in movement together.

Communication brings comfort and trust to the relationship- that is a necessary piece; however the inexplicably beautiful bond and connection between you comes from the time spent when communication isn’t necessary, moving in harmony together. It’s that simple.

“The great affair is to move.” Life is your canvas and movement your paint brush. Paint a landscape your horse can’t resist and revel in the great affair.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

Myrnah’s snowy mountain hike

Myrnah thinks that looks like a very big hill to climb…

“Are we really walking up that?”

Almost half way up…

Pine branches are yummy!

Snow is yummy too!

We reached the top!

Cold and windy at the summit.

Headed back down.

Have to stop to make a snow angel, Myrnah’s not so sure about this game.

Stopping for a snow snack.

Elsa likes the snow, Myrnah likes some branches in her snow…

Down the hill through the dark woods…

Almost home.

Not so sure about the snow monster guarding the driveway… luckily monster turns out to be friendly.

Thank-you Cameron for building a fabulous snow monster, and for talking these amazing pictures!

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

Five things I can count on

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.

Five things I can count on

It snowed this week, beautiful white mounds of fluffy snow adorning every surface around my house- the landscape brilliantly beautiful, and yet for me, not as much fun as one might think. Unfortunately emotions and logic don’t always dance in the sane and controllable fashion we would like them to. I can logically appreciate the beauty, yet at the same time find my emotions beating me to a pulp underneath all that beautiful sane logic. Snow and cold send me into panic attacks of vertigo and nausea, blinding anxiety, and difficulty breathing. I am however far too stubborn to let that stop me, so for the most part everything proceeds normally. I have found there are five things I can count on to help. No matter how good, or how bad I feel, these five things will always improve the situation.

Thank-you Sally Swift for creating the five basics of Centered Riding. Thank-you Stephanie Mosely for introducing me to the existence of Centered Riding; and thank-you to all the brilliant Centered Riding instructors who have helped me understand those five basics in deeper and more profound ways.

I have been exposed to, and devoted to many different models of horse training. Each model and idea has created a facet of who I am and how I train today. I would have to say though, Centered Riding remains at the core of everything I do. The principles reach far beyond riding a horse. They apply to every action in life, and within these five simple ideas lies a power to improve any moment.

  1. Grounding – The feeling of having your feet rooted down through the Earth. Sally Swift added this to her original four basics when she wrote her second book. No matter which training idea I am currently working with, taking a moment to wiggle my toes in my boots and feel my feet become grounded always lends a solid and reliable feel to whatever I am doing.
  2. Centering – The feeling of your weight down low in the core of your body, the idea of chi or qi that martial arts talks of, all action originating from the center of your body. This idea always gives me a sense of connection with my horse and that legendary “feel” between horse and rider that instructors are always saying is so essential and so hard to teach.
  3. Breathing – Deeply, using the diaphragm and letting the air fill every part of your body like a professional singer would. This is perhaps the most challenging for me, yet I know how important it is. Horses are herd creatures and are constantly assessing the well-being of those around them. My ability to breath allows me to work at my best and signals my horse that I am feeling ok- there is nothing to worry about in our herd. Constantly I remind myself and my students, when your horse does something you like, just take one deep breath before you do anything else. That deep breath and the resulting positive feeling it brings to you and your horse is the simplest and best reward you can give.
  4. Soft eyes – Using a soft balance of focus and peripheral vision. In an ideal scenario we are using our muscles in a state of release contracting muscles or extender muscles used to the degree we need them. When we use both the contractors and the extenders at the same time an unnecessary tension and stress is present. We tend to create a great deal of stress in the small muscles around our eyes… the relaxation of those muscles allows us to use our peripheral vision as well as our focus.
  5. Building Blocks – The feeling of each part of the skeleton stacked in balance on top of the piece below- using only the essential muscular effort needed to stand, sit or move, nothing extra.

All these five principles can be evolved and developed, pondered and meditated on, however they work best for me in their simplicity. They are just five words to remember, each with a profound impact on positivity in any given moment.

Grounding

Centering

Breathing

Soft Eyes

Building Blocks

So when Myrnah and I are walking through the woods in the snow, my mind tells me this should be a marvelous novelty of fun, while unfortunately, my emotions batter my skull, blur my vision, lay lead weight on my lungs and make me want to cry or throw up. I reach for those five words, because I know they are five things I can count on no matter what to make everything better.

Grounding, I can feel my toes wiggle in my socks, I can feel the snow crunch underfoot, I can feel my weight roll from heel to toe, step by step in harmony with Myrnah. I can imagine that she feels grounded too as we walk together. Centering- Every movement of mine originating from the core of my body, every movement of Myrnah’s felt and followed from my core. Breathing- It’s not easy for me out in the cold and the snow, but if I think about it I can feel Myrnah breath, and I can match her rhythm, let her breath through me, an underlying rhythm to every movement we make together. Soft eyes can feel impossible when for me the world is spinning and everything looks blurry from vertigo, so this is where having practiced on a good day is invaluable. I remember what it feels like to release the muscles around my eyes, I remember what it feels like inside my eyes when I soften them and allow all my peripheral vision to become part of what I see. As I do these things it helps the world become still and more clear. It helps the stress dissolve and the beauty of the day become apparent again. Building Blocks- a nod of the head up yes and then no, smaller and smaller until the center resting point is found, a shrug and circle of the shoulders around until they too find the central balance, the ribs, the hips the knees and the ankles, all have their central resting point, in fluid balance with all the other parts.

Each one of these five ideas has benefit without need for perfection. Simply walking through them with whatever awareness I have on any give day has a power I would not want to live without.

We all have our highs and our lows, as do our horses. We hope that when one of us is low, the other in the partnership can step in and support, building the bond of connection stronger and deeper.

It often feels perhaps I should not train when I am low or stressed. I become afraid of spreading the horror of what I feel like a menacing rain cloud darkening everyone’s day. If I can allow myself simply to be as imperfect as I am and just show up anyway, I find very often my horses seem to enjoy stepping up to the plate to take care of me for a change. We can walk through the simplest of our movements together, my job being to remember my five basics and attend to them with whatever skill I have that day. I can let my horse take care of the rest of the details.

The five things I can count on will always be there for me. High or low, rain, snow, sun or wind. Life isn’t always easy, but with a partner like Myrnah traveling alongside me, it is pretty wonderful regardless.

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

The Space Between

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.

The Space Between

Some call it perspective. For some it is the zen state of mind, for some it is the oneness with everything, for some it is non-dualism. Some find it though yoga, some find it through meditation, some find it through art, some study with masters and some stumble upon it by accident. For me, horses bring me to the space between….

Somewhere between disinterest and overwhelming emotion there is a space where life is at its best. We may think we live for emotion, that it is what brings intensity and vibrancy to life… I would argue that perhaps we can only enjoy the intensity of emotions when we have the presence of mind to be confidently one with that feeling, once it becomes too much for us we would rather run away. The space between is this side of overwhelmed and the other side of disinterested.

With horses, far too often they can go from uninvolved to scared or angry in the blink of an eye. The space between feels narrow and unforgiving. Training can feel like walking a tight rope, rapids below, wind buffeting from the sides. If we get it right, the feeling of relationship is exhilarating; if we loose our balance, we feel cold and alone wondering where it went wrong.

My goal with horses is to build that tight rope into a bridge by broadening our focus, our attention, our fascination, and our enjoyment of life.

How we do that links back to one of my first blogs about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s chart and the state of flow.

The sense of play that I was pondering last week also comes into account, as well as the balance between drive and draw.

What if the relationship we had with our horse was always this side of overwhelmed and the other side of disinterested? What if, no matter how quiet and repetitive the practice, we always felt fascinated and interested? What if, no matter how high the intensity of emotion and pressure, we felt we had the space and the perspective to enjoy it?

The emotion feeding us with energy, a sense of space allowing us confidence that no intensity was too high to handle.

Like anything, this usually needs to be built and developed one gradual step at a time.

Myrnah and I began with drive and draw. A direct gaze felt like drive to her; to look away and take in the environment felt like draw to her. My job was to play at this drive and draw over and over until she was fascinated by her part in the game, letting her figure out that focus and attention to me would cause me to take action that felt like draw to her. That draw would cause her to feel curiosity and connection with me.

When she was disinterested, it would cause me to take action that felt like drive. Here is where the tight rope analogy comes in. Drive too hard and what was once a game now feels overwhelming and frightening to her. Drive has to stay in balance with draw in order for that space between to grow in strength, breadth, and depth.

Should I draw away too much with no drive to balance it, disinterest sets in. I am of no interest or use to the horse if I am out of balance.

In the beginning it is a delicate balance- a constant back and forth game of drive and draw stimulating interest, keeping the emotions in check, and, step by step, building the tolerance for both intensity and quiet- developing the sense of self that allows intensity to be fulfilling without fear and quiet to be nurturing without boredom.

At times the horse can feel like a child with a bad case of Attention Deficit Disorder. All we can do is love them for who they are in that moment and let the play and the games build them into the focused individual we know they can be.

People often attribute to me more patience than I actually have. Patience would imply I am weathering boredom with good humor as we train. In fact I find, when the progress of building focus is slow with a horse, I can feel a sense of exhilaration as I play along the tight rope of keeping the horse in that narrow gap between boredom and the desire to escape. This is my art.

When you have had the pleasure of partnering with a horse who always seems fascinated by working with you, and never seems phased by the challenges the two of you face, you will never be able to get enough of a relationship like that. It is intoxicating and feeds your soul like nothing else can.

Emotions like anger and fear become entertaining, adding depth and richness to experience. Every emotion is one that adds to the beauty of life, and every challenge is one that builds your connection to the world, to yourself, and each other.

This project with Myrnah is enriching and developing my professional understanding with unprecedented speed and clarity. When I hit a stumbling block with one of my other horses, I ask myself: What would I do if this were Myrnah? What would I do if I had no tools to cause an action? Again and again it comes back to building the focus, and the attention, and the connection- building the space between.

May we all have the space to enjoy life to it’s fullest.

Merry Christmas to all,

Elsa Sinclair

EquineClarity.com

(An immense thank you to John Sinclair for the amazing photographs today, best Christmas present ever!)