The Project:
One Mustang directly off the range, One Trainer, Many Students, 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.
How Much is Too Much?
I think all the time about how training horses is less about what we do than it is about when we do it. It is less about the actions we take than it is about the emotion we feel while we take them. It is the intangible pieces that make horse training challenging to teach.
I like the tangible, I like the understandable, I like the logical, I like the teachable. I refuse to give in to the classic natural horsemanship jargon that gets thrown around of “your energy needs to be right” whatever that means. Or, “it’s all in the intention; when you have the right intention, the horse will be with you”. How am I supposed to know what the right intention is?
Those two statements, and many like them, are absolutely true; and also I believe, very challenging to learn from.
I want to create physical step by step processes that we can walk through that let us experience what it feels like, on a personal level, to have the “right energy” or know what the “right intention” might be.
I think Myrnah has had the greatest impact on my learning, helping me through processes that allowed me to feel those “right feelings”.
Horses don’t have words, horses have movements; so we need to move with them to have a conversation. They will tell us when it is right and when it is less right; what they won’t tell us is what to do until we find those perfect moments.
The project with Myrnah was about finding out some of the things I could do on the way to better partnership.
There is a book in the works that will spell it out in a more linear fashion, and an online course I will teach starting this fall where we can walk together through bonding with our horses, and another movie plan on the horizon.
For now, enjoy the blog and the pieces of inspiration these ideas might light up in you. The movie “Taming Wild” will also be for sale shortly on the website TamingWild.com.
Today I want to talk about how much is too much. We think so much about what to do, we often forget how important it is to not do anything. We are determined communicators as humans, either with others, or lost in our own thoughts with ourselves. There is an art to being with someone else in quiet. There is an art to being mindful of when to talk and when to listen, and when to simply exist.
Here is how we know what to do when, and when to be quiet.
Check in with the emotional intensity and ask yourself, is this level of feeling, useful in this situation?
Is the thing you are doing right now causing the intensity of feeling?
If it is too much, break it down so you take a little action, and then take some time to just be. Then take a little action and then take some time to just be… and so on.
Once the feeling is of an appropriate intensity for the situation then we can do the action for longer and longer periods of time. As we come into this phase of training we look for the moments when it feels better and take some time to just BE on that mark.
In partnership with a horse, BEING together is being matched in movement or energy.
Here is where I see the common mistake: We like communicating and often are challenged by the neutral BEING time with our horses, so it is tempting to ask for things all the time.
We need to realize when too much is too much.
Can we be happy being with our horses? Or are they never quite good enough?
Ask for something, and then take time to enjoy it with them.
Or, if you didn’t get what you asked for, retreat a little and ask again.
If it is clear you are not going to get what you asked for without emotional upheaval, then ask for something more reasonable so you can enjoy what you and your horse CAN do together.
Here is where I come back to my original points:
It isn’t so much what you ask for as when you ask. Did you take some time to enjoy being with your horse exactly as they are first?
There are only six directions a horse can move – forward, backward, left, right, up and down. What you ask for can be any one of the six, it doesn’t matter, however, it does matter a great deal when you ask and when you are quiet.
It is less about the actions we take than it is about the emotion at play while we take them. If emotions are running too hot in either you or your horse, it is too much too soon. Break it down. If it feels great to both of you, you can do anything.
Hooves and Heartbeats,
Elsa Sinclair
