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.
Thank you all for your support on the 
Documentary. Take a look at the trailer here, and please donate to the completion of the project.
Focus, Persistence, and Confidence
I saw a beautiful quote this week from John Lyons.
“There are only two emotions that belong in the saddle; one is a sense of humor, and the other is patience.”
I got to thinking about emotion, and, while we may strive for humor and patience when we are with the horses, what do we actually need to DO to feel those things?
Emotion is an end result of the thoughts we consider and the actions we take. Trying to control the emotions when they are already happening is a very difficult proposition. So what can we actually DO to find ourselves in that place where what we feel is patience and a sense of humor.
We need a plan and some keys to focus our thoughts and our actions so that what we end up feeling is good.
Key number one: Focus.
This is all about the thoughts we think. We observe where we are, we have an idea of where we want to go and we think about the possible steps it takes to get from one to the other.
Our focus is the encompassing of thoughts around where we are, where we want to be, and what might happen between.
Focus is the ability to stay with those thoughts instead of the myriad of other things we might think. Focus is the ability to see many different options of what might happen between point A and point B. Focus is our mental plasticity and flexibility without distraction.
To take us back to an earlier blog, The Three Keys, focus is the movements we make as we work our way from where we are to where we want to be.
Key number two: Persistence.
If focus is about thoughts and movement, persistence is all about action and connection.
When we work with a horse the important word is WITH. Any meaningful action is all about Connection!
The action of connecting is all about persistence!
Don’t give up until you feel that connection, stay with it, keep moving, keep trying things, keep thinking, keep working, keep playing, keep on and on and on with unfailing persistence…. Until you feel connection.
Then be quiet!
Key number three: Confidence.
Confidence is the quiet where you revel in that phenomenal experience of connection.
The only movement associated with confidence is the rhythm of being alive, the in-breath following the out-breath with inexorable reliability – the metronome feeling of foot falls and breathing, of heart beat and pulse.
In being quietly alive, in a feeling of connection, we experience the confidence that is perhaps the most important part of horse training.
I say that confidence is the most important part of horse training because horses respond to confidence more than anything else! I can say with all my heart, regardless of anything else you do or don’t do, BE CONFIDENT!
Confidence is followed like the strongest magnet. Confidence is revered and pursued. Confidence is yours for the creating! Confidence is your birthright, your superpower, the ultimate key to anything and everything.
So, no matter what the world throws at you, find your confidence again and again and again.
These three keys are just stepping stones for finding that important confidence, because as Ray Hunt once said,
“Confidence is knowing you are prepared”
I am saying, the thing you most need to be prepared for is finding your confidence, and here is how you do that.
The steps for finding our confidence are:
The thoughts that become movements taking us from where we are to where we want to be, one step at a time – FOCUS.
The actions we take definitively that cause us to feel connected in body, heart and soul, because we were designed to thrive in connection. Don’t give up until you feel it – PERSISTENCE.
The quiet where we simply exist in the rhythm of being alive, breathing out, breathing in as we appreciate the moment and the journey we took to get here. That quiet appreciation is – CONFIDENCE.
I can give you the keys; now your job is to go live them because as Bill Dorrance said:
“You can’t teach feel, you have to experience it!
Focus, Persistence, Confidence
Movement, Connection, Quiet.
Take these keys, try them out, and I bet you will find the emotions John Lyons is encouraging you to seek:
“There are only two emotions that belong in the saddle; one is a sense of humor, and the other is patience.”
Just remember, it all comes down to confidence in the end, and that is yours to create.
Elsa Sinclair
