Tag: holistic horses

What exactly is Equine Touch?

Equine TouchTM is a gentle, non-invasive hands-on system of bodywork, that addresses the whole horse with an organised series of unique, subtle yet extremely powerful series of moves. It is a unique modality using a distinctive, three-part move that focuses on the soft tissue with the practitioner working with (not on) the horse both on a physical and an emotional level. Equine TouchTM sends a vibration into the fascial layer as a way of releasing tension and promoting a flow of energy through the body. The Equine Touch move with its soft tissue approach and unique combination of bodywork properties can often not only address established problems, but by locating and addressing niggles early enough, can potentially prevent minor strains or imbalances from becoming long-lasting issues or injuries. (It should be noted that it is not a diagnostic tool and that practitioners, unless also vets, are not trained to diagnose.)

Why have I not heard of it?

Equine TouchTM was originally developed by a vet, Ivana Ruddock, of “Equine Anatomy in Layers”, from a human bodywork technique pioneered by her husband, Jock, who was a professional wrestler. On retiring from the ring he turned to the world of complementary health, qualifying as a clinical hypnotherapist before opening five successful bodywork clinics in his native Scotland. During his 28 years as a globe-trotting wrestler he had learned practical chiropractic and osteopathic manipulations from his fellow matmen in New Zealand, Australia, USA, Hawaii and Japan and earned himself a reputation as a ‘bone setter’; the laws of the wrestling world being ‘if you hurt me, fix me’. Jock formally trained in Aikido, Dynamic Ki, Hyperton-X, Kinesiology, Bowen and Isogai.

The origins of The Equine TouchTM

In 1997 Jock began to research, develop and choreograph a complete new modality partially based upon the principles of bodywork as pioneered by Dub Leigh, Lauren Berry and Tom Bowen. He discovered that by vibrating the muscles in a certain sequence and at specific points in the body using his own Aikido based move, the entire body could be induced to slip into a state of medical chaotic confusion and at the same time, relaxation. The syndrome is something similar to an entire orchestra tuning up prior to a concert and then settling down as an in tune symphonia. Out of this cellular and holistic confusion and what is now termed as medical chaos, order emerges and within the body homeostasis is attained. After considerable studying and fine-tuning of this new approach, Jock decided to name it The Vibromuscular Harmonisation Technique (VHT).

From VHT to ET

In 1997 transposing the fundamentals of his unique VHT technique he began to work professionally as an Equine Bodyworker on horses. From a simple beginning at a stable in Aberdeen Scotland the Equine Touch has now grown to a complete Equine Bodywork modality, used by horse owners and equine professionals worldwide.  Ivana first studied the Equine Touch in 1999 with Jock and after they married, she then partnered him worldwide in the research, development and teaching of this unique discipline. Initially they only taught the technique to qualified vets, but now the courses are open to horse owners and non veterinary professionals; however, there are still stringent criteria to be met to become a certified practitioner. .

Read more of Jock’s story here

Equine TouchTM is a unique whole body balancing modality. It is holistic in that it addresses the whole body, not just the obvious problem, nor the part immediately under our hands. Although performed on the superficial fascia, the vibrational component to the ET move sends signals throughout the entire fascial web that acts as a 3D framework to hold the body together. The primary moves are done in a prescribed sequence, in an exploratory as well as restorative mindset, with a portfolio of additional moves which can then be tailored  to address areas that require more attention. Many of the Equine TouchTM moves are performed along meridian lines and at acupressure or reflex points. Due to this, the effect of the session does appear to be greater than the sum of its sequence; a gentle coordinated address with the unique Equine TouchTM  moves provides a powerful change in the structure of the fascia, allowing the body to self-adjust.

Myself working on Sophie, an ex endurance horse who was quite broken when we first met. She is now much straighter and sounder and we are rehabbing her with Equine Touch and dressage with a restorative intent

We very much work on the principle of ‘Less is More’ – staying below the brace threshold, being attentive to the horses’ responses and working with them in order to achieve the most profound effects. Similarly, the horses body must be allowed time to readjust and rebalance – so a day or two off work after a session is always advisable, especially if the horse is new to this type of body work.  Since the body can hold onto trauma, both physical and emotional, for many years, it may take weeks and two to three sessions before the full results of the body balance and the extent of change in the horse becomes apparent.

Is it like massage?

This gentle modality is quite different to physiotherapy, which tends to be manual adjustments over the body, and to traditional massage, which works deeply into the muscle. Some horses may find these better-known modalities too intrusive, especially if they are sore or tight, and working too hard and too fast with the tissue can cause the horse to put up a defensive reaction, stiffen and lock the bodyworker out. When the body worker inadvertently evokes the cellular defensive mechanism, the innate healing ability of the body may be shut down.

Fantastic Fascia

Everyone seems to be talking about fascia these days, but what actually is it? Fascia is a blanket term used to describe the 3-dimensional network of connective tissue that holds the entire body together. Everything is connected to everything else, from the thickest tendon to the most delicate cell membrane, the fascial system entwines its way throughout the equine (and every mammalian) body. Fascia surrounds each muscle and cradles every organ, there are also fine layers found throughout the muscles, veins and arteries are made of tubular fascia, ligaments and tendons are thickened forms of fascia. The fascia contains nerve receptors and carries nerve impulses and determines the whole-body response required for a particular stimulus. Furthermore, we now know that this intricate system of connective tissue plays a key role in the body’s ability to store and release kinetic energy elastically.

Previous post- The buzz about the fuzz

Dr. Sinja Guth explains the relevance of the fascia to soundness and health-

“In the tensegrity model, one no longer sees the skeleton/bone framework as a framework “stacked” on top of each other, pressing on each other. On the contrary, the bones are virtually floating, held in place by tensile forces. These tensile forces are applied in the body not only by individual strands of tissue, as in the architectural models, but by forces, whether tensile or impact, which are distributed throughout the entire network. It is only recently that we have become aware of the immense role that this storage capacity for kinetic energy of the fasciae and tendons, and of the connective tissue network in general, plays in the quality and effectiveness of movement execution. (The jump of a frog, for example, would not be possible without it).”

Gill Hedley’s famous video about the fuzz

Tension or trauma to the fascia restricts every function from mechanical movement to overall organism homeostasis. Biomechanically, when the layers of fascia are stuck together instead of gliding over each other, this can lead to poor muscle and tendon function, reduced flexibility, and decreased range of movement in a particular joint, eventually setting up a chain of dysfunction which perpetuates to protect the damaged area. If a certain muscle has been switched off due to pain, then other muscles and tendons will take over jobs that they are not supposed to be doing, often creating damaging compensation patterns.

Horses are not naughty

We must remember the the only way that horses have to communicate with humans is through their behaviour. Conflict behaviours or communication of pain may include pinning the ears, grimacing, biting, bucking, kicking out, moving away from the human, reluctance t be bridled of saddled, not standing still at the mounting block, and then the more serious signs of pain include kicking out, bucking, napping, rearing and spinning while ridden.

Once the horse has been sore for some time and the pain has become locked into the cellular muscle memory, they may continue to guard the area despite the original injury supposedly having healed. Equine TouchTM can and does assist to reset this cellular memory. Equine TouchTM is a holistic modality which works on the whole body and so can help to release the compensatory patterns that the body invoked as a coping strategy.

The Equine TouchTM move acts on the layers of the superficial fascia and reverberates through to the inner layers of myofascia surrounding the muscle and deeper tissues. The vibrational moves stimulate a process of restoring homeostasis, returning blood flow and fluid elasticity to the network of fascia. Once the fluid properties within the fascia return, not only is there more muscle movement action/ engagement, but optimal organ function. Improved respiratory capacity will assist with oxygenation, boosted circulation aids stamina, better digestion will provide the nutrients required to help cell regeneration, improving proprioception will help with balance and movement, and in time will improve whole body awareness and function… the benefits are self perpetuating.

What do you have to do to call yourself a practitioner?

To earn the coveted diploma and become a qualified Equine Touch Practitioner, the student must attend 3 in person courses, complete six theory papers and pass three hands on assessments at various stages of the training. The courses are the Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced, totalling 7 days of hands-on training and are usually run at intervals over the course of a year. In between each course, the student must then complete a Theory paper and an Anatomy and Physiology paper, and undertake 10 practical case studies. Each case study consists of 3 visits to a horse, after seeking specific veterinary permission to work on the horse and obtaining written feedback from the owner after each session and at the end of the series. There is then a practical assessment, examined by the course instructor, for each level.  After the Advanced assessment, for the final 10 case studies, the ET student is encouraged to work in collaboration with hoof care providers, saddle fitters and other equine professionals to gain experience of the multi-disciplinary approach to help the whole horse. As a result of this emphasis on holistic care, we Equine TouchTM Practitioners are trained to look at all the areas of influence that can affect both the physical and emotional wellbeing of the horse and are encouraged to actively seek out advice and collaborate with other equine professionals as part of our Continuing Professional Development e.g. saddle fit, feet, teeth, rider, nutrition, environment. Many ET practitioners also hold other qualifications in these areas.

The Equine TouchTM address is very effective for promoting or rebooting the process of homeostasis and innate healing. Many people discover Equine Touch because they’ve already gone down the traditional vet and physio route, after which they may have seen a few improvements but nothing long-lasting. Having said this, Equine TouchTM is not a quick fix. Asymmetries and compensations have formed over time, be it days, weeks, months and even years, and the body cannot simply release all of these in one session, which is why often it takes 2-3 sessions over a period of 2-3 weeks to assist the body to be balanced and in harmony. A maintenance session every 6-12 weeks is then advised in order that we can maintain the balance and tensegrity and reduce the tension which leads to asymmetries and often injury. With the unique vibratory move into the 3D fascial layer, Equine TouchTM does indeed reach the parts that other modalities can’t, and often horse owners express surprise at how a gentle and non-invasive technique can have such a profound and lasting positive impact.

Eurobodalla I have arrived- please do get in touch for a booking 🙂

The Opposite of Imposter Syndrome

aka Expert syndrome

Cover image courtesy of Sarah Linton. Painted Horse by Debranne Pattillo of Equinology and Equi-Ink Publications.

There has been a lot of chat this past year about imposter syndrome. It has now become completely acceptable and even laudable for leaders in their field to express their inner voices of doubt and lack of self-worth. It has become acceptable for experts to admit that they too feel unworthy and under confident in their powers and that we humans may not put ourselves out there and may not shine at our brightest as a result. Every successful public persona seems to have this missionary zeal to tell us that they too suffered from crippling fear and self-doubt at some stage in their journey. While this is a perennial problem that I am sure all reasonable, non-psychotic humans grapple with, in my experience, much more day to day damage is done by those with non imposter aka expert syndrome.

Expert syndrome

is a funny beast. It has become much more prevalent in modern times with the internet. The boon of instant communication and a non-discriminatory search engine enables us to type in a question relating to any problem and we will find all sorts of self-proclaimed experts offering the quick fix solution. In the world of horses, this magic bullet will solve everything. The expert has discovered the ultimate secret, packaged it up neatly into bite sized chunks and is now selling it in affordable, pocket seized online courses that will change both yours and your horse’s life for the better. And do you know what?

Life would be awesome if there was a magic bullet,

or a quick fix solution that could transform the troubled and complex beings that are our difficult and quirky horses into dreamboat equine dance partners.

behaviour is communication- every time…

With Rocky, (aka Royal Magic I kid you not) I spent years searching for the alchemical elixir. Ulcer treatment, hind gut biome rebalancing, regular massage, chiropractic treatment, rehabilitative groundwork, 3 fresh starts under saddle interspersed by 2 rounds of treatment for kissing spines. I went through a few different saddlers and brands of saddle, I checked his foot balance with x rays, as well as his back. I did everything that I and my very experienced team of supporters knew how and none of it was enough. In the end, for whatever reason, that horse would not let me tune in to his body or psyche to help him fix the problem that occasionally made him a dangerous, unpredictable riding horse. And I am just about OK with that. I think Rocky’s lesson for me was that you can accumulate all the knowledge in the world and do your absolute best to address all the issues but there are some horses for whom you are too late or simply not good enough.

I don’t claim to be an expert...

I also don’t believe that there is ever one root cause and one answer. In fact, the more I learn about horses, the more layers of the onion I seem to unpeel. Horse are the most masterful of compensators. They will hide one problem, until the hiding itself leads to another pattern of pathology, then a third. Some horses are incredibly stoic and tolerant, others will not put up with a single moment of discomfort. And most thankfully fall somewhere in between. Hope for the horse that will tell you ‘No’ clearly in a way that doesn’t risk your life.

And there are equestrian magicians out there.

Don’t get me wrong- there are some awesome practitioners who do absolutely improve the life of the horses they come across. Some are hoof trimmers, some are saddlers, some are physios. Life always gets a little bit better when you come across one of these people. They are all experts in their field, they are all keen to share their knowledge, they are keen to find out what you as the owner know and have put in place already and who else you work with.

So, how do we tell the difference between expertise and ‘experts”?

Who decides whether the self-proclaimed saviour of all things equine should be awarded the title of expert? In my view only one opinion counts here, and that is the horse.

How do we know if the horse is happy?

That can be such a simple question but for some reason we make it very tricky.

First we should all learn to trust our eyes. We can all see simple things, because seeing is believing and our eyes do not lie to us. The trouble starts when our brains try to fit what we believe or what we have been taught around the thing that our eyes are actually seeing.

This is why so many horsey folk believe that the poll lies about 6 inches behind the ears, rather than its correct anatomical location under the bridle head piece. We all know that the dressage rules state that the poll should be the highest point and we have seen so many top riders consistently win medals on horses where C2/C3 is actually the highest point, that we fallible humans convince ourselves that the poll must actually sit at the junction of C2/C3. Because that is the only way the winning makes sense within the rules that we have had drummed into us since we started to ride. When we actually get around to looking the facts up in an anatomy textbook, it is easy to see we have been mistaken for all these years.

Julie’s illustration – labelled to star TMJ but also has the Poll as highest bony point and the head in a lovely correct position in front of the vertical

But then why do those riders win medals if they are doing it wrong?  

This is the common but incorrect aberration- see how the bones of C2 and C3 are the highest point here- and the strain this puts on the nuchal ligament.

That is why horse-naive people can see the cruelty and artificiality of Rollkur and the stiff spider leg movement much more clearly than the dressage afficianadoes. Their novice brains have not been scrambled playing mental twister trying to equate the images they see of the winning riders with the words we read in books and hear from our trainers.

Words that bear little resemblance to the reality of the pictures.

Turn the sound down when you are watching the videos- the music is carefully chosen to be emotive. If the trainer is talking in a masterclass, mute them for the first watch. Let your eyes see the truth of the picture initially without prejudice- does the horse look calm and relaxed or tense and fearful? Does he move freely, smoothly, effortlessly? Is your eye drawn to the horse, filled by the horse, is the rider rendered invisible or are your eyes distracted by the rider doing weird stuff on top?

Don’t listen to the trainer’s spiel until you have decided if you like the way the horse is going and whether you would like your horse to go like that.

A beautiful calm halt- the hallmark of good training

Would you want your horse to look like that?

Who did they train with? Are they good trainers or merely gifted riders? Can they explain to the rider how to change the horse for the better? How many horses have they trained from scratch? Do they have a history, a provenance, an education, a foundation of knowledge?

How do they interact with their horses? Do the horses seem to like them? Do the horses stand calmly next to the human looking goofy and relaxed? Do they stand quietly to be mounted? Do they show resistance or tension at the halt? How long have the horses lasted in their career, have they stayed sound? Do their horses look like happy athletes? Would you let them ride your horse? Would you sell them your horse?

Would your horse let them ride him?

If you truly allow yourself to feel the truth of those questions, more of us would be impervious to the influence of self-proclaimed experts and would be able to make better choices for our horses. Many people can talk in soundbites and sound plausible or sensible and offer us hope.  Many of the experts might have something valuable to offer, but the only individual that will tell you the truth of that in the long run is the horse.

If we had more confidence in our own eyes and our own instincts, we would not suffer from imposter syndrome either. And I believe that more of us could have happy, sound, long lived riding and competition horses. We would be empowered to use our eyes, our observation, our personal knowledge and our love of our horses to make better choices for them.

Fabulous jumping position and keen focussed horse. I would love the feeling in this picture…

Dealing with negative thoughts

It’s been a tough few weeks here in the Nelipot Cottage camp. Many of you will know some of my trials and tribulations with the complex little horse that is the Rockstar. If you don’t, then the brief version is- beautiful horse, conformationally challenged,  incredibly athletic, also anxious, with a high octane buck that makes spectators gasp. He is hugely affectionate, very loving, and yet gets regularly threatened with the final trip to the sausage factory.

The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster ride, literally. Pole clinic with some acrobatics whenever spectators breathed or moved a muscle or we passed the gate of the arena. The next day a clinic with a new to us EDL instructor in a strange and very buzzy arena where he struggled with the new balance requests placed on him but never really acted up.

A week of in hand work in the dark followed before we had to face a long drive to a weekend Arne Koets clinic.

The negative thoughts were out in force. 

“There’s no point in taking Rocky, it’s too far, too expensive, I’ll take Cal, he will get more out of it”. 

“He’ll buck me off in front of all the new people”

“His back must be sore again, maybe I should get him checked out”

“I just want  a nice fun weekend away”

The first thing to understand about these negative thoughts is that they are from our primitive  lizard brain and ultimately their role is to protect us. They are our evolutionary alarms- don’t leave the cave after dark, don’t risk harming yourself, how will you hunt and eat if you are injured or broken….

Because these negative thoughts are part of our programming we can’t fight them. When you read about dealing with negative thoughts, all the self help gurus use war like language; we must beat them, challenge them, overcome them.

Resistance meets with resistance. Horses push into pressure, so do humans.

OOOPS see what your brain did there?

We can’t fight our own brain, let alone our own survival instincts. The primitive brain is an evolutionary mechanism that exists to keep us safe from harm; it’s not logical, or rational, or conscious. So there is absolutely no point in fighting the thoughts generated.

Far better to welcome them. First step is to notice them. 

“Ooh look, I’m catastrophising  again, how peculiar. I wonder why?”

Next step is to thank the amygdala for trying to protect us from harm.  

Accept and let the thoughts in. If you can laugh wryly at yourself while doing this all the better.

Third step is to work out where the negative thoughts sit in your body. 

Are your shoulders hunched up and forward or down and relaxed? Is your breathing shallow and rapid? Where do you feel tightness- is it in your chest? Is your jaw clenched, or your tongue relaxed? Are your fists curling?

All the negative thoughts are essentially fear. I’m a simple person- anger, frustration, nerves, disappointment, shame, failure- when you boil down the various emotions generated by the amygdala there is only fear.

The primitive amygdala

Once you have found the effects of the negative thoughts in your body, you can start unfurling them. Relax your shoulders, lengthen your spine, open up your chest, smile, and breathe.

Remember the vagus nerve?

The physiological effects of the Vagus Nerve

we touched on this in my last post 

“Being Seen, Being Heard, Feeling Felt and Getting Gotten”

 Breathe in for a count of 3 then out for 4. If you can’t manage that,  breathe in for 2 then out for 3. Just make sure the out breath is longer than the in breath. Get your heart rate slower by activating the parasympathetic nervous system. 

Once you know where the fear sits in your body, you can modulate that feeling by consciously changing your body state. You can’t change your thoughts straight off, but if you can change the physiological effects they have on your body,  then that changes the feedback loop and the negative thoughts are no longer physical feelings but abstract concepts.

Fear setting can be a powerful tool (Tim Ferris)

Fear setting is helpful here as the next step, one we have achieved some distance from our lizard physiology.

What is the worst thing that can happen? (Rocky might buck me off. It’s on a surface, I can wear a body protector, I can work him in hand for the rest of the lesson or I can dust myself off and just get back on) 

And what will the outcome of that be? (I’ll be embarrassed, I might get a bruise or two, I might scare the spectators)

Versus how will I feel if I don’t do the thing that scares me? (We will never make any progress, I will never challenge him or me in new situations, he will never become the magnificent horse he should be, I’ll have a nice time doing safe stuff at home but I still won’t know how to deal with him in a challenging situation. I love this horse, I want him to be magnificent, I want him to enjoy every ounce of his glorious power. We can’t avoid all these challenges forever.)

Nothing grows in your comfort zone

If we back away from the fear we stay in our comfort zone. It’s safe and easy but there is no learning, and no growth.

We can’t fight negative thoughts. Rather than brushing them aside, we have to let them in, make friends with them, be nice to them and then we can moderate them with the opposite of fear, which is simply love. 

I wasn’t going to go full woo but hey ho

Because love is the purest and most positive energy, whenever we need to find a source of strength then we just need to think of love. I still find it quite hard to think of love by myself so I think of my dog Ernie, the joy he displays greeting me when I get in from work, the warm feeling when his head is on my knee on the sofa. Or I think of the Rockstar, when he was a foal, resting his head on mine, breathing softly in my ear.

Rocky is still the most affectionate horse

So what happened? I swallowed my fears. We went to the clinic. And Rocky was pretty acrobatic, so much so that I had to get off in the first lesson. And we did scare the spectators a little bit! But we did some good in hand work, and then some more in lesson two.

Finding a place of quiet conversation- he is still concerned but he is listening

Had we been closer to home would have swapped horses after day 1. But we were too far away so I had to persevere! And in lesson 3 we found a place of quiet conversation in hand, where he could tell me clearly and definitely but still politely what it was that he was finding so difficult. I did some bodywork on him in between the lessons and his back looked better after every session.

And in the 4th slot I even got back on and we managed to continue the conversational approach to learning, and I now have homework and exercises for us to do to help him before the next time.

We did some exercises based on the work around the 5 pillars
I believe in Rocky

We will be going back for more training with Arne Koets at the end of this month!

It goes without saying that all this theory also applies to anything that might scare you- because the lessons that horses teach us are ultimately lessons in life.

buy the book- “Bare Hooves and Open Hearts”

If you have enjoyed this blog then please consider buying an author signed paperback copy of my recent book. It contains more of my philosophy on husbandry and training, based on my experience, research and learning. Price includes 2nd class postage to anywhere in Europe. Other regions may cost more- email me and we can always arrange.

£13.99

“Being Seen, Being Heard, Feeling Felt and Getting Gotten”

I have been pondering and playing with the concepts of connection and communication in riding, rather than control or coercion. And the idea of consent.

In some ways I always ask consent of my horses. I wait for them to take a step towards me in the field before I put the headcollar on. I allow them to sniff the brushes before I get stuck into grooming. I acknowledge that Cal has a very tickly stomach and I am careful which brush I use to get the mud off. More work for me, but it’s more pleasant for him. I pick the mud out of his ears by hand scratching. I make sure they all offer me the hoof that I want to clean out. When I am tacking up, they should come to the front of the stable volunteering to be ridden. Both Cal and Rocky like to have a good empty before I put the saddle on- I allow them the time to do this.

If we seek a true partnership with our horses then it follows that they should be allowed, able and comfortable to offer an opinion. I changed the ramp on my lorry a few years ago. It used to be carpet and I changed it to rubber matting. Big mistake as it turns out- a few years on the rubber matting is now slippery when wet. Cal was reluctant to load yesterday after slithering a little on the ramp once or twice over the past few weeks. I talked to him and told him I understood and I have promised him I will sort it and have ordered some sticky backed grip tape- I do hope that works. Horses may not understand words but they understand intent. Knowing that I register his comments and acknowledge them was enough to persuade him to load.

Others may have escalated the pressure in that situation and compounded the negative association with loading. That is counter- productive. I know exactly why he hesitates to step on the ramp- why would I punish him for being careful?

A few years ago the clutch in my truck went the day before a 3 day clinic. My local friend very kindly lent me her 7.5 tonne truck. Her horses have all been terrible travellers as long as I have known her but they are all related, out of the same mare, and I just thought they were highly strung. Cal always loads and travels beautifully- when things are right. By day 3 of the 3 day weekend Cal was refusing to get in my friend’s 7.5 tonne lorry. It looks like a great truck, well maintained, airy, spacious, but there must be something very peculiar about the suspension and the ride.

Funnily enough, the friend went on to get a new truck and her current crop of horses all load and travel beautifully!

If horses are not in a mental and physical balance that enables them to complete the task requested then they will express that, as a bit of stiffness or resistance, or perhaps even as a big explosion. Our job as riders is to set them up for success. Balance before movement. Mental balance and physical balance are intimately related in horses. The flight response is all about stiff muscles, braced spine, ready to flee. Horses will say- I can’t do that with this body. Or the flip side of the dilemma- I can’t do that in this moment with this brain.

If we can change that response we can enable better choices.

If the horse needs a moment to check something strange and scary when they are out hacking, until they are happy before walking past, then surely that is fine? Horses have no concept of time- stay a second or stay 10 minutes- they have no idea. Rocky plays reverse and go forwards a bit with stuff he isn’t sure about- if I wait and breathe and let the process happen at his speed- obviously praising the forwards but not over-stressing or fighting the backwards- it sometimes takes 3 or 4 reverses, the last one being the furthest back before he then always psychs himself up to walk or even trot past the scary object in a calm curious manner. If I get agitated and push him beyond his comfort zone then things can quickly deteriorate. Since I have been more patient to let him think and process he is much more willing to let me encourage him past the less scary stuff. It is all about an ongoing conversation.

It can all change with a heartbeat.

The science tells us that a horse’s heart emits 40 times more electromagnetic force than a tiny little human heart. Horses in a herd use this force field effect to synchronise their heartbeats. When a horse on the edge of the herd sees or senses something suspicious, their heartbeat will speed up. The rest of the herd feel this increase in heart-rate and are suddenly equally on alert.

Photo by Martin Jernberg from unsplash

You can find the webinar explaining the original research into heart rate synchronicity between horses and humans here https://www.heartmath.org/resources/downloads/heart-heart-communication-horses/

We can use this synchronicity effect to our advantage when riding or training. The vagus nerve is the nerve of para-sympathetic innervation. The parasympathetic nervous system inhibits the body from overworking and restores the body to a calm and composed state. It can be described as the “rest and digest” system. This is the opposite to the “flight or fight” response, activated by the sympathetic nervous system. When we breathe out slowly so our out breath is longer than our in breath, this activates the vagus nerve, and therefore para-sympathetic innervation. Calm returns.

You can test this slowing effect of the vagus nerve by feeling your own pulse, or your dogs heart-beat when he is lying next to you. When you breathe out long and slow, your heart beats a touch slower than when you breathe in. My dog has quite a marked variability when he is relaxed.

Breathing out while in the saddle also activates your diaphragm-seat connection. A good slow out breath pulls you deeper into the saddle, onto the back of your seat- bones. The horse will feel your calm, low heart beat, from as far as 4 feet away apparently, and theirs will synchronise to match. That is how they are programmed. Calm returns.

Conversely, if you tighten and tense up and breathe short sharp shallow breaths under tension, then the sympathetic “fight or flight” system takes over. We tend to hunch, subconsciously, putting us into a grip and clutch mode, on the front of our pelvis, and our heartbeat speeds up.

I would like to think that you wouldn’t find Rocky and I at this level of conflict again

And the horse will feel this, and synchronise to the faster human heartbeat, which makes them anxious too. A horse at rest has a pulse of 24-48 beats a minute- this is much slower than the human average of 60-100. To be sharing calm with our horses, we need to very consciously make sure we are at the bottom end of this human range.

When two hearts literally beat as one, that is the true meaning of connection

The meaning of dressage comes from the word root of “dress” or “to straighten”. The creation of a straight or “well dressed” horse is the purpose of dressage. And a straight or well dressed horse is able to perform any task required in that moment, assuming that the task requested has been prepared for with appropriate training and conditioning work, and the horse is in a mental state that allows cooperation.

With Rocky I have realised that I must apply equal emphasis to the mental as well as physical balance. With a big, athletic and genetically gifted horse, the sympathetic nervous system “no” can be too loud and too explosive to allow constructive dialogue. It is hard to have an ongoing conversation when we have parted company.

You could replace the word obedience to with ability to correctly respond and then you avoid the negative impression of mental submission.

For me submission is the horse offering its beauty and power in perfect mental and physical balance to the rider; like a pair of dancers or figure skaters jamming and saying “what shall we mess with next?’

So I breathe. And sit relaxed and loose. And deliberately slow my heart. And then we can talk. And hopefully one day we will dance, two hearts beating as one.

Rocky early days under saddle. Must take more pictures this year LOL

buy the book- “Bare Hooves and Open Hearts”

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Today We Turn Left

STOP PRESS UNTIL MAY 2022 ALL DONATIONS raised by this blog will go to the Veloo Foundation, feeding and education the children in Mongolia who would otherwise scratch for survival on the refuse tip in UB Mongolia. The link to donate is to be found here http://www.veloofoundation.com/fran-mcnicol.html

Successfully taking THE turn left in the village at that certain corner felt like a milestone of relief and success in the journey that is Rocky’s rehab, or ongoing training.

What do you mean successfully turning left I hear you cry? It’s a simple street corner, you just go around it. What is the big deal?

Well, yes, we do simply go around the corner. But in horse terms there are many ways to go around it. Sideways, backwards, scared, rushing, one step at a time. All of which have achieved the simple objective of getting around the corner, but none of which, in horse training terms, are necessarily a success in terms of simply going around the corner. And there are some special reasons why this corner is so significant.

Not that reason. Made you laugh though?

When you have a horse with severe separation anxiety, every turning or crossing can become a seemingly insurmountable barrier to independent, forwards progress. I have a picture map in my head of obstacles that Rocky and I have gradually overcome.

The first landmark is the main road that we couldn’t cross alone, at least not with me on board. I ‘solved’ this problem by getting off to lead him across the road. I knew I could do this safely because there is a bench 100m further on down the side street that I can then use as a mounting block to get back on.

It then took us a while to leave the environs of the bench. I would get back on and he would go sideways and backwards and anywhere but forwards and therefore further away from home. He had a very strict sense of the precise diameter of his circle of safety around his home base.

The next stage was that he would cross the road with me on top but refuse to pass the bench. A few more weeks of riding out with friends for company and confidence helped us to get the short route around the village nailed until we were able to navigate it alone.

Our other regular route around the village doesn’t involve crossing the main road. We use this as the early training hack for all the young and new horses, because there is no main road to negotiate. Instead, we turn left, tootle through the estate, left again through the immaculate gardens of groomed suburbia and then arrive at the crucial corner- turning right takes us along to the cul de sac which we then use as a turning circle to reverse the route and come home. This circuit is familiar, safe, easy and non threatening.

Turning right at that corner is also turning towards home, as the crow flies, and the horse knows, even though we don’t use it as a way straight home on most of our normal hacking routes.

Horses always know where they are in relation to home. They always know the quickest way home as the crow flies. What they don’t always know is how the road layout goes, or what fences, bridges or rivers might be in the way.

I learned this years ago with Paddy. When we first used to go for our enormous long adventures around Delamere Forest, it was all too easy to get lost. We were on livery there in the good old days, when being able to walk in a wild and beautiful forest was considered entertainment enough, before the forest had to make a profit, and the Forestry Commission put up glossy information signs everywhere, and laid out children’s activity trails and erected huge Gruffalo carvings, and felled vast tranches of trees to make way for the holiday cabins. In those halcyon days, when we got lost, we knew to look over the treetops for the radio mast on the crest of the big hill. Heading for that mast would take you back to the yard and cups of tea and safety.

The Old Pale radio mast- a beacon in more ways than one

Except there was one part of the forest where you couldn’t see the radio mast. And I didn’t know the forest all that well in those early days. And the trails in that deepest, furthest away part of the forest were laid out in overlapping loops rather than a nice logical grid. Mobile phones were in their infancy, we didn’t have 4G or Google maps with a satellite setting that showed you where you were on the paths cut through the forest. All Paddy and I had was each other, in the often fading light.

One day Paddy and I were hopelessly lost, or should I say I was. I remembered back to the old cowboy stories of horses finding their own way home, and I had nothing to lose so I gave him his head and let him choose the direction of travel at each identical forestry trail intersection. And we did indeed get closer and closer to home with each confidently chosen path. The boy was doing fab, he knew exactly where to go.

Until we arrived chest on to the long side of one very large field, marked out by three stranded barbed wire fences, so close yet so far away from the welcome sight of the familiar track that led back to the yard!

I mentally tossed a coin and turned right. The narrow little path that led through the trees around the edge of the field was obviously well travelled by dog walkers albeit no horses. And it led around the field with no more obstacles except the narrow stile (feet up on to the pommel of the saddle to squeeze through) that let us onto the familiar track home.

That moment of choice turned out to be a gift from the universe – the little travelled track opened up a bit, and, running on perfect undulating leaf mould and sandy soil, it became one of our favourite canter tracks. Its remoteness was the key – for many years this propitious find was the last natural surface available for us to canter on as the forest tracks were gradually hard-cored and widened and rolled and stoned and “improved” to allow parents in unsuitable shoes to pay for parking and walk, pushing their thin wheeled city buggies, and then even take Segway tours all over our previously wild and beautiful place.

The forest became a business, that had to turn a profit, rather than a national treasure that had to be protected

But nowadays we are on a different livery yard, on the outskirts of town with the motorways humming in the background, and our local hacking now involves tours of the neat and manicured streets of an affluent and immaculate commuter estate. Think of a British version of Stepford Wives and you would have it down to a tee.

Turning left at the special corner takes us further away from home, towards the cycleway and also our longer looping routes around the countryside. So as well as turning away from home, as the crow flies, away from safety, turning left here also means that more work or effort will be required.

This is the view we see as humans turning left.
The horse however sees a different view.

The horse is crossing his own invisible barrier away from the safe circle of home into dragon country.

More challenges will be encountered on this route out into the country. We often meet pods of competitive road cyclists, racing their own wrist-timers in a pure fug of adrenaline and focused aggression. There are whole families out for a stroll, with screaming toddlers either waddling around or hidden in prams and buggies. Or the baby cyclists, wobbling around erratically on their tiny trikes, often with little control over their direction or destiny.

How the horse sees
For the horse, objects that come from behind, from their blind spot into the area of marginal sight, at speed, are the scariest of all. This is the path the big cat would take when hunting them. and the path many CYCLISTS seem to blithely imitate.
Please spread this graphic around- so many cyclists think they are doing right by creeping up on us carefully and quietly, exactly like a lion would.

Other hazards on these longer countryside routes include the poorly socialised city dogs. Dogs who rarely see horses will be leaping around, straining at their leads or even worse, harrying at the horses heels, barking and yapping furiously, completely unlike our farm dogs who have learnt to carefully ignore the bloody great animals in their midst.

So all in all turning left at the crucial corner is a challenge, for horse and for rider.

My stupid human worry about us having difficulty turning left is ridiculous but not quite spurious. The lady who lives on the bungalow on the crucial corner is really obsessive about her precious postage stamp lawn. And Rocky has reversed onto it, bum almost to the bay windows, traversed the green square sideways in perfect full pass and once cut across it at full pelt, on our previous misadventures. She will graciously accept white wine as a peace offering but I can tell the hoof prints might as well have trampled into her heart.

One of the key tenets of mindfulness is that we must stay in the moment and not allow ourselves to worry about that which has not yet occurred.

So yesterday Rocky and I were striding out boldly in the lead as my friend and companion shouted out “do you want to be on the inside or the outside?”

“We’re just going for it” I called back.

Rocky stepped out, relaised we were going left, tried backwards once, sideways once, but his sturdy and trusty companion carried on straight around the corner on the outside of us and the next thing we knew, we had all turned left.

Easily, successfully, with no stress and no argument and only a tiny little shimmy of anxiety. For the first time since September. For the first time since his back surgery.

Today we turned left.

Thank you as always for reading. I truly appreciate each and every precious glance. To those generous influencers who comment, share the site with friends or help to promote in any other way, I remain eternally grateful. To the supporters willing and able to offer funds, whether small or large, karma is finding its way back to you with a rainbow of horses and abundance beyond your dreams. I welcome each of you to join in our lifelong adventure. 

Continue reading Today We Turn Left

If Only my Horse could Talk…

STOP PRESS UNTIL MAY 2022 ALL DONATIONS raised by this blog will go to the Veloo Foundation, feeding and education the children in Mongolia who would otherwise scratch for survival on the refuse tip in UB Mongolia. The link to donate is to be found here

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“If only my horse could talk!”

How many times have we all said those words? In jest, or in despair?

But consider that our horses could be equally frustrated, stamping their feet and tossing their manes and screaming “if only my human could listen”

They don’t actually scream of course. Until it gets really bad and then they need to get really loud.

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Amongst themselves horses talk mostly in whispers, a sideways look, a flick of an ear, an imperceptible yield. Horses are naturally very peaceable animals. The equine ethologist Lucy Rees has spent a lifetime observing horses in the wild.

“To understand horses and their difficulties in our hands, we need to watch them as they really are, without anthropomorphic interpretations and expectations”

​To this end, she has studied many populations of feral horses in the Americas and Australia, above all in Venezuela, where for years she ran residential ethology courses. These studies led to Horses In Company (2017), a book whose evolutionary perspective revolutionises our view of horse society. She started the Pottoka Project, in which she released a herd of feral Basque ponies in the mountains of north Extremadura, and, with a few volunteers, observes them as they live normal equid lives.

There is a very educational and beautiful series of short films available on her website or via Epona TV 

Meet the Pottoka

For me, her most astonishing finding is that, in an environment in which there is no resource shortage, horses exhibit virtually no conflict behaviour. I have written about this before, against the context of that other pervasive myth, the alpha male.

The Myth of the Alpha

This is a lesson that I thought I had learned already. but as the saying goes, until you truly know something, and take that truth to heart and actually act on that truth, you don’t really know that something. 

The last year and a half have been really tricky for me and Rocky. I previously told the story of his initial diagnosis of a sore back. His time off and six months of slow and careful rehab,

The Rocky Road to Rehab

coincided with my change in personal circumstances. However, as we got back into consistent work there was no real improvement to his behaviour. His back looked and felt perfect, with improving muscle coverage and no sore spots, but his behaviour remained erratic and I was still getting regular reminders on the inevitability of gravity.

I had him scoped him for ulcers a couple of years ago. The rationale at the time was partly to check out his behaviour, but also based on the fact that at the time he was a full 100kg lighter than his two equally classy sisters

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The scope was essentially clear. The vets looked at me wth sceptical cocked eyebrows when I explained my reasons for scoping him; if you don’t actually know his sisters, he is big enough and looks like a strapping lad and he didn’t look unhealthy at the time, but I was the client and it was my money. 

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He had some very mild traces of inflammation, but no true ulceration. They didn’t push me to treat him formally and were quite happy when I said I would organise an empirical trial of treatment with the well known blue granules that one can buy online from America. He did put some good weight on, so I thought the ulcers must be better, and so we never re-scoped. And his behaviour never changed- he was still occasionally obstreperous but nothing one wouldn’t expect or excuse from a young horse?

Extra bit of information required here- on the ground he is the sweetest, most affectionate horse you could imagine. He loves people and loves a good fuss.

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Because he had previously been scoped clear, with no behavioural benefit following on from that half hearted trial of treatment (isn’t the retrospect-oscope a wonderful instrument),  the possibility of continuing ulcers just didn’t enter my brain. I am a very literal thinker, and my brain really only works in lists and straight lines, so in my head, ulcers was ticked off, as was back. All that was left was learned behaviour and an athletic and strong minded horse that I had to decide if I was capable of riding.

I bought Rocky as a yearling. He has the most beautiful paces I have ever sat on. Had I not bought him as a youngster, I would never have been able to afford his Olympic standard genetics. For those of you who are into bloodlines, he is by Royaldik. 

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Heraldik xx is a very well known sire to all eventing fans- Ingrid Klimke’s Butts Abraxas, Andreas Dibowski’s Butts Leon, and Sam Griffith’s Happy Times are all among top flight horses sired by Heraldik.

At WEG in 2010, Heraldik had 3 offspring in the Eventing and 2 in the Show Jumping. Heraldik had a full sister Herka, and Royaldik is out of Herka. And Royaldik’s full brother Rohdiamant is also the WBFSH world number 3 dressage stallion.

So my gorgeous little baby Rocky

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is quite simply the most well bred horse I am ever likely to own. Particularly as his famous relatives have proved to be functional as well as flash, with the confirmation to withstand a busy life at top level competition. 

I remember vividly teaching Cal to jump. Until he learned to canter, and developed the bulk of muscle required to carry his draught bone along the ground let alone up, jumping an 80cm oxer always felt like a lottery. 

By contrast, Rocky can be looking at everything else, going sideways and then just pop the same fence as a minor inconvenience as it appears in his path.

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All of which is a very long winded way of saying I wasn’t gong to give up on that feeling without a fight. It’s addictive, sitting on a horse that gives you a feeling of such ease over a fence.

It’s not quite so addictive, hitting the ground on a regular basis.

As I tell this story now it is so fricking obvious that I am cringing as I type these words. I share this story, as brutally and as honestly as I can, to help you avoid similar obstinate mistakes, and to spare your horse having to shout quite so loudly.

Rocky had severe separation anxiety. He was dramatically reactive to all new situations, to horses coming up behind us, to getting a bit too far away from other horses, to a gate closing. He would freeze out on hacks, at invisible obstacles. His reaction to any unexpected stimulus was to dump me and run.

He had been scoped for ulcers. His back was now fine. We had checked the saddle situation and solved it with a gorgeous Stride Free Jump.

So I decided we needed remedial training. My long term local eventing instructor helped me with the riding and the training and we lunged him “thoroughly” before we got on to establish forwards, and we taught him that forwards was required before all else.

And he did become more rideable. I gave it my best shot. I rode him 5 days a week, every week, all winter, through the dark and the cold and the rain. I sent Cal away on loan so I had the time to concentrate on Rocky. We had regular lessons and outings. And he did come on really well. He put on muscle, his back improved, his canter got stronger. But he still bucked.

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Then one week in mid January he put me on the floor three times in the same week. And there were no mitigating factors. He had done enough work, there were no scary things out there, I was riding at my usual time, in my normal routine. The same week he booted the part time groom in the chest and shook her up really badly.

And I just knew I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t ride him, we couldn’t keep him safely here. I searched my heart and I made arrangements for him to go on sales livery. And was absolutely at peace with that decision. I think a few of my friends were even quite relieved. 

I had a couple of weeks to spare before he could go, and Patrice, my long term mentor and classical dressage instructor, suggested I scope him once more. It made sense. I couldn’t conscientiously sell a sick horse, and I would be gutted if I sold my horse of a lifetime because he was too quirky for me and then found out someone else had treated him and he turned out to be a poppet under saddle too.

Of course he had ulcers. Really bad ulcers. Multiple lesions, several grade 3, lots of grade 2 and significant amounts of fibrin deposits and areas of irritation. 

OK I thought, I’ll treat him but he’s still going. Once he’s healed, he’s still for sale.

Then lockdown happened, about two weeks into his ulcer treatment.

And he’s not a horse you could leave out of work altogether, his brain is quite active and he does find mischief.

So I had to ride him…..just light hacking, in company., to keep him ticking over and his brain occupied….nothing challenging….

He got better, and better. The bucking objections turned into leg flicks and stalls, then just to ear flicks. He hacked out on his own, with no trouble at previously nappy corners. We could cross the main road ( a major barrier previously) and go around the whole village. We had to stop occasionally and check out things like a scarf left on a street sign but he looked and worked it out whereas before he would have dumped me and run away. We even did the long circuit under the railways bridges and went past the scary white log on the bridle path on our own, after a few looks and a couple of reverses. But they were only reverses, not gymnastics. And I could feel his brain working it all out rather than his body reacting.

I’m still an idiot. And we were still in lockdown. As we couldn’t do the second check scope at the time I let his meds run down to see what would happen. About a week after the PPI ran out and the day after the Misoprostol finished, I swung my leg into the saddle and instantly felt like I was sitting on a different horse.

I had to prove it of course. I am still an idiot. He dropped me in the school so I got back on and we went around the block. It was tense but manageable. Until we got back inside the gate and then he tried to drop me on the concrete.

Se we started the meds again. It took a few weeks to get back to lovely horse again. But he had been very clear- and yes the lesson obviously needed re-iterating. 

My horse doesn’t have behaviour problems. He has pain problems.

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And I am genuinely ashamed that he had to get to a point of shouting out his pain so loudly at me that I put both of us in danger.

“If only my human could listen.”

 

sic ‘nothing one wouldn’t expect or excuse from a young horse.’

Question- how much of bad horse behaviour is actually pain?

He has just been re-scoped. The ulcers look much better. We are still only on light work but he is putting on huge amounts of muscle. He is currently off the transfer list!

Part 2 to follow in a few months. 

Thank you as always for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. To those influencers who comment, share the site with friends or help to promote in any other way, I remain eternally grateful. To those supporters generous and able to offer funds, whether small or large, karma is finding its way back to you with a rainbow of horses and abundance beyond dreams. Thank you all for joining in the adventure. 

Loves a cuddle

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Learning how to Breathe…properly

STOP PRESS UNTIL MAY 2022 ALL DONATIONS raised by this blog will go to the Veloo Foundation, feeding and education the children in Mongolia who would otherwise scratch for survival on the refuse tip in UB Mongolia. The link to donate is to be found here

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We all know how to do it, right? We all breathe, all day, every day and every night. Taking a breath is the first thing we do as our physical bodies arrive into this world, and the last thing we will do before we leave it. So why are so many of us so bad at breathing? Why are you even bothering to read this article, about learning how to breathe…properly?

Learning how to breathe… properly, is the first practical step to living-in-the-here-and-now

Learning how to breathe…properly, is the first step in the mindfulness practice that will help to free your mind from the emotions and dramas your body creates.

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What Is Mindfulness?

“Mindfulness is the practice of becoming aware of one’s present-moment experience with compassion and openness as a basis for wise action.”

“Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.

Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.”

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It’s really hard to do most sports or tricky activities without learning how to breathe…properly. Learning to breathe…properly, in the rhythm or technique specific to that activity is part of the technical challenge that leads to excellence. For example, the very precise breathing rhythm associated with a good front crawl, with choral singing, with long distance running, or with playing a wind instrument. There are more advanced techniques such as circular breathing techniques, for a didjeridoo, or the breathing without moving that I demand from a good laparoscopic camera person!

 

No one ever taught me to breathe properly while I am operating- it took me years to realise that I hold my breath for tricky bits of adhesiolysis, and brace my left knee for hours. I am now so used to holding my breath when I concentrate that it is usually the pain in my knee that brings me back to reality, not the gentle gasping for oxygen associated with prolonged low level hypoxia….

My horsey friends will all joke that we hold our breath for the show jumping element of eventing. 9 fences, about 45 seconds, it is easy to allow our breathing to get tight and shallow due to nerves. Not quite so easy to manage a full 5 minute cross country course without taking a proper breath…talking to the pony helps there.

rocky pic 1

 

It is impossible to develop a meditation practise without breathing well. The first part of learning to meditate is learning to focus on the breath.

Why meditate?

For me, the hardest part of learning to meditate was learning to breathe…properly

Breathe in deeply. Let the air gently fill your lungs. Pause, then release. Feel the tension in your shoulders drift away. Inhale again, then exhale… yeah….right…..

The more I thought about my breathing pattern, the more erratic and evasive a good deep breath became. I play a wind instrument, so I’m really good at controlled breathing out, but bizarrely not so good at slow breathing in; in breaths were a short sharp gasp (get as much in as you can) for the next complicated passage of notes.

Yoga helped a bit, as did Pilates. In class, I am always the dork at the back, out of sequence, out of balance and out of breath.

As with everything else, meditation skills improve with practise. I set my alarm for 7 minutes at first, which felt like an eternity after 2, and I just sat on my mat, not quite Vaipassana Lotus style, because my hips don’t go there yet, but cross legged with upwards facing palms.

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Cal is great at meditating

I have to really count my breathing, like a metronome- in for 3, hold for 3, out for 3, hold for 3, etc etc. I can do a relatively slow count of 3 consistently. I can do 5s for a bit but I can’t sustain that pattern easily enough to let the clock tick down. Counts of 3 allow me to get into a theta brain wave pattern.

Theta brain waves explained

As wit many other skills, the important thing initially is just to do the practise, in a state of mind that doesn’t care about the result. Some days it can feel like I am just going through the motions, or even going through my to do list. In the beginning I used to get so impatient I would have to peak at the clock and then be disgusted to find that only two minutes had passed.

And then gradually something strange started to happen. The alarm going off would take me by surprise. I would feel like I had nodded off, but I knew I hadn’t really been asleep. I would drift back into my body to find myself completely relaxed, in lotus position! Turns out I was getting good at this mediation thing!

Signs you went into meditation

And then one day driving to work I felt myself experience such profound joy that I wanted to sing out to the world. It’s hard to explain pure joy. It’s not justa mood. It’s not an “I feel happy”. It’s not laughter, or smiles, it’s not a “body feeling good” after a brisk walk in the fresh air. It’s a profound upswelling of well being that has no basis in the experience of that day so far. It comes from nowhere, yet totally changes the light of the day.

rocky pic 3

 

And that feeling of joy is why I now try to meditate every day.

Just try it…you might surprise yourselves.

And if nothing else, you will finally be learning how to breathe….properly, for which your horses can only be grateful.

Live in joy. in love,
Even among those who hate.

Live in joy, in health.
Even among the afflicted.

Live in joy, in peace,
Even among the troubled.

Look within. Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of the way.

—The Buddha, from the Dhammapada, Thomas Byrom, translator

Thank you as always for reading. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. To those influencers who comment, share the site with friends or help to promote in any other way, I remain eternally grateful. To those supporters generous and able to offer funds, whether small or large, karma is finding its way back to you with a rainbow of horses and abundance beyond dreams. Thank you all for joining in the adventure.


Make the Mental Transition to “I can”

We must make sure that we do not inadvertently teach ourselves to fail regularly in our training. It is important that we learn to make the mental transition to” I can”.

I heard a story this weekend about a very high achieving golfer. Every time he takes a lesson to improve one aspect of his game he goes out, applies the lesson and plays much better. Instead of being pleased that he has played better, he then looks for the gaps in his recent good game, focusses on those, practises those aspects which he has not improved and then goes out and so has a horrible time again. Essentially he has trained himself to fail, repetitively.

Golf and dressage have much in common.

Golf swing fundamentals

We must train ourselves to bank the good stuff first, especially in riding where there are two sentient beings involved in the encounter. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t learn from our mistakes; reflection, adjustment and testing is a key part of experiential learning of a practical skill.  But we must learn just as much if not more from our successes.

 

I have started videoing myself riding more regularly. A friend once made the comment that high definition video is the most brutal feedback anyone needs. I don’t have hi-def capability but a mobile phone propped up on the arena fence is effective enough.

The first time I watch the video I am always appalled. I look like cooked spaghetti, what are my legs doing there, what on earth makes me think I can ride….

Then I look at it again and watch the horse…and generally there are some nice moments. And I have to remind myself that if the horse is improving then I can’t be that bad…

If the horse wasn’t improving, I would possibly have appalled myself so much that I would have given up.  I am my own worst critic.

Do as I say, not as I do!!

But luckily for me the grey horse loves the nitty gritty of training, and loves the way good work makes his body feel. Which means he loves me.

If we want to improve a movement  or an exercise then we have to pick one aspect to work on. We can’t just “try it again” and hope something will improve globally by accident. Practise doesn’t make perfect, perfect practise makes perfect. So you have to be consciously competent enough to choose one aspect that you can change to improve the overall performance of the task. A bit like teaching surgery….

Which means we have to choose other aspects to leave alone, or even better, aspects to keep because they are already good.

So for example; I’m doing trot halt, rein back, trot, transitions in step sequences of four. Four because even numbers make it predictable for the horse so the transitions should occur with less resistance. (That bit is magic, don’t question it, it just is, even number of steps for predictability, odd number of steps when you want change).

I ask myself what I can do….generally I can count to four, the transitions occur when asked, the rein back is diagonal, the line of travel is straight, the trot out has lovely oomph.

What do I want to improve? Lets just say one thing- the softness of the topline, for now.

Do I throw all the good qualities away just to focus on the topline? Do I say topline first and foremost, at whatever cost, no matter how many steps, no matter if it’s straight, …

Or do I try and add another quality to the good stuff I have already?

I have written before about how essential  positive feedback is to the horse if you want to keep him on side. The horse is never allowed to think he made a mistake.

Every Opportunity to Praise

Imagine how dispiriting it would be for a horse if, every time he does a movement or an exercise, to the best of his ability, exactly as you have aided it (because again that is the truth) and you say “No, no, that was terrible, it was all wrong, we have to do it again, we are just so rubbish!”

He wouldn’t keep trying for very long would he?

Imagine if, instead of saying “we just can’t do that”,

you made the transition to thinking I can,

if we thought “We can do that even better! We can do that more like an advanced horse. What’s the most we can do?’….in the example, “What is the best most elevated and elongated topline we can do that rein back in? How would Granat feel doing that reinback?”

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What is the maximum we can ask for?

Not demand…that’s different. If we ask for the absolute maximum possible that we can imagine, the horse will give is the maximum he is capable of, in that moment, and he might just surprise himself and you!

Our limited expectations can limit our horse’s potential. I know I am often guilty of trying to make every step the best step, when sometime it just needs to be the next step. Sometime we just need to make progress, in the work and across the arena.

Dinner needs to get cooked!

Never mind if the balance goes awry, what is the biggest length of stride the horse can offer?

What is the longest neck he can keep that balance on without going splat?  He has to go splat at least once for you to find out the answer to that question. If he doesn’t go splat how do you know you have asked enough? Obviously you ask for a touch less next time.

And then the next time you pick another aspect.

So in my example; yesterday I worked on quality of topline. And the response to the aids also improved. Today I worked on responsiveness to the aids (and topline came for free with a few repetitions). Tomorrow I will need to find a different sequence or a different usage of that lesson (pretend piaffe/passage transitions with rein back legs maybe, or what does reinback leg do to the canter walk transition) otherwise I am drilling my horse, and sucking all of the joy out of his psyche.

So to get the best out of out horses, we need to learn to make the transition to “I can”.

To I can do the most magnificent trot, halt, rein back, trot that I can imagine, with this fabulous horse I am lucky enough to be riding in this moment. The horse doesn’t know this is a difficult exercise, he just hears your thoughts, well before your aids.

So make those thoughts worth listening to. Make him feel magnificent.

The magic is in the transition- when every possibility is available, everything is possible.

And teach yourself and your horse to succeed,  a little more every day.

 

Don’t feed the Trolls

Don’t feed the trolls. Or to paraphrase; don’t waste your energy worrying about what the bad guys are doing, because, as we all know, energy follows thought. I have been on a fairly steep learning curve this year in various ways, and one of my newly acquired and necessary skills is not to feed the dark side in any way, with energy or attention.

Dont feed the trolls. Every time we post a completely negative image of a horse ridden incorrectly, whether it is to stir up outrage or simply to dissect the ‘finer’ points of training, we are creating three inadvertent effects.

One is that we are exposing this image of incorrect training to a whole plethora of people who may not have seen it otherwise. If there are 500 people on my friends list, that is 500 people that have been exposed to a incorrect photo unnecessarily. Wouldn’t I rather ensure that those 500 people are exposed to the best most beautiful example I can find?

No photo is perfect, of course not. And not every photo of every old style SRS rider or every ODG is perfect.

But how much better to discuss nuance that would lead towards perfection rather than just complaining again and again about the head cranked in and the flinging legs.

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Don’t feed the trolls. All we  see in Horse and Hound and the other trade rags are horses held behind the vertical with cranked nosebands and flinging forefeet. If the general horse people don’t read other material and don’t go back to the old books where we can find the good photos, and the correct pictures, they may well never have seen a single image of a horse moving correctly.

And what is more, they don’t even understand that lack in their education.

When gold medals are won, it is a natural assumption to think that any image of that gold medal wining horse must portray the most correctly moving horse in the world moving correctly. How do we explain to those who don’t understand the fundamentals and have never seen correct that actually it is the most successful horse in the world, not the most correct; that they are simply the most successful horse/rider combination from a selection of horses and riders chasing a false paradigm.

Operating within a false paradigm

How do we explain to those who don’t know any different that this riding that is so highly rewarded in this current era actually causes horses to break down long before their time?

It is up to those who do know better to share the best possible images, and to keep explaining in a clear, concise and kind way why these better images are correct and beautiful and harmonious. It is up to those who do know better to keep teaching, with positive emphasis. People learn much better when they feel, relaxed, encouraged and safe. So rather than making them feel stupid, we have to teach, not preach. If people ask me why I ride the way I do, then I do my best to share what I have learned; as I do for the barefoot husbandry.

It is my duty and pleasure to help others on their journey.

The second problem with showing incorrect images is that our subconscious just absorbs those images. Our primitive brain doesn’t discriminate between good and bad images,  it just retains whatever visual information it is exposed to.

  • We retain 80% of what we see, 20% of what we read, and 10% of what we hear
  • Visuals are processed 60,000X faster than text

This means the picture of the incorrect horse has gone in and been filed before we even get a chance to analyse it. As we stare at it, picking it apart, the details of that image are going in even farther. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use pictures as a visual aid to learning,  but that we need to be scrupulous about how we use them. We need to ensure that we are exposed to many more good images than bad; so that it is the good images which are normalised and internalised.

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We need to get over ourselves and accept that our analytical brain is simply not as quick as the lizard brain. We need to train our eyes so that the good images still have the ability to make us feel happy and incorrect images of uncomfortable stressed horses make us feel uncomfortable.

Think of  Tarantino’s film “Kill Bill”. At the beginning the gore and violence is shocking. By the battle scene at the end, a bleak homage to the darkest of Samurai cinema, the violence is choreographed like a cartoon and we are strangely immune to the horror.

Tarantino is a master of manipulation of the human psyche.

So ideally we need to see at least 3 good images to every single poor image. The good images don’t need to be perfect, but they need to be near enough to good balance that we can see the next step might be better.

The third part of the problem is more subtle and a bit woo woo energy.

Energy follows thought.

We all know this. It’s why your mother always say “Oh I was just thinking about you” when you phone her, it’s how the dog knows you are coming home, long before he can possibly hear the car, it’s how the horse always makes sure he is at the far end of the field if you are in a foul mood from work, before you have even parked the car.

By sharing, discussing, dissecting a picture, be it with love or outrage, we are directing energy towards the subject of the photo. In the energetic universe, we are feeding them, powering them up. How much better it would be for all of us if we could direct our energy to power up the good teachers, the shining examples, the worthy mentors. And starve the others of attention and therefore energy.

That simple change would create the most amazing positive feedback loop.

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I am doing other, to the best of my ability, and shining as bright as I can in my little corner. And I just hope the light from my horses’ eyes is warm enough that people feel the difference and are drawn towards it. Then we can show them how to do better.

Seeking lightness in riding

And that shift in my mindset had provided a much better head space for me and the horses to work in. Riding is the ultimate martial art. And all martial arts are about discipline of the mind first.

If I tell you not to think about pink elephants, what have you just done? It is impossible to not do something without thinking about doing it. Rather than not doing what the bad guys do, do more of the good stuff.

Just do better.

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