In the Company of Horses........... cont.

Continuing the write up.
6. Softness

"Being 'soft' doesn't mean I or my horse turn into a doormat.  This is a common misconception.  That's not soft, that's weak.  Softness requires that we retain our point of view through the process.  Soft isn't necessarily slow, soft isn't necessarily easy, soft doesn't necessarily look a certain way for every horse, soft isn't necessarily the path of least resistance, but soft is, well, soft.

A person or horse is soft when he's using as many muscles as necessary to get the job done and no more.  So we end up back at 'as little as possible and as much as necessary'."

7. Mean Well

Most of us don't purposely want to do harm, but sometimes I think it's possible to overlook this in the quest to accomplish something.

"Meaning well or the lack of meaning well is one of those things that under-lies and colours our horsemanship.  When we work with our horse, do we mean to help him, or do we mean to 'make' him?  I think there's a big difference to the horse."

"The more we know about horses and the more we try to accomplish with them, the more responsibility we have to do no harm.  As one's knowledge grows, so does one's responsibility to do no harm."

8.Breathing

I think this is very important, but something that's often overlooked.

"When we talk about breathing, we're not talking about the kind of breathing that just gets you by and keeps you from passing out.  We're talking about a deep, deliberate, rhythmic, diaphragmatic breath that fills up the lungs and oxygenates the muscles and brain. Most of us don't realize that even in our everyday lives, we don't breathe very well. When we get around our horses, we seem to breathe even less well, to the point that we end up breathing as little as we can and still survive, which is not a help to our horsemanship.

If a rider is holding his breath or isn't breathing well, it creates tightness, making it difficult for his horse to move.  If our horse gets scared or concerned, we often hold our breath.  that makes it hard for the horse to move under us,just when he's thinking that movement might really be the best thing for him. If we hold our breath, we can become a tight, restrictive, dead weight up there, which might make our horse go from 'kind of' concerned to very concerned."

9. Consistency

Emotion = lack of logic = inconsistency. Something I'm becoming much more aware of and learning to control.

"If we use emotion while we work with a horse, we risk losing our logical thought pattern. Once we lose logical thought, we become inconsistent. And then we lose softness as well, because we become reactive rather than responsive"

"The way horses learn is through consistency, for better or worse."

10. Simplicity
This should be easy for me (k.i.s.s.) but it's not as easy as you might think.

"Ironically, although it appears that it should be easier to simplify than to multiply, that isn't always the case. As a matter of fact, many of us did start with simplicity, when we were kids. As kids, we just rode. Somewhere along the way the simplicity was lost"

11. Hope

In striving to achieve goals with horses, I think sometimes it's quite easy to lose hope, but we keep coming back for more, that's a kind of hope, isn't it?
"If we have a passion for horses, that passion is often a combination of love and hope and fear and awe. It's all in there, and that's what makes the horse so magical to us.  I wonder somethimes if the horses have hopes for us as well."

In the Company of Horses...........

(A year on the road with horseman Mark Rashid) by Kathleen Lindley.

I've just finished this book, it's easy to read and easy to understand. I always feel that if I get even the slightest thing out of a book, be it a phrase, a paragraph an idea, it's been worth the read. So yes, I think this book was worth the read.
Maria at Horse of Course asked me to do a little write up...

Consists of 11 chapters;

1. Point of View.
Well to my shame I've not always thought of things from the horse's point of view although I always try to nowadays.

"Over time, I've begun to understand that if we can find the source of the (horse's)behaviour, the why behind it, we can reach deeper and more lasting solutions to the problems we want to work on.  In order to do that, it is helpful to develop an ability to see the horse's behaviour and what he's trying to say from his point of view"

"Horses actually have a lot to say, I think.  It might sound fanciful and it might sound like anthropomorphizing, but horses obviously communicate with each other, so why wouldn't they try to communicate with us?"

2. Creativity
I don't know if I'm creative or not. I always say that I don't have a good imagination, so is that the same thing?

"When a horse tries to do what we want, that try may not look like what we expect it to.  It might be a little abstract.  But if we miss that try, we won't have anything to build on.  If we can get the horse to do something close to what we want, we can then shape that into exactly what we want - with a little creativity"

3.Practice
I certainly don't get enough practice with my horses and my life is certainly not as calm and straightforward as I'd like (who's is!!), so practicing horsemanship as a 'way to be' rather than practicing techniques is an interesting prospect. Certainly not an easy one to carry and practice all the attributes of a good horseman through to everyday life.

"So I began to practice my horsemanship as a way to be instead of practicing techniques. Mark (Rashid) talks about becoming a 'student of the horse' and I think this may be part of what he's talking about.  If we're a student of technique, which I have been in the past, we'll only get so far with things. But if we can become a student of the horse, the possibilities are infinite. 

If we've focussed on technique when we're with our horses, we may also tend to focus on our tools.  A tool may be a special halter or lead rope, a whip or a stick, a rope or any number of other objects. But the truth is, the best tool we have is with us all the time, wherever we go , It's us.  Now that's an interesting idea, because if the best tool I have to work with my horse is me, I've got me with me all the time, and I can practice my horsemanship all the time, wherever I go."

4. The Box
I mentioned this the other day to Trudi. Up until a few years ago I wouldn't have given it a thought.  I didn't even realise that I was in a box, never mind what label that box had. I think 'ignorance' would probably fit the bill.
"I believe that horses don't profit when we get stuck in our thinking. Horses live in a world of feel, not technique, a world of sounds and smells and sights. They adapt and blend and change with the world around them. They haven't read the books that tell us people what we can and can't do with them, and I think that to them, something is 'correct' only if it helps them. They're not worried about where the helpful thing came from or how pretty it looks or who thought it up.
When we put ourselves or our horses into a box, we limit ourselves to that little box - top, sides, and bottom.  If we stay in that box, we may never have the chance to discover what else is out there or what is possible outside of those familiar walls. If our goal is to be with our horses, I think we're more likely to find them outside a box than inside one."

5. Confidence
I lack confidence, and have a real fear of making mistakes with my horses,I hesitate to try new things, to experiment in case it's the wrong thing. It's something I need to work on.

"It made me think pretty hard about how we horsemen, myself not least among us, get caught up in all kinds of fears: fear of failure, fear of upsetting our horses, fear of upsetting our trainers, physical fear of our horses, fear of getting hurt, fear of doing the wrong thing.
Confidence in ourselves is something we don't often think of as an ingredient of good or successful horsemanship. But the more I watch and listen and learn, the more I start thinking that maybe confidence is one of those little-appreciated things that can truly make or break our horsemanship."


Fingers are starting to hit the wrong keys now so I'll continue tomorrow.
It's starting to thaw here now (finally!!!) I'm hoping for some riding weather soon.