A Pivotal Moment, part 2

I am somehow two people in one.  One of these people works very hard to be rational and evidence-based.  The other person is woo-woo as all hell.  Most of the time, Rational Me is in full force.  I like Rational Me.  She makes logical decisions based on facts and behaves like a responsible adult.  Woo-Woo Me is generally a pain-in-the-ass and makes ridiculous decisions based on weird whiffs of feelings and spends a lot of time being unhappy in what Rational Me considers the Real World.

When I first started the Confident Equestrian Program, Woo-Woo Me woke up for a minute.  There were some questions on the intake form for the class that were asking about things I had never heard of, and I got kind of curious about.  But Rational Me intervened and reminded me that I was in the class to learn basic skills to help Donut be ready for under-saddle work.  There was to be no woo-woo nonsense.

And Rational Me did a great job of paying attention, watching the videos, and doing the homework.  Rational Me was highly motivated and committed. But Woo-Woo Me was paying attention too.  She was just hanging around in the background, biding her time...

I spent the first month of the coaching class doing the groundwork exercises in the videos with both Freya and Donut.  Gemma did them too and for the most part, the horses did the exercises well.  I discovered Donut and I weren't as clueless as I originally thought, and lots of little pieces of information that I had read or seen over the years started coming together with Felicity's explanations.  

The techniques and exercises I was learning in the class were so blessedly simple and so accessible that my poor overworked brain finally felt like it could process the information.  There was no ethereal language to decipher or great philosophies to understand in order to apply the techniques.  There were just simple, step by step instructions, along with troubleshooting guidance.

As I worked through the exercises, though, one of the biggest realizations that I had was that it just might be OK to be me when I am working with my horses.  I have spent so many years - actually decades at this point - trying to emulate other trainers or people that I respect in the horse world.  But none of those people are me.  Each of them works with horses in their own way that feels best to them.  But what feels best to them doesn't always feel best to me.  

One of my biggest discomforts when I watch people work with horses is that I feel like they get bigger or more abrupt than I feel comfortable being.  When I behave like that with horses, it feels unnatural to me.  Which is not to say that I think it is wrong.  I've seen countless horses, including my own, look completely comfortable with these techniques.  And I firmly believe that a horse would rather a human be a bit bigger than they need to be, as long as the human is consistent and clear.  After all, horses can get pretty big with each other to communicate.  But they also communicate in such nuanced ways that they appear to be telepathic.

The reality is that I am not interested in the bigger communication techniques, except in cases where it might be necessary to establish a clear boundary or the horse is really not getting something and it is important for health or safety reasons that they do get it quickly.  After studying the Science of Motion techniques for many years under saddle, it is clear to me that horses can understand humans a lot better than we think they can.  They do not need someone windshield-wipering a leg at their side to understand they need to pick up the canter.  They can do it with a thought.  So if they are that sensitive under saddle, why couldn't they be that sensitive on the ground?

After going through the videos for several weeks, it occurred to me that there might be hope that I could work with my own horses in ways that felt comfortable to me, even if they didn't seem appropriate to someone else.  And I started developing a comfort level with how to shape behavior and responses from my horses.  I wasn't feeling like an expert yet, but I could see a clearer link between what I was doing and how the horse was responding.

I was also enjoying the group coaching calls that we did once a week.  There were about 5-6 students regularly in the calls, along with Felicity, and we would each get the opportunity to talk about our struggles and our wins during the previous week.  I had posted earlier this year about how I felt I was on a path all by myself, but I was starting to discover that there are others out there who feel the same way I do, who have the same questions, the same struggles, and the same joy about seemingly small wins.  And it started to make me realize how much value being in a community can add to my life. 

So Rational Me was basically in heaven.  We were doing tangible things like learning how to feed treats properly for positive reinforcement, leading, stopping, backing up, and turning.

Donut learns to take treats politely

Freya already took treats well, but the work we did actually ended up helping her be better in her stall when other horses were around.  She started out being quite frustrated about accepting treats when other horses were nearby, but after several weeks, she became much calmer.

 

But Woo-Woo Me was tuning in every once in awhile.  I had a couple of things happen with the horses that I forgot I was looking for in my attempts to Accomplish All the Things.  One happened on a Friday evening when I was at the barn by myself.  Gemma comes with me every day except for Fridays because I flat out need time to myself.  I work from home and homeschool and do horse things with Gemma every day, which is a lot of time spent with her.  And while I love her dearly, I do need time on my own to refresh.  So Fridays after work are mine.  This particular Friday, I hung out with Freya in her stall for a bit.  Instead of the fairly intensive nerve release work that I'd been doing almost daily for the previous two weeks, I brushed her and petted her.  She ended up in a deeply relaxed mental state, and I felt pretty darn good too.  It was a critical reminder that I don't have horses because I want to ride them or compete with them; I have them because I love their very nature.  I love being with them.  And I particularly love being with a horse that has a quiet, balanced mind.

Which brings me to the second thing.  After about four weeks of working diligently on Standing Still, and having some minor progress, Donut finally Stood Still.  Here is what I wrote about the session for the class:

After a bit of a rough start to our session because Donut got worried about something, we had an amazing Standing Still time!  For several minutes, Donut stood still and I was even able to stand 6 feet away from her.  She didn't try to mouth me or chew on the lead rope and she must have yawned 6-7 times!  I have NEVER seen her yawn before!  She was standing kind of awkwardly and not always with her head down, but she was truly quiet and starting to process a little.  Yay!

Donut stands still!!!

 

Donut has always had very busy mind and body.  She is constantly chewing on things, bumping things with her nose, and moving around, and I can literally feel the activity coming from her brain.  And it stresses me out.  To the point that I didn't really enjoy being around her that much, in all honesty.  I mean, I love her dearly, but all that busyness was hard for me to tolerate for more than a few minutes at a time.  So when we had these few minutes where it was clear that she could actually quiet her mind, it was a game changer for me.  For the first time, it occurred to me that I didn't have another 25+ years of all that activity to try to manage or tolerate.  It wasn't that Donut was just a busy horse by nature, it was that she didn't know how to be quiet.  It's possible that many horses learn that quietness by being in a herd and for some reason Donut hadn't.  Or maybe the way I was handling her was encouraging her mind to be active instead of quiet.  But I had no idea that it was something that could be taught.  Learning that was such a huge light bulb moment for me.  And I also started to ask myself some vague questions about what a horse should feel like.

Woo-Woo Me started whispering that maybe the connection that I had with Nimo wasn't as unique as I thought it was.  Maybe it was attainable with Donut and Freya too.  I just had to approach it differently than I had with Nimo.  Thankfully, I still had two more months of the class to go, because I was beginning to understand that this class wasn't going to be just about teaching horses basic skills...