Personal sharing

Personal sharing

When I was younger, I had the pleasure of watching several real masters work with horses. Not all where classically trained, but all of them were magical with the horses they worked.   As I watched, there was an obvious skill in play, that much I could see, but it was what I could not see which made the greatest impression. I could feel a rapport between the horse and trainer.   I have seen quite a few very good and skilled trainers work, but in these masters there was in the rapport something more. That rapport felt like a heavy cloud and I could feel a tangible link which was beyond the technical and words.   I thought about this for many years and considered it as a gift from birth. About that I was wrong. It is a very real and tangible “thing” which can be taught and cultivated. That is where my experiences have lead me.   As you read my many posts, you can see that what I write about is more than a recipe book for training. I have sought to chronicle, as best as I could, the nature of the subjective side of classical dressage. I have deliberately stay away from the technicalities. This is not due to a lack of knowledge in this regard. It seemed that if one worked on the subjective side with skill, the technical stuff would find you in your work.   It is that “cloud of rapport” which I could not find in the books that drew me in this different way. I found these master indirectly...
Finding the mind

Finding the mind

I wanted to write something of the mind in dressage and found myself at a loss of words. There are feelings and thoughts, but when working both are distractions.   Feelings are funny because they ascend and descend. What I mean by that is that we can feel into the body or feel into surrounding space and there is a feeling of subjective central self.   The mind can find itself projected in these three directions, launching itself into chains of thought, connected or disconnected. An educated mind knits careful chains and the uneducated one shows an element of confusion, not necessarily felt as confusion, but nevertheless confused.   How a lot of this inner dialogue is carried on has a lot to do with how the body is positioned on the horse. This is subtle because small defects in posture have pretty profound effects on what arises. This is where seat training is important for not only does it add emotional stability, but it assists in clarity in the thought process.   So where does the mind rest in good dressage? That is the problem for when it rests in anything that I have described here, the problem is that awareness is not in the immediate experience with the horse. Good dressage places the mind somewhere else.   Awareness and mindfulness hover in the moment. They do not fixate on an object of thought, or feeling. This placement of the mind is in a very primordial state. It is one which occurs before thoughts. Awake but not moving and yet taking in the motion. From this place we...
Working from nothing

Working from nothing

This next idea is a hard one for the horse world generally and specifically for the dressage world. There are a cluster of ideas which surround this and so there are levels upon levels. Training the horse has very little to do with the body. It is not to deny the connection to the body, that is not it. The body connection is most certainly there, This, however, is more about the order of approaching the work. The mental aspect must always be put first. The only way to approach the training is with tremendous generosity and compassion. Complete openness is not only needed, but one must give up seeing the horse as a project or the object of some scheme. When a horse presents itself, it never does so with the deliberate intention of being “incorrect.” The horse’s carriage is a complex sum of its physical and psychological world. A horse must never be punished for presentation nor should it ever be forced into any posture other than the one that it chooses. This results in always the simplest of bits, loose cavessons (or none) and absolutely no side reins or any other form of mechanical restraint. The “trick” is to supple and guide the horse into its best posture by exploration of the range of motion available to it and in particular to focus always on the extensions of the muscles and their relaxation. This is started with the greatest slowness and weakness possible. Properly done, at the very start of this work, it may appear as if nothing happens. The most gentle of touches are used....
Preliminaries

Preliminaries

When we talk about preliminaries, there are two types; those techniques which occur before the basic aids go into effect and an attitude of mind which establishes the psychological ground upon which the means of working is built.  1. Attitude in working with the horse is to consider that both lives, human and horse are preciousness. So we approach training with a sense of the sacred.   2. Consider the reality of how training is never permanent. The horse changes everyday and not always in ways that we may like. There is no end to training but there is endless refinement which comes from practice.   3.The ultimate cause of any behavior may never be known, but one action leads to another. Both horse and human find entrapment and ultimately their liberation in the chain of cause and effect. Positive “correct”causes bring good effects. The primary cause of all problems which arise in the horse have one cause; Life. Do not waste your time on why, but rather deal with what arises.   4. All training has intensity and is inevitability difficult both for yourself and the horse. This difficulty must be worked with not by aggression but rather by gentle and persistent waves of effort coupled with gentle and persistent freedom from effort.   If this last point is not followed, aggressions cause strong and violent swings in behavior or a shutting down or withdrawal of the horse’s presence.   With a proper attitude as a base, we function as a teacher. We create a devotion, are inviting the horse into an atmosphere of sanity inspired by the...