Rusty as barometer

Today Rusty told me I'm on the right track with my exercise regime and attention to using my core and releasing my back muscles. After all, if I want him to move with ease and release his topline, then I need to do the same. He's always been a horse who reflects the minute details of my presentation. And today we cantered both directions (haha, not at the same time!) without a hitch. And by hitch, I mean that literally. Nice even tempo set by me and no need for him to hop around with his hindquarters trying to match my tight back. Because my back was relaxed! Hooray!

Equine Affaire in Springfield, MA

I plan to be there on Saturday and Sunday, drawn to an opportunity to spend more time with my friends and teachers, Mark Rashid and Crissi McDonald. Please say hello if you are there. And for heaven's sake, please watch one or more of Mark's presentations! LOL

Intention through the reins

A friend asked me if there was anything I'd been working on prior to this latest clinic with Mark Rashid and Crissi McDonald that they helped me with.

Yes.

Sending intention through the reins is one thing I've been playing with. I got the feel of that last spring with Mark's help, actually Mark helped me feel this before last spring but I keep reviewing it. What I experienced this time is the connection from my center, not just the feeling in the reins. Hmm, my first experience was feeling this with my hands. Last spring, I recall it was feeling it through my hands and arms up into my torso. This time it was feeling it from my center, connecting through my torso, shoulders, arms, hands and with the horse. The parts become the one!

It really is 'doing things together' and it really is 'with a thought'.

So subject line is inaccurate. This is intention through connecting being to being. Reins aren't required.

And gosh oh golly, I really can't describe what I learned because it was experiential and required a knowing body/mind to demonstrate and guide a learning body/mind to find it. It's not that it's personal or private or anything. How would you describe the sound of the wind to someone who was born deaf? How would you describe the taste of a strawberry to someone without the sense of taste or smell? Maybe you know this, in which case I don't need to put words to it. I had heard about it and thought I knew what was being talked about. And partially experienced it in past clinics. I didn't know what I was missing except that my horses would reflect that togetherness in action was here and gone again.

Other things I've been working on? Using only the muscles needed and letting loose all other muscles. I'm making progress and learned clearly that I'm using my back muscles more than my core muscles (especially obvious when we canter), and using my back muscles even when I'm engaging my core muscles. So I'm bringing my awareness to that as often as I remember -- walking, sitting, riding, driving in the car, doing dishes, wherever I am, whatever I'm doing... My core muscles are a bit sore!

I also learned that when I was ground driving, I used my body for the turns to the right, and my left arm for my turns to the left. Oops! That was an easy fix. Then added to that using connection and intention and wow -- fluid transitions of rhythm and direction. Then I brought this to my riding on the last morning, on my been-there-done-that Morgan mare. She likes the new me!

A few gems from Mark Rashid

I have no extensive clinic notes to add to my clinicnotes blog, because I was busy being present and soaking in the learning.

However, a few notes I took during this past clinic time with Mark Rashid and Crissi McDonald:

If we can take the worry out of one thing, then maybe we can take the worry out of other things. Start with one job and show him how to do it.

We're looking for a frame of mind.

We'll miss the softness if we're correcting; we won't if we're directing.


On the funny end of things, Mark commented about the conversation happening between a rider and her horse as they were working through something. He said the rider said, "We're going to trot now" and the horse responded with, "I like flying saucers."

Sound like any conversations you've had with your horse?

I'm excited

Lately I have felt excited about each day, similar to how it felt as a child on Christmas morning, full of anticipation and certainty that wonderful surprises were soon.

I am also excited about my latest time with Mark Rashid and Crissi McDonald. And I am excited about the 2010 week-long clinics with them right here in New England. And I am excited about the possibility of a local Aikido for Horsemen workshop soon.

It is pre-dawn and I will enjoy the coming of the morning light on my journey to Thornton, NH and the start of another great day of horsemanship, personal growth, and friendship. How good can it get!

Riza is teaching me

I enjoy working with Riza. She has a quiet temperament, questions things without getting in a huff first, and lets me know when I am asking her to do something without my being personally involved and connected with her in the doing-it-together way.

If I think about sending her off in a circle aka lunging her, she pins her ears and tells me things are not right in the universe.

All I have to do is bring myself into connection with her again, thinking let's do this together, ok, here we go, and her ears pop forward, her eye relaxes, and off we go exploring my next request.

Awesome little gal. One day soon I will report that I am riding her. A little more understanding about the steering via ground driving aka long lining and we'll be ready to take on the next step of this adventure.

Excuses to not feel good

I get daily reminders from several sources. This morning's quote from Abraham-Hicks via Facebook is:

Tell everyone you know: "My happiness depends on me, so you're off the hook." And then demonstrate it. Be happy, no matter what they're doing. Practice feeling good, no matter what. And before you know it, you will not give anyone else responsibility for the way you feel -- and then, you'll love them all. Because the only reason you don't love them, is because you're using them as your excuse to not feel good.

--- Abraham


This quote reflects something I believe in deeply, and am practicing as often as I remember. And it reminds me of my horsemanship and my life journeys.

My time with horses and my time with family offer me the most opportunities to practice. Being human, I fail, succeed, fail, succeed, and over time am indeed developing deeper habits that harmonize with my ideals and convictions.

I recall -- with a mix of cringing and self-forgiveness -- times when I acted as if my horses were responsible for my feelings. If they didn't do what I thought they could do, I mistakenly thought it reflected on me as a person and a 'trainer' and a horse owner who promotes good horsemanship.

I recall -- with a mix of laughter and tears -- times when I acted as if my husband was responsible for my feelings.

Clearly my long term and short term memory are working. I fall into old habits with my husband too quickly, too easily, too recently! This quote is timely and I am making a poster version of it that will hang over my computer monitor where I will see it at least twice a day.

There is an abundance of excuses to not feel good. I am highly skilled in identifying and seeking the so-called comfort zone of living just behind those excuses. Letting go -- especially when 'I feel' that I've been wronged, misled, excluded -- is in fact as easy as noticing my reaction and choosing a more pleasant thought or assumption in place of the story that was aggravating me.

Perhaps the motivation to be safe around the horses is why I am more purposeful with them than in my human relationships. I have experience of being injured when I am careless around horses. Hmm, I am forgetting that I am living in a state of injury when I am careless around people. Poof! There goes another delusion! My Buddhist roots speak up now reminding me that we are all connected, and what I do, think, and feel affects me as well as others.

Today I will spend time with Rusty to see how well I can stay in my feel good place regardless of what he offers me. I am imagining a breakthrough with us today.

Dreams

I am resurrecting this from last winter as I've had some remarkable dreams recently. I like this one because of the punning. Some of my more recent and remembered dreams, though lively and meaningful, have been emotional nightmares, helping to surface some old pain kept hidden and alive by my unconscious thoughts and behaviors. I'm sure this dream from last winter is in the same category however the pain didn't wash over me like it did the past couple of weeks.

My notes about that dream: "Can't play, the kids are going to Israel..."

After waking, I wondered why I dreamt that the kids are going to Israel. I said this out loud a few times until I heard the meaning... Isreal, Isreal, Isreal... Is real!

It reflects that some of my internal reality is not playful, not fun. I can't play because my (inner) kids will be in reality.

I'm OK with that and grateful for the amazingly peaceful emptiness that comes after a release of the old, which is what happened recently. Like a knot deep in my belly is untied. Actually this recent knot was smack dab in the middle of my forehead, just above the space between my eyebrows. This knot is unravelling although I am fortunate to have periods when the whole knot feels loosened and ready to fully unravel.

Well, on second thought, I am not OK with the notion that play and getting real are mutually exclusive. Time to try out something different. Just imagine -- life with reality is full of play! I like this, and I bet my horses will, too!