LivElise

Trevlig avslappnad helg!

How relaxed can you be when your horse gets excited or misbehaves?

Today I had a lesson with my students. One of them has a 6-year-old gelding who stood in a field until a month ago. He wasn't handled much at all and now she is working towards his first ride.

He has many little misunderstandings, naturally as he knows nothing, which causes him to "misbehave" quite often. He doesn't yield, invades personal space, tries to pull away when she asks him to trot, doesn't stop when she asks and in general looks quite bracey and resistant.

Each time he "misbehaves", or things don't go the right way, my students gets a bit tense, doesn't stay relaxed.

It's quite natural for us to get tensed and tight when things don't go right. We want to immediately say NO! to our horse.
If we do this, we go with the horse's energy. We create even more excited, frustrated, tensed energy.

I am the leader, I have the final picture of how I want everything to feel like. My horse has no idea how nice things can be and feel when we work together. I need to be in this nice relaxed and calm energy all the time.

Even if I need to correct and be firm with the horse.
The more attention we put on things that DON'T work and AREN'T good enough yet, the more negative energy we put into them.

This is why horse training is very much like meditation. We almost need to become a super-Yogi, always aware of our emotion and energy - and the emotion and energy of the horse.

Can you cause your horse to join you in relaxation?