Enter the Goddess

I thought taking lessons was the solution to my problem. Eventually, it turned out to be. Only, not initially. I thought "Nothing bad can happen in a lesson! I have a teacher now, so that won't be!"

Lessons come in many packages and sometimes in disguise. You might think your lesson is about one thing, only to realize it was about something different, and maybe much, much more.

With riding a horse, safety is of course one of the top priorities. Oh, you want to be able to do things on your horse. Top-level competitors continue to take lessons. You and your horse can always get better; that's one of the beauties and challenges of this riding thing. But safety is always an underlying issue. With green, rank beginners, it's probably THE biggest thing.

First you have to learn what you don't know. Since I hadn't ridden as a child or young adult, I didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. My body had no memory that it was trying to reproduce. So I was constantly wondering "Is this how this is supposed to feel? Is this right?"

Gayla (The Goddess, as I came to dub her) has had many, many riding lessons in her life. Many other lessons, too, but they're for her to tell. She's had those scary instructors that would make me cry just to have them look at me. The ones who yell, who diminish, who rant and rave and think that's how they're going to make you better -- they're not for me.

She's tough. I'm sure she took it and did them one better while she was at it. I would have crumbled into a little pile of horse manure at the mere thought...not that they would have taken me on as a pupil, anyway. Those types are generally for advanced riders. I'd taken lessons with 8-year-olds before, remember?

No, Gayla never said one thing that made me feel inadequate, old, unprepared, foolish or bad. She either read me correctly (she'll cry if I yell at her) or it was a choice she made to not be like those instructors she'd had. She has a great eye. It took me awhile to figure out she wasn't really looking at me, much. Hmmm. She's not even looking at me!! How can she teach me?

It turns out she was figuring out everything from watching my horse. Those darned horses. They are that perfect mirror. They do exactly what you tell them to do -- whether you realize it or not. Just like my golf swing...the ball goes exactly where I hit it. Into trees, water, the rough... She knew what I was doing (and not doing) from looking at the horse. Plus, she had to look at the horse to teach me how to ride it.

Okay, this is one big misconception I had at the beginning. I thought basically that all horses could do pretty much everything, from jumping to dressage to barrel racing to being cute in a show ring. Yeah...that's sort of true. Like it's true that most humans can play basketball to some level -- only some are Michael Jordans. Most humans can dance, but some are Fred Astaire. Most humans can sing, but some are Barbra Streisand.

Horses are athletes, but within that are hundreds of variations and differences in conformation (how they're put together), personality, work ethic, age, experience and general condition. No two are alike, just as no two humans are alike. So, each rider and each horse is an utterly unique combination. Of course they're all different. Duh.

Learning how to ride has some basic essentials, of course. The poetry begins when you have enough tools in your personal toolbox to address the uniqueness that is your horse. You learn to adjust for that horse that loves to go fast, or the one that needs prodding. You learn how to help your horse and yourself to be the best possible combination that you can be.

The goal of that, ultimately, is for the safety and comfort of the horse -- which is always a horse's first priority. But once your horse feels safe and comfortable a whole lot of miraculous things begin to occur.

It's all about the relationship. That's a woman thing. Men riders might not feel that way, or express it that way, although they should. In this relationship, the human must establish his/her leadership. Like dogs or children (probably not cats...mine don't see me as their leader, I'm sure), horses want you to be their leader. It is the leader's job to take care of them, tell them what to do and how to do it, and to keep them safe and comfortable at the same time.

You want to make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. So I've read and been told. That works with humans, too. You are working with pressure and release. Asking and the reward, which is a release from pressure.

I'm not talking about PRESSURE, either. Those horses can feel a fly anywhere on their body. A little bit will do, unless they've gotten so deadened to pressure from some over-zealous rider or trainer. First you ask, then you ask a little harder, then you demand. That's always the order.

From less to a little more to demanding. Having their attention first means asking a little. Having to metaphorically (or literally) yell at your horse because you haven't gotten its attention first is probably your fault. Oh, well, it's always your fault. The human's in charge, remember?

Set your horse up for success. Would you yell at a 5-year-old child "Be brave! Cross that puddle! Go down the road and face those big trucks! Stand next to that big noisy machine!" And then yell at them or smack them with a stick if they don't? Of course not. I hope.

No, you would gradually introduce them to those scary things and let them know that they can trust you. It's a process and it can be a long one or a short one -- but it takes as long as it takes.

Of course, if you're afraid, it's going to be pretty hard to convince your horse that it shouldn't be afraid. Who's the leader here?

Poor Gayla. She might have thought Autumn and I weren't going to make it. Green horse plus green rider equals black and blue. Could this relationship be saved?

Breathing Room

One of the dictionary definitions of breathe is to make manifest. Another is live. Another is to pause and rest before continuing.

Remembering to breathe has always been a problem of mine. Really. I'd be concentrating on something so hard I'd forget to breathe. It might have been taking tests, or learning dance steps or any of a number of tasks I was concentrating soooo much on, that I'd just forget to breathe.

I'd hold my breath. Holding your breath you are not relaxed. You are not making anything manifest, you are not living and you are not pausing and resting before continuing. You are frozen, tense...and waiting. Probably waiting to take your next breath, only maybe you don't realize that.

The word inspiration (also respiration) comes from the same root meaning. Inspiration is to breathe life into an idea. When you don't breathe, there is no life. Nothing can happen. Dead.

So, I realized that a lot of the time I was on this horse I was holding my breath. That couldn't have felt very relaxing to Autumn, and I'm sure I was not feeling very relaxed. I was waiting for what she was going to do next. I was in a very re-active mode, not an active one. If you are not active, you are not the leader. You need to be the leader of your horse. They are waiting for you to tell them what to do.

From the horse's point of view, a "leader" who is perched as rigid as a clothespin on their back, not breathing, is not a leader. They are a nervous wreck. How much confidence do you think that inspires in the horse?

To my little horse's credit, she didn't particularly take advantage of my non-leadership stance. She was giving me the benefit of the doubt, more or less. Are you asking me to do this? Are you asking me to go faster? Are you asking me to not move? Poor thing, she was probably trying to constantly second-guess me.

Other horses are not so kind. They get pissed off. What the !@##! are you doing up there? What do you want? Get off my back!! Now.

In my head I might have been thinking "I want to go right." My body might have told her "go straight" or "I'm not sure where I want to go." So she'd decide for us. Breathing may not be the total answer to being a balanced leader, but you sure can't be one without it!

Before you can get your body to relax (and your mind) you need to breathe. Consciously, sometimes. In...out...in...out. See? Not so hard. It can be, though, once your brain gets taken over with the ugly What Ifs. What if she (fill in the blank)...bucks, rears, jumps sideways, bolts, stops, goes too fast, goes too slow (never an issue with Autumn)? Never mind that she'd never done most of this.

Now that fear had entered the equation, and I accepted that unexpected, bad things can happen, I was waiting for the "what next." What else was she going to do? I was waiting for something bad to happen. Not a particularly confident, leadership place to be...neither in life in general, nor with a horse, specifically.

I was totally projecting into the future, instead of being present in the moment, as they say. The NOW was playing second fiddle to the NEXT. I was always worried. Worry is putting fear into the future.

Unfortunately, the light bulb about breathing didn't really go on. I'd think of it, I'd stop and breathe, and make it through the day. But it just doesn't change that fast. Going from rigid, non-breathing, lack of confidence to relaxed and breathing and confident does not happen overnight, just because you make that decision. Getting your brain on board is one thing; getting your body on the same page is quite another. Especially when you are in your, shall we say, mature years?

It takes time. It takes patience. It takes determination. It takes learning about your limits as well as your horse's. It takes discipline. It takes a teacher.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Boy, was I ready. Now...where's that teacher?