The Human Struggle with Horsemanship

Many times, whether I am helping a student work with their horse from the ground, there is a bit of an emotional struggle when they are trying to learn new ways of communicating, and the horse is trying to understand the different conversation.

It seems irrelevant of the person's experience, in general, no matter where I teach in the world, there is this feeling of not wanting to get "it" wrong with the horse.

When we are young, we struggle all the time, such as when learning how to walk. Many times how adults approach young children who are learning in a safe setting, can greatly affect the outcome of how the child interprets the experience.

There are those folks who don't want anything "bad" to happen, so they are hovering nearby, always ready to catch the child from a fall, wanting to prevent the youngster from experiencing emotional frustration.

And then there are those adults that let the child fall, and clap and smile, as the child looks to them for an emotional response after they have fallen.

Which scenario do you think teaches the child that trying and not having it go well is still okay? I'm no child psychologist, but have enough real-life experience, that as the child looks to the adult for guidance, however, the grown-up is feeling, is often reflected in the young person.

I feel this is the same as how people interact and can influence their horses.

There can be so much value in allowing a supported "search" for the horse to learn how to improve. Thinking about how you emotionally respond to your horse can bring awareness to our emotions, anticipations, patterned responses that can be clouding the communication you are offering when your horse is learning.

I'm not talking about leaving the horse to flail about with no clarity or direction. For the human, there is frequently a gap between learning theory and practical application in the physical or spatial communication with the horse.

This idea for today's post came up as I was working with an unhandled horse yesterday. I intended to help her search for expanded her current "comfort zone," without causing defensiveness. This didn't mean she might not struggle in her attempts to learn and understand what I was asking.

What it did mean is that as she went through her emotional journey of trying, searching, and checking in with me, that I had to not react in a way that was a result of a personal emotional response towards what she was doing. This session was about her.

What I find is that as folks are learning, when things are "going well" with their horse, they can stay mentally present and emotionally neutral at the moment. But if the horse is struggling, it can cause folks a lot of emotional discomforts if they are making the experience about themselves.

When I talk about the struggle, I don't mean panicked or fleeing horses. I don't mean a scenario where the horse is so stressed that all they are doing is physically attempting to flee. What I'm talking about is when the horse is learning how to slow down and think through a scenario before they move. When a horse is learning they have four feet, and that they can use them separately. When a horse is learning to "ask" the human rather than "tell" them.

As I remind folks, your horse never woke up knowing that this particular day "things" were going to change. So you have to be fair in how and what you present as a conversation starter, and give yourself leeway to experiment, not only with how you are communicating but also in an assessment of yourself as you are interacting with your horse.

The moment the human's emotions classifies the experience with human emotion- such as:

My horse rejected me

My horse doesn't like me

My horse loves me

the conversation is no longer a two-way quality one. Rather it has become about the person attempting to feel good about themselves, which has nothing to do with their horse.

When folks get distracted by these feelings, they then tend to quit offering specifics and lose sight of correctly seeing and reading the horse's behavior. This in turn prevents them from them being able to support the horse, which causes frustration in both participants. It also teaches the horse the human will create perhaps an uncomfortable "space" for the horse, and then leave them there.

So I want you to notice, from your thoughts as you head out to catch your horse, lead your horse, tack up, do the groundwork, ride, etc. how many times do you find your emotions shifting. This is not a "good" or "bad" thing. This is information for you to be a better version of yourself.

Then you'll need to intentionally learn how to keep yourself in check and break the thought/emotional response cycle in yourself so that you can stay present and clear for your horse. You'll be amazed at how much improvement there is in the conversation when you don't let your distractions get in the way.