Human Skills- Tips for Releasing Tension (Mounted or Unmounted)

When learning horse skills, many people focus on the mechanics to get the horse’s obedience or compliance, with little to no self-awareness of how their mindset and behaviors will influence the equine's responses. Anticipative, hopeful, or distracted thoughts decrease the ability to reset breathing and release tension in real-time, limiting one's adaptability to help the horse. 

Without realizing it, people frequently hold their breath when interacting with or riding a horse. Whether they are in a lesson, clinic, scary moment, practicing, or otherwise, I find that as folks focus, their muscle tension may unintentionally increase as they are learning, experiencing something unfamiliar, or are faced with horse-related challenges- this affects the consistency of their breathing.

Holding one's breath can create rigidity, imbalance, unintentional communication, and continuous containment of the horse resulting from the person's braced, tight postures, and limit their ability to have independent aids to effectively communicate. This leads to chaotic, after-the-fact critique of the horse, teaching him to be defensive toward human interaction.

A great way to start improving the quality of your equine partnership is by assessing your focus and breath. Learn to recognize your mental triggers and how they limit your soft and consistent breathing. Become aware of how often you may have critical thoughts or habitual responses, which create rigidity and fatigue in your muscles, affecting the timing and effectiveness of your communication with the horse. 

More often than not, as the human intentionally exhales, the horse will immediately mimic with a sigh, blowing their nose, chewing, dropping their head, rapidly blinking, passing gas or manure, and an overall deflation in their posture.

Here are a few tips to help recognize and replace previous sabotaging patterns while learning skills to create a safe space for the horse to learn.

As you prepare to halt, give yourself and the horse a 3-2-1 countdown to gradually decrease your energy as you soften energy with slower, consistent breaths (versus holding) as you communicate for the horse to transition into the halt. Every time you halt, from the ground or in the saddle, conscientiously exhale. Does it feel difficult to exhale? If so, you have increased the holding of your breath while asking for the halt.

After you halt and exhale, assess your fingers for unintentional gripping on the lead rope or rein. This creates a brace in one's hand (starting with a locked-up neck, shoulder, elbow, and wrist), creating dragging/pulling/heavy communication, and will be mimicked by the horse becoming heavy against the aid.

After stopping, notice if you can feel your toes flat against the sole of your boot or if they are scrunched up. Tension in the toes creates a tightening of the lower leg muscles. If standing, it will create an imbalance, leaving one unable to adapt to an unexpected equine response. If in the saddle, it can develop into an unintentional gripping with the lower leg clamping onto the horse's side and frequent loss of the stirrup because of a lack of stability.

If approaching a potentially concerning area around the farm/trail/arena, talk (literally out loud) to your horse through what you will/are asking of him. Are your words rushed, or do you sound short of breath? Experiment with presenting shorter segments of communication, releasing your tension, decreasing your energy, and notice if your voice sounds like you are casually speaking with a friend rather than in a tentative or panicked tone. For decades, I have watched horses' anticipation mirror people's emotions and energy.

Before you mount, whether pushing off the ground or a mounting block, find an object to focus on that is in line with the horse's head, but about 5-10' higher than his ears. Say out loud what you are looking at as you swing a leg over. This will keep your head centered over your body, improving your balance while swinging a leg over, and can release any potential breath-holding, while diminishing built-up tension.

After sitting in the saddle, count out loud to three before you search for your second stirrup. Many people have developed a mental urgency in rushing to get their foot in the stirrup, creating physical tension and chaotic, imbalanced postures. They also have increased energy as they tend to “dive” forward with their upper body to find their stirrup while holding their breath. Practice learning to pick up your stirrups with each foot separately, without having to look, lean, or use your hand to reach for them. Having the coordination to do so eliminates the mental distraction of worrying about losing a stirrup throughout the ride.

These tips may seem easy, but I have lost track of how many people are shocked by how deeply ingrained their habits are, limiting the improvement of their horse-related skills. When time and effort are spent on raising self-awareness to refine the quality of one's skills, they can then better support the improvement and change in the horse's skills.