While I have been recovering from surgery I have been studying quite a bit and I want to share with others what I have been learning about feel, timing, and attitude.
Recovering from shoulder surgery has been a blessing because the process has taught me so much that I can relate to handling of horses and the feel I am hoping to help others experience through demonstration and teaching.
Often when I am helping a person with their horse I find we are only able to do what the horse and rider are ready for. That is OK, because we are not all ready for the same thing at the same time. I realize this so much more now that I have had to start at square one in recovery using my arm. There was only so much that I was ready for the first week after surgery, but each week I have been ready for a little more.
I often used to talk with my students about taking baby steps with their horses, and to not get in such a big hurry. Now I really understand what baby steps are. They are much smaller than I imagined and they take more time to develop than I would like to allow.
I have always been a very athletic person, and physical things came very quickly and easily for me. The challenge of only being able to move my arm an inch or less at a time has taught me how I often expect way too much too soon from my horses and students. Now I really know what it feels like to celebrate the slightest try. Even though it may not look like much effort, it may in fact be a monumental performance.
Sometimes we have a picture in our mind of how to apply a task with our horse, but when we go to perform it the results seems to be a much different picture.
Let me relate this to what I have been experiencing. I am right handed and it is my right arm that has to be immobile for 4-8 weeks except for my baby step exercises. It has been really difficult to do everything with my left hand, even though I know exactly what I want it to do. My reflexes just don't do it the first time, or the 100th time either. It's like my hand wants to obey my brain signals, but it just hasn't figured out the pattern yet. The will is there, but the coordination, and understanding are lagging.
That's the way it is so many times with horses. Often we don't allow that consideration for the horse. We think the horse ought to do it the first time he is asked to do it. We couldn't probably do what we are asking them to do the first time either.
So I am encouraging all of us to give our horse time to take baby steps and praise the smallest effort. Also remember to allow them plenty of practice to get better.
DON'T DRILL THEM!
Give yourself some slack too; you probably won't learn TRUE NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP with perfection over night. You'll be uncoordinated for a while, but eventually you will pick up the timing and a feel that will be effortless
for both you and your horse, if you just stick with it.
DON'T EVER GIVE UP, DON'T EVER STOP LEARNING, THE REWARDS ARE PRICELESS!
One more word of encouragement. I also love to draw. I decided to challenge my backward left hand by drawing a picture of a mustang, just to see if I could do it. It's not too horrible, and it was fun retraining my brain to talk to my left hand instead of my right. Proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
So no matter what habits, behaviors, or baggage your horse came with or has developed, there is hope, if you can develop the feel and communication he needs from you.
REMEMBER TAKE BABY STEPS!
|
|
