STARTING FROM STILLNESS: This Changes Everything!

At the beginning of my (almost) daily yoga practice, I spend a few quiet moments sitting cross-legged on my mat.  I clear my head of any conscious thoughts by concentrating only my breathing. Yogi's call this a moment of stillness, and it was difficult for me to achieve or understand at first.  But the more I paid attention to my breath, the more I could begin to feel the way it moves my body. One day I started following that movement, allowing myself to sway gently back and forth as I drew in and released air. By "going with the flow" so to speak, I found myself coming into a state of such deep relaxation that I finally found a true moment of stillness in my mind. I was delighted, and what came next was even better. Having come to that place of stillness in my mind, it was suddenly a whole lot easier for me to move my body into downward dog positions and whatnot. Aha, finally the whole thing made sense.

The reason I bring this up is because, over the past several months, I've found that starting from stillness benefits me with horses too. I discovered this by accident when someone asked me to work with their ridiculously high-strung horse on a day I didn't feel like exerting much effort doing anything. Just being in the vicinity of the horse was wearing me out.

Now, normally, I allow nervous horses to move around as much as they seem to need, and I bring down their energy level gradually by getting them to do different things. But on this day, without even thinking about it, the second I took hold of the lunge line I gave it a quick jerk and said, "Whoa!" That halted the horse's feet for about 2 seconds. So I repeated the process a couple more times, and he finally planted his feet.

Then I just started moving away from the horse and his unwanted energy. If he attempted to move with me, I got after him and made him put his feet right back in place. I walked out about half the distance of the lunge line and just stood there. Except for making sure his feet stayed still, I didn't do anything but allow myself to feel calm despite the fact that the horse was frantically swinging his head from side to side.

Soon I began to sense a change. It felt like the horse was starting to think more about me and what I was doing, and less about any ghosts that might be trying to sneak up behind him. It was then that it occurred to me just how reasonable it was to ask him to stop moving his feet. I had unwittingly let him know that he and I were going to start from a moment of stillness. I was already in one of those moments myself...I just had to give him time to come into it with me. Horses always prefer to feel calm rather than nervous, so it didn't take him long to dump every bit of that negative energy he'd been carrying around.  

When he lowered his head and stood completely relaxed, I made my way leisurely back to him and spent some time just rubbing his neck, allowing the both of us to enjoy the moment. My own appreciation for it grew exponentially when I realized it took less than five minutes for that horse to go from high as a kite to completely calm, and I barely had to do a thing. Less than five freaking minutes!

Since that day, I've been starting from stillness every time I come into contact with an anxious or aggressive horse. How do they get that way in the first place? By being handled by folks who aren't completely comfortable handling some of their behaviors, that's how. If a horse spooks and freaks out its handler, the handler's negative nervous energy transfers right to the horse, causing it to spook a little more and so on. It's a vicious cycle. The reason it is easy for folks like me to break that cycle is because horses always do what's in their best interest. Since carrying around negative energy feels like crap, they are always willing to dump negative energy just as soon as someone lets them...a person who does not let any of their behaviors freak them out.

I've discovered that starting from stillness allows horses to dump any negative energy as soon as they meet me. It clears the air between us. It gets us both in a positive frame of mind (rather than just me) before I begin asking the horse to move its body in any way. And those few quiet moments make it sooooo much easier for horses to move their bodies the way I'd like for them to when I ask.

Sure, horses still present me with some pretty hefty challenges, but not nearly to the extent I'd come to expect.  Now, if a horse gets itself worked up about anything I ask it to do, I try to get it to halt as quickly as possible...and then I ask again from another moment of stillness. I feel like I am listening to horses much more closely than I had before. I am amazed at how much easier this has made my life, as well as the horses'.

Starting from stillness changes everything. I highly recommend you give it a try it, especially if you have not yet learned how to remain calm no matter what your horse does. That is a skill every rider needs, and this will give you plenty of time to practice. 

To learn more about getting calm behavior from your horse, 

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