The Window
Reflections...
by Christa Miremadi on 04/06/12
If anyone has ever told you that they never have any challenges with their horse (or their horsemanship), they were either lying or in denial. We ALL have trouble from time to time, regardless of our level of experience, training or history with horses. Horsemanship or working with horses, is a daily affirmation of our own, glaring, abundance of imperfections. If we have any weaknesses at all, if we are unfocused, over focused, stiff, nervous, disinterested, distracted, anxious, aggressive, and macho or have too much ego going on, our horses will be sure to point it out. As we are all guilty of imperfections, we are also all going to have room for improvement when it comes to our work with our horses.
Most of us have heard the phrase “the horse is a reflection of self”. It is absolutely and completely true. Whether they are reflecting physical limitations or an emotional state of mind, they will surely put our most vulnerable “secrets” out on display for all to see. That being said, the way horses reflect us is not exactly the same as our mirrors hanging over the bathroom sink in our home. They do not reflect what they see or what is showing up on the outside of a person but rather they reflect what they feel or what isn’t showing up on the outside of a person, but lingering, like a mountain lion, hunkered down in the long grass at the edge of a meadow.
To your horse, these seemingly “hidden” emotions or weaknesses are felt as a threat. What may have started out in you as mental distraction, caused by the thoughts of a friend who is going through a tough time or stress you may be feeling over an upcoming exam that you don’t feel ready for, can become nervous tension in your horse, resulting in spookiness or even balking or worse... Horses do not have the inherent ability (or need) that so many of us humans have mastered, of being able to separate how we feel from how we appear. As a prey animal who only grazes on grasses and plants, they have no need for these kinds of physical deceptions. What kinds of animals do have a use or even a need for this ability, you might ask? A predator.
Predators such as the mountain lion I described earlier must do their best to hide their intentions from their prey long enough that they can be successful in making it their dinner. To a horse, it doesn’t really matter what the emotion we are attempting to hide from them are, the fact that we are doing it at all and "acting like a predator" reminds them of their own vulnerability and the potential threat that we ourselves (yes, all of us! Even the vegetarians out there are still considered a predator to a horse.) actually could pose! Because of this fact, despite the availability of mass marketed training products, books, videos and DVD’s that promise to provide you with “the answer” to your training challenges through techniques and equipment, the truth is, self mastery is far more valuable and illusive than anything you could buy.
By learning to first recognize, own and accept our own reactions, perspectives and state of mind and body, and then second, control these things through breathing, relaxation, focus, feel and timing, we ourselves can become our own greatest tool in our horsemanship. Our horses can only be as soft as we can be, as smooth as we can be, as precise as we can be and as interested and engaged as we can be. Can you say without a shadow of a doubt that you are all the things you expect of your horse? Centered, focused, balanced, energized, calm and clear... ALL the time? If our horse can only be as good as we are, how many of their shortcomings are really theirs, do you think?
Once we have accepted how much influence we ourselves are actually having over the results we are getting, good or bad, we can then focus on what our horses need help with and what we are capable of teaching them. We can also allow our horses to help us to learn what we need help with and what they are capable of teaching us. Although we must always remain the clear and confident leader and be the one who is in charge of providing the directions, we can still benefit from the many amazing lessons that our horses have to share with us.
Clearly, gaining a complete awareness and control over one’s self can be lifelong pursuit with no “end” or “finish”. Gaining complete awareness and control of one’s self and another being, your horse, is obviously, also going to be a lifelong journey of development. The more you learn, the more there will be to learn. The more you know, the more you become aware of what you don’t know yet. Don’t be discouraged, just remember, we are all in the same boat. We are all still learning and we all have access to the greatest teacher of self development out there, our horses.
Rehab... Not just for rock stars.
by Christa Miremadi on 01/29/12
It's no secret to most people that I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to horses in need. In fact, almost without fail, I receive at least a few emails every month from folks who either have a "great horse" that they just can't keep any more or who knows of an amazing horse that’s going to slaughter.
Please, don't get me wrong here. My heart goes out to each and every horse that is in need. I wish I could take them all and provide them each with either the rehabilitation that they deserve and find them the right "forever home" or a graceful dignified end to their long life of service.
It is devastating to think of how many horses waste (both physically and figuratively) away in people’s back yards or in unseen fields or worse, well seen fields, simply because they are too hard to get or keep fit enough to remain useful. It is also sad to think of how many people out there are also touched by this idea and want to do well for these "unwanted" horses and do their part to rescue a horse only to find out just how much work really is involved and wind up prolonging or adding to the horses suffering completely by accident.
In many cases, people good intentions are just not enough. It’s not usually as easy as just feeding and brushing the horse. Many of these horses have experienced abuse, emotional distress or physical imbalances and in a lot of cases, all three. In most cases a complete rehabilitation is necessary; mind, body and soul and of course, enough knowledge and experience to both recognize what’s wrong AND provide lasting solutions.
Over the years, I have taken in at least one rescue per year and although I’d love to be able to take in more than that, realistically, between my own horses, the horses I’m training, clinics I’m teaching, private and group lessons and family... that’s all I am capable of giving enough attention, time and finances toward to really help make the changes necessary to achieve success for that horse. It would be as unfair to only partially prepare a horse for going back into the world as it would be to send a soldier into battle with only part of his armour.
This year, thanks to two incredible women, (thanks Jan and Brenda!) Anala has found her way into my home and heart. Anala is a 6 year old, reg. Sport horse mare with a HUGE heart and an even bigger pile of baggage. She will be one hell of a project and I can truthfully say that she has already been one hell of a rewarding experience! I am thrilled at the progress Anala has already made since her arrival in mid November and even more excited to see what changes she still has in store. After injuring her owner repeatedly and being deemed “dangerous” she narrowly missed an untimely end. Anala, although far from finnished is showing great potential to become fully rehabilitated.
As well as giving this one great horse another chance at life, I am also hoping to somehow use her rehabilitation to help many more horses out there. Anala and I (along with my amazing, trusty friend with a gift for photography, Kristina Belkina) will be using this opportunity to document what is involved in one horse’s rehabilitation. It’s my hope that through this step by step documentation of our journey towards emotional, physical and spiritual balance, we can help to prepare others for doing whatever they can for the rescues they take on.
Anala will be featured in special YouTube clips as well as being the subject of my blog for the next little while and hopefully when her rehabilitation is complete; we will be able to put together a complete documentation of her journey. I hope you enjoy this window into one horse’s rehabilitation!
Making the right choice easier...
by Christa Miremadi on 09/22/11
Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something...
When it comes to horsemanship there are literally hundreds of clichés floating about. Most people have heard them, memorized them and kind of get them, but not totally... Sometimes people even get them pretty clearly only to discover later that there is a whole new level to the “idea” that they hadn’t even considered before, even though they felt like they already understood it pretty well. Sometimes there are even people who get the idea pretty clearly, put it to good use, even get pretty good results only to discover later that maybe that idea they thought they got and that they were getting good results from, well, maybe it wasn’t so good after all. One such clichés that pretty well everyone has heard at one time or another is as follows: Make the right choice easy and the wrong choice difficult.
Now, most of us get this idea pretty clearly. A lot of us even know how to put it to use when we’re working with our horses but there are not that many people out there that see it the way one of my own mentors sees it. Mark Rashid, a master horseman and an Aikido master once said something along the lines of “the wrong thing is already difficult, in fact so is the right thing. We don’t need to make the wrong thing anymore difficult than it already is, we just need to make the right thing easier.” This idea has had me captivated ever since I heard him say it, although, until recently, I didn’t quite understand how to put it to use.
Another one of these clichés that is thrown around all too often is: Make your idea his idea. This idea is again, easy to say, less easy to understand and even more, less easy to put to work. One afternoon, while working with a young horse named Boss I realized a whole other dimension of this particular idea, as well as how I could put to use the idea Mark had shared that had me captivated.
Boss was four years old. He had been gelded just about a year before and had lived a lot of his short life in a pen by himself. He did have some human contact but because he and his owner had a pretty good relationship built up he didn’t have a ton of practice being on a halter. His owner was also incredibly busy and so as a result, he didn’t have a ton of practice doing any kind of “work” either. When Boss turned four his owner felt it was time for the young horse to learn about what was going to be expected of him in his life and decided to send him to me for starting. Now, Boss was never mistreated or abused in any way but due to what I can only assume was from a lack of exposure to new people, places and situations, Boss was, well, a little overwhelmed by his new position at “school”.
I had been working with Boss for close to three weeks with almost no major progress to show for it. It took me three days to build up enough trust with the young gelding to get a halter on his head. From there, we spent another few days learning about how I expected him to behave while he was on line with me (ie. How close he could walk, how much attention he needed to be giving me and what I expected him to do If I asked him to slow down) and yet another week or so get him to feel brave enough to follow me further than the small outdoor arena just outside his paddock, past the terrifying blue barrels at the corner of the manure shed and into the round pen in the corner of the property.
Once in the round pen, it was my plan to turn him loose and support him in whatever he felt he needed to do. For the first few days, this meant I’d turn him loose and support his idea to leave me and help him move around the pen (usually at a very tense, very counter bent and very fast, elevated trot). This plan of supporting his idea and helping him to do it was meant to make the wrong choice (leaving me) seem more difficult while the right choice (staying with me) should seem easier. Well, as Mark shared years ago, it began to be clear to me that the wrong thing (leaving) was, in fact, already difficult in deed. It did not need any of my help to be any more difficult than it already was, as well as, the right choice (staying) was not only, not available while I supported his choice to leave but it was also even more difficult, emotionally speaking, for him to do than to leave, regardless of what I was doing!
I was by no means chasing him or giving him any reason to fear me what so ever, I was simply supporting him. By this I mean I was staying connected, facing him and holding my energy in such a way that I would be with him still even if he left. I have used this same technique with many other horses with a fair amount of success but when it came to Boss, what I began to realize was that even though it had in fact been Boss’ idea to leave in the first place, he was beginning to think that it had been my idea!
Even though he was the one leaving me, somehow his idea (in his head anyway) had become, he believed, mine. He was under the impression that it was my fault he was running. This was NOT what I had intended. The next time I went to the round pen with Boss, when I turned him loose, instead of supporting his idea and helping him (inadvertently causing him to believe that leaving was not only really a bad decision but also MY bad decision), I let him fully own his own decision. I stood perfectly still in the center of the pen, only following him with my eyes, while he raced around like an oversized, dressage reindeer on steroids until finally, he began to look towards me for an alternative.
I believe, at this point, he began to wonder if he really needed to be running around or if he could try what I was doing. After all, standing still in the middle of the round pen (my idea) was beginning to look a whole lot easier than the choice he had made, to run around like some crazed, oversized reindeer on steroids. Boss’ idea (to leave) was beginning to feel more difficult than the one I was representing in the middle of the pen (to say) and I hadn’t had to do anything!
It was not long before Boss slowed to a walk and then gingerly approached me from behind, stopped beside me and began to breath, lick, chew and lower his head, as if to say “this seems like a much more wise choice than running about, do you mind if I join you?” It was then that Boss was able to offer something that he had never offered me before this point in our relationship; a chance to re-enforce a good decision that he had made himself while he was in a relaxed state of mind. I had had plenty of opportunities to reward him for respecting my space, responding to a request or deciding against something he had been planning but this was the first time that I was able to reward him for a choice he’d made all on his own, with no help from me what-so-ever while he was in a state of mind that he could really take it in!
Up until then, Boss had been in a nervous state in which he couldn’t really retain information. He had been so tense, believing that everything I was offering him was too difficult to do, that he (and I) had been unable to really feel successful at anything, even though he was in fact learning some things. It wasn’t until I realized just how difficult my idea appeared to be for him, that I was able to help him see it in a different way. Once I made the right choice easier, instead of the wrong choice more difficult, Boss could begin to choose it all on his own, making our idea one in the same.
Like so many of the horses (well, all of them really) that I am able to work with, Boss has been an incredible teacher and in a short time he transformed me info a far more confident human with a far better ability to communicate my needs to the horses I work with. I was also able to help Boss to go from a shivering, nervous, “giant baby” (as I lovingly nicknamed him) to a confident, bold, riding horse, fit for crossing obstacles, riding the trail or schooling in the ring. Thank you Boss, for teaching me that sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something!
To feel or not to feel...
by Christa Miremadi on 07/13/11
I have had more than one discussion with folks over the years about whether or not horses could feel emotions or whether that notion was simply anthropomorphosis or reality. Some say that horses can feel emotions like compassion, sadness or happiness and most have a story or two to back up their belief. Other say that horses can't feel emotions and that they simply act as a result of their own instinct. These folks usually use science as their proof and say that there is no definitive evidence to suggest that horses (or other animals for that matter) can feel any sort of emotion and that anyone who says they can must be suffering from projection, meaning the emotions they believe to be reading from a horse (or other animal) are really emotions belonging to them self.
Now, although I agree that there are a great deal of people out there who do accidentally mistaken their own emotions for those that may be belonging to their horses, I am also a firm believer in the horse's ability to not only understand emotions but also experience them. Not only that but I believe that they may even be able to feel emotions in a far greater capacity than we can; stronger, more clearly and possibly even a broader spectrum of emotions. I base this belief upon my own experiences as well as science.
It has been found that the size of the Limbic system of a horse (this is the area of the brain in which emotions live) is four times the size of that of a human! Four times! To me, that can only mean that they either have four times the capacity or four times the emotions. Either way, it seems to me that it would be incredibly arrogant and ignorant to think that of all the creatures on the planet, even after all of the stories of cats who have raised ducks or deer who have made friends with dogs, we humans are the only creatures god gave the ability to feel emotions to, despite his equipping them with a (more substantial) Limbic system.
Recently, I was witness to something that clearly exemplified a horse who was experiencing an emotional reaction. The emotion that I was witness to was compassion. To be compassionate means to feel sympathy for another’s distress along with a desire to alleviate it. I believe that that is just what I saw:
It was late one evening just a few weeks ago, either late June or early July, either way it was that magical hour just after eight o'clock when the sun is at an angle that makes everything glow like it has been bathed in gold. As I stood at my kitchen sink washing a few straggling dishes I watched the herd out of the window. The horses were all munching on their dinner hay, content to be at peace after another busy day at the barn. An old, returned rescue horse I have recently found myself caring for again, stood at the far end of his paddock, ferociously trying to silence a wicked itch. Chief suffers from a skin condition that leaves him perpetually itchy. As he rocked back and forth from his left front leg to his right and then back again, over and over again, leaning into a fence post, Bandit, a seven year old Stallion whose paddock is end to end with Chief's, poked his head out of his shelter.
Bandit and I both watched Chief for a moment or two and then, even to my surprise, Bandit left his dinner, crossed his forty foot paddock, pushed Chief off the fence post he was using to itch himself with using his wrinkled up nose and pinned ears and then reached over the fence to help his buddy out!
Against his innate instinct to eat first, Bandit had left his meal, concerned for the distress that his herd mate was feeling. Obviously, Bandit also felt a desire to alleviate Chiefs distress, as he took it upon himself to do just that. I was so moved by this display of obvious compassion that it became the center of almost every conversation that I had for the rest of that week. It was such a clear and obvious display of a horse working against instinct and in a compassionate manner that I, despite my very strong belief that horses can and do feel emotions, was once again, convinced of this belief.
I have felt that horses could experience emotions for as long as I've known horses and I have been witness to a number of events that seemed to support this idea, however, this was the first experience I've had in which I was completely un-attached. This was the first time that I've watched something between two horses that I was not completely emotionally involved with and where I can honestly say that the actions I witnessed actually surprised me a little.
I know that this conversation will come up again and again and that for those who already believe, this story will be one more story to use as ammo in their debates. I also know that for those of you who believe horses do not experience emotion, there is not much I can say or do to change your mind. I am not trying to change minds here, only to help those who are ready to hear it understand the emotional capability of their horses. If you can create good things through the cue and response style training, designed for "dumb animals" that is so prevalent today; just think what you can create once you open the door to compassionate communication. The possibilities are literally limitless!
Crossing your Blades
by Christa Miremadi on 05/19/11
There is an old saying in Tai Chi. It goes: The battle is over when the blades cross. What this means is that the initial connection made between two people (or in this case, between a human and a horse) will hold the secret to the outcome of the connection. We strive for harmony but what does the connection say? Are we trying to lead or overpower? Are we confident or nervous? Do we have a plan or are we safe?
To Connect: To join, link or fasten together: unite or bind. It can be physical, emotional, spiritual, energetic... To shake someone’s hand is to connect with them physically. To laugh with someone is to connect with someone emotionally. There are so many ways to connect with another being and so many ways connecting with another being can look and feel. For example, to connect with one physically could be in the form of a hug, a warm embrace or it could be in the form of a shove, a kick or even a punch to the face.
Connection is something that pretty well every horse trainer, coach and rider talks about. It is something that most of us purposefully strive to create. It is something that, as a species, (generally speaking) humans crave and to be quite honest, so do most other living things. When it comes to horses, this is something they were born doing with each other and something that they have had to get really good at for survival. Have you ever watched a foal run with it's mother? Have you ever watched a herd of horses move together? Have you ever heard the horse at the front of the pack call out directions? Not likely. Horses can communicate quite clearly through their connections, silently and with great success.
Communication, as we normally picture it: words, writing, sounds, becomes something else all together when a true connection has been made and though we sometimes don't realize it, we humans are also, naturally, really good at it! Have you ever been with a good friend or loved one when words were not necessary?
Just picture for a moment, walking down the street with a friend or going shopping with a friend at the mall; as the two of you walk, your shoulders close together, your speed staying consistent and even, if one of you were to slow down to look into the window of a store you were passing by, in most cases, the other would "stay joined", slowing down with the first and turning towards the store. In many cases, the connection will be strong enough that not only will the speed and direction be communicated clearly (without words) but maybe even the item that caught the eye of the person who's decision it was to slow down, might be recognized as well!
In the same way, when one of the two people looking into the window begins to walk again, the other will follow, quickly falling back into a consistent, togetherness of speed and direction. In this example, neither person is an appointed "leader" however; there is usually one who initiates the changes of speed of travel and direction. Usually this is decided upon within a few moments of the "initial connection". Sometimes it's as obvious as one asking the other something like "so, where are we going today?" and other times it's less obvious. Either way, the connection is made and the communication begins. Both parties are usually comfortable with the arrangement as long as the one who takes the lead seems to have a general idea of where they are going.
The same is true in connecting with horses. Within moments of your initial connection with any horse, your horse will decide (based on the way you make your connection) whether or not it will be you or your horse who will initiate changes in speed or direction of travel as well as whether or not you are someone who they would like to connect with, be it emotionally, energetically, physically or all of the above.
Unfortunately for us, we are often so distracted by the technicalities of how to approach a horse safely, how to use or put on our halter, how to hold the lead rope, which side of the horse to be on and all the million and one other details we may or may not be needing to think about, that we forget about the importance of that initial connection. We very rarely if ever think about the way we are connecting with our horses until after the halter is safely in place and we are ready. Sometimes we don't even think about making the connection until we have finished brushing, saddling and leading our horse to the place we will ride and sometimes not even until we are safely mounted, holding our reins correctly or even warmed up...
Now, since the connection is something that nearly every horse trainer, coach and rider is talking about and since it is something that we are purposefully trying to create, it's important to remember that whether you are purposefully thinking about it or not, it is being made. Ultimately, the connection that will set the tone for your interactions with your horse will be made as you approach your horse, energetically, emotionally and spiritually. The physical connection you make will be the last connection made, whether purposeful or not. Setting clear intention of what you hope to create before you make contact will help you to create a purposeful connection with your horse.
Of course this is only the very beginning of an absolutely monumental topic: Connection, but as with most things, you have to learn to walk before you can run. Learning to set clear intentions and create a clear connection right off the bat will help you to set a foundation on which the true unity can be built. The battle is over when the blades cross!
