Photo: A horse with a high play drive is a horse who has magnificence in their make up and we don’t want to squash that. HOWEVER, I like to create a sense of personal space for moments of play like this one with Monty.
The Lesson
There is a beautiful thing that can start happening any time from now. The more fear or nerves or anxiety or resistance that is released from your horse, the more likely that you will start to see a beautiful power coming up in them – and you had better have thought through how you are going to handle it.
This audio Lesson really gets into explaining what is so big about the Mirror Game in creating a bond that will knock your socks off and about the good habits with each other that will continue into your ridden work.
Click here for an alternate audio of Fear & excitement & power
Written Version of the Audio
We talked in the Foundation Principles, about how fear and excitement collapsed together when we didn’t use our fear to make ourselves safe – and then we couldn’t tell them apart.
I spent a large part of my life running away from exciting things just because I did not understand that. It is an amazing feeling now, part of the happiness thing, for me to be able to recognize excitement and enjoy it. And I have LOVED helping other people find that too.
Well here’s the reason for this lesson.
Excitement in your horse brings power. And it’s a good idea to have thought about how you are going to handle that power, because it would be SUCH a shame to squash it.
I have watched some dressage riders use that power for collection and stunning expressiveness from their horse.
I have seen Nevzarov for example use that power in airs above the ground with his horse leaping around right next to his ear. I smile at that image – I am afraid that would be way out of MY Comfort Zone yet.
So what WOULD be in my Comfort Zone? How could I be part of the excitement and the power without flipping into my oh shit zone? Because I don’t know about you but even though I am an overweight middle aged lady and not so athletic any more, I WANT this power. It’s part of my dreams of dancing with my horse.
The answer might be as simple as having my horse just move a bit further away from me while they express that excitement and power at the beginning anyway. I am laughing here – I have felt this with Sunny in particular – I can have all those feet flashing around high in the air 3 or 4 metres away – but it wasn’t so much fun to be too close.
So let’s break THAT down. What would it take for my horse, filled with power and excitement, to be able to move away from me happily and still be in that amazing wonderful place?
Well, we would need to have established reliable signals for moving away, turn this way and that, go here and there.
But here’s the big deal – we can use the Mirror Game – mirror each other, building the excitement, but using the mirroring itself to communicate what we want. So THIS is why you really get into the Mirror Game – FEEL into them with the Mirror Game, develop a bigger Comfort Zone with it as you use it for better communication. Because there is a TOGETHERNESS that you end up with in the Mirror Game that is a deep communication.
We could lift OUR legs in the Spanish walk. We could dance up and down on the spot in the piaffe or extend it into the passage. We could play with expressing that excitement and power in running fast. We could do whatever we dream…
And we can do that in our heads – in our minds – I know some of you have physical limitations and you don’t have to be actually physically doing it to be able to mirror them. You can mirror them in your mind.
Wow… does this bring up any ideas for you?
And let’s take this further to your riding. How are you going to ride that excitement? Can you ride the kind of power and excitement that I am talking about?
Well, that idea makes me laugh – here’s that overweight middle aged lady thing again – I know I couldn’t – but I also know that I CAN. I know what has to change in order for riding that power to be in my Comfort Zone.
Part of what had to change was in my riding ability itself. How boring it sounds when I talk about effortlessly powerful posture. But what that effortlessly powerful posture makes possible is NOT in the slightest bit boring. And because that takes a while to develop, we are going to start working on the ridden version of it in the next lesson.
So what else has to be in place for me to handle power in the saddle? I am going to need the same kind of really good communication that we talked about at liberty. I would definitely need THAT to be in my Comfort Zone riding power and excitement.
…… and that will come from the Mirror Game.
It’s the Mirror Game that has you sooo together in mind, body and spirit that you can dance with that power. It’s the start of that togetherness, it’s how you can create the communication together, create the bond that has you looking after each other even in excitement and power.
So NOW go have some fun with the Mirror Game – from a whole new perspective!
Up next
In your next Lesson, we help your horse to find a Comfort Zone with any tools you are using on the ground so that any fear and anxiety around them does not adversely affect their self carriage AND your ability to fast track riding together as one being.