This lesson is not just for dressage riders – it is a necessary key to riding confidently out on the trail or indeed, in any other discipline.
Photo: I would have loved to have seen Gal & Totilus bridle-less but sigh… not to be. What a superstar of a horse and a superb rider within the confines of his chosen discipline. This audio lesson is what will enable you to have the kind of reactions that you’ll see in Edward Gal in the video below.
The Lesson
We do our best to help our horse to look after us as we look after them, but even a Caretaker horse can get a fright and react to that, if the fright is big enough.
I spent my life drawing my hands towards me when something went wrong until I re-programmed it – it’s an instinctive human reaction, even though it causes resistance and defensive reactions in our horse. Often our grabbing itself is the actual cause of the accident, not whatever it was that went wrong in the first place.
Whether our horse getting a fright ends up in tears or not, depends on our reaction to it.
The ground is too darned hard at my age and I have every intention of staying on my horse safely for as long as I ride.
You already have a beautifully magnetized riding seat in the saddle and it will be much more difficult to unseat you, but there are some common elements of successfully staying on your horse’s back when something goes wrong AND helping your horse deal with THEIR oh shit reactions well at the same time.
Lets look at what I DON’T want first, then I can focus on what I DO want.
1. I don’t want any bracing at all – because bracing anywhere in my body risks me “pinging” out of the saddle.
2. If my horse hits a solid rein – which happens if I brace my body – he tenses up, he defends against the feeling of that by STRENGTHENing his resistance and of course, that is likely to increase his fear, because he has the feeling of being forced to stay there in his fear. So I DON’T want my horse to hit a solid rein like a brick wall with nowhere to go. (You’ll see a beautiful example of this in the Taming of Totilus video below)
I DO want:
1. What I DO want, during any fright, is to look where I am going– first look where my horse is going AND THEN look where I want to go so that my horse will go there – that will keep my body positioned in the right place to stay there in the saddle smoothly.
2. What I DO want, for you this time – is what we are going to do with this quiet mind work – to program your body’s reaction into keeping the flex of your spine and pelvis into the saddle when something goes “wrong” and to feel the soapy bones of every joint being available for movement and to allow your elbows to stretch out as your horse takes the rein.
3. What I DO want, for you again – is to reprogram your neural pathways for the same circumstances as any accidents and falls that you have had and to do that as often as is necessary until your automatic reactions are useful to you – until you can feel the flex of your pelvis and spine, until you can feel all those joints available for movement, until you can feel the give in your hands when you think about those accident circumstances.
4. What I DO want is for you to drop into inner awareness when something goes wrong – if you weren’t there in the first place.
For you dressage aficionados, this YouTube video has an excellent example of what a rider can do with well programmed “Oh Shit” reactions – in this case, Edward Gal riding Lingh. Now there is a guy with soapy bones! OMGoodness this guy can ride. I wonder if he always had reactions like this or whether he too re-programmed them somehow?
Click here for the YouTube The Taming of Totilas – the footage I would like you to watch is at 8 minutes and 45 seconds in. Bless them, these blokes make it sound far more complicated than it needs to be. You CAN ride like that too – I have helped many ordinary people program their reactions to ride like that too.
When you’ve watched this short bit of video and you’re ready to make a difference in your own “Oh Shit” reactions, then get your chair/horse ready for this Quiet Mind lesson on re-programming your body to react differently under stress.
THIS time sit in your chair facing forward.
Ignore the lesson numbers in the audio, we’ve added so much content that the numbers aren’t relevant any more. Here’s the lessons I refer to:
– Releasing the fright imprint
– About melting off any bracing that you find in your body and riding with the feel of your whole body
Click here for the alternate recording of this lesson.
Written Version of the Audio
When something goes wrong and your horse takes fright, being in that magnetised place in the saddle and being in inner awareness will already have you in a very good place to stay with your horse in the saddle.
You want to ADD to that magnetising AND help your horse to recover as quickly as possible, by having useful reactions on auto pilot in the moment – by flexing your spine and pelvis deeper into the saddle and feeling the soapy bones of every joint being available for movement and allowing your elbows to stretch out as your horse takes the rein.
SO THAT is what we are going to do with your quiet mind work, today.
Like all our other quiet minds we make a commitment to be gentle with ourselves and in THIS quiet mind, we make a commitment to ourselves to NOT do anything that is painful – we work ONLY to the gentle limits of what our body is comfortable with.
Right now please, take a moment to make a commitment to yourself to do this gently, to do this the easy way – and contact me if you need any extra help with this.
Check for any feelings that something is Not Quite Right, COMMIT to noticing any feelings of Not Quite Right and back off, listening to my voice and relaxing for the rest of the audio.
This audio is designed to repeat as many times as you need until you are happy with your reactions under pressure, so you can relax and take things gently and easily.
So, take yourself into that place of inner awareness, listening inside yourself.
And deepen that feeling of listening inside by making the soft ahhh eyes and noticing everything about your breathing and what parts of your body move as you breathe. Track your breath as it moves deeper towards your lungs.
Some of you trigger that feeling of listening inside more easily by listening to your heart beat, so listen for your heart beat and if you can’t quite hear it, make soft eyes and imagine that you can.
And some of you will trigger that feeling of listening inside more easily by noticing the energy inside your body – feeling the tiny sensations or the movement of energy around your body. Some of you will be feeling a strong energy flow moving around your body.
Take a moment to enjoy the feeling of that energy now, to notice that energy now. And if you aren’t noticing anything at the moment, then just imagine that you can…
Ground yourself by reaching your attention out into the earth and then expand your awareness out into the beautiful energy of All That Is. You can do that now – reach out with all your gentle attention into the earth.
And for those of you who are religious, connecting to God like this is a beautiful thing to do. There are few things closer to God than a horse.
Notice the deeper sense of Inner Awareness that happens as you reach out into the earth and expand your awareness out into everything around you and take a moment to enjoy that.
Now allow your Inner Awareness to take you into your effortlessly powerful riding posture rather than using your mind to get there. And feel the hum of your body as you move into that position.
Hit the pause button if you need longer time here.
Turn your hands over and push the back of your hands gently on the top of your thighs and check the soft and automatic spongey feeling flexion in your pelvis and spine when you do that. Just notice that the flexion in your pelvis and spine is available and then take your hands back to just holding them in front of you in a rein position.
Now, we’re going to re-program your auto pilot riding reactions about whatever is the most important fear or resistance in YOU.
Which of the following circumstances is most important for you to work on today?
Do you get tight and tense when your horse does something that in the past resulted in you falling off?
Or do you have a tendency to grab and get tight and tense if your horse gets a fright?
Or do you get tight and tense when you’re doing something like riding past a barking dog? Or riding past machinery?
Is it that your horse used to shy at something? Or turn too quickly to go back home? Or prop suddenly at a jump? Or did they used to buck?
I am not at all suggesting that your horse is going to do ANY of these things any more. What we are working on here is YOUR auto pilot reactions to things going wrong with your horse and these old things that happened can be a good place to start that re-programming.
What is it that you are afraid of your horse doing when you are riding?
Still in that listening inside place, allow the most appropriate thing to work on today to come floating to the surface of your mind.
And if you are a beginner rider who has none of these things in your background, I suggest that you work on programming your reactions if your horse were to get a fright and make a sudden movement
Some of you will be feeling excitement right now at the thought of ditching some of this old crap forever!
Now, imagine your horse underneath you, feel them. Feel their movement as they walk along or whatever pace you are working on right now. Feel the rhythm of their stride, notice your breathing deeply and evenly.
Notice your body in that amazing magnetised place in the saddle.
You know what it feels like to take your body on purpose to the physical place where your core is tightened and your riding seat is magnetised. THIS time, feel what it feels like to have that place of inner strength automatically.
Soft eyes, just notice your body making tiny adjustments into that place of gentle inner strength.
Notice what your core muscles feel like in this awareness. Feel the energy of that.
Now imagine those circumstances that you have decided to work on today.
Feel yourself responding with this gentle inner strength to whatever circumstances you and your horse are in.
And if you feel your horse’s fright, allow it to move through you with no resistance, allow it to flow through you. Can you feel how BIG that is?
Allow all your eyes, allow all of your body to turn into the direction that your horse is going.
Allow their forward movement.
FEEL the flex of your pelvis and spine and the stretch of your elbows as you allow your horse to move forwards.
And FEEL the soft deepening of your seat and flexing of your pelvis and spine all the way through your horse and down into the earth below.
Feel what YOUR perfect reaction is to these circumstances with your horse and pause the audio here for a while if you need more time for this.
FEEL how reassuring you feel to your horse. Feel how good this gentle strength feels to your horse.
Don’t forget, we are here for you for the big stuff if you were to need extra help with anything.
I suggest that you repeat this exercise until you are happy with all your auto pilot reactions when you are riding. Every time you notice a not so useful reaction that you do when you are riding – then just come back and do this exercise again.
Don’t forget the lesson about releasing the fright imprint or the lesson about melting off any bracing that you find in your body.
For me it has been a work in progress and I expect it will be for many of you too!
Enjoy the confidence that comes from knowing that your auto pilot reactions are useful to you AND your horse.
Up next:
This lesson is about getting your horse in a deep Comfort Zone in movement.