Too Picky or The Case of How Important Beginnings Are
I had a friend mention her concern that I was too picky, making it hard for others to follow what we are teaching.
I had to sit and think for a while and ask myself if that was true because it didn't feel like that. Picky, yes, but... I am allowed a but, the pickiness because of the pieces that we need to focus on as our foundation. The beginning before it all goes wrong.
A beginning that needs to be there when we get to the end. The golden thread that we can follow as it leads us to what comes next.
You will always struggle if you think each new thing that you want to do is something that you need to teach only now in this moment.
Because this never was about us teaching the horse anything.
And subconsciously, you know that. You know that the horse can do every movement without us. We see it when they play with each other, as they play with their bodies as they grow up. Foals playing with piaffe and canter sideways, able to do it all and do it well without us. Without stutters and hiccups, which we so frequently see when as humans we say to the horse I want you to do this.
Knowing that fact, when we are on their backs where does the awareness of movement for the human/horse body come from?
The secret is, to let them train us.
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Transcript Below
*When Beginnings Have A Precursor"
Too Picky or The Case of How Important Beginnings Are
I had a friend mention her concern that I was too picky, making it hard for others to follow what we are teaching.
I had to sit and think for a while and ask myself if that was true because it didn't feel like that. Picky, yes, but... I am allowed a but, the pickiness because of the pieces that we need to focus on as our foundation. The beginning before it all goes wrong.
A beginning that needs to be there when we get to the end. The golden thread that we can follow as it leads us to what comes next.
--
When I thought back to the days when I ran a riding school, I smiled, remembering the students and how wonderful they were from the very beginning. How good they looked up on our horses. How fast they advanced once those beginnings were established. Making others think they were much more advanced than they actually were. It might be why the riders coming out of our barn were known for how good their hands were. It might seem like a silly thing to be so proud of, but really, if you have good hands, so good that people can actually see that? Well, that is everything.
And for people to see that they recognized our barn as being the source, well, that was an incredibly huge compliment that touched me, as I had no idea that was what others thought of our small center. Or at least the few that considered that important.
If you take that through to the next logical thought, good hands are a sign of so much more. Because you can't have good hands on a horse with a hard mouth, as all that others will see is the horse resisting you. Having good hands is more. It means that not only that you can follow but that somehow you have the skills for the horse to change. Help those horses who struggle with bit and bridle when ruled by human beings and have lost their own beginnings. Wonderful when we can help the horses find that once again.
And then, in later years, the riders I liked best when perusing through social media and online were those who might be considered beginners, and almost always, the beginners were better! Almost consistently. Which makes one stop and wonder.
--
Even today, as I watch videos from around the world, those who I stop to admire with what they were doing with their horses often are beginners.
The way they ride, the carriage of the horses, the health of the movement often consistently better, especially those that were not in a show ring trying to impress someone.
And one has to sit back and wonder.
How is that possible?
The trail rider relaxed on the horse's back, the beginner just climbing on and saying to the horse, well, you better take care of me because I don't know what I am doing.
Why is it that the beginner is so often the one that shows the most promise? The beginner who is the one least screwing up their horses. Their horses, the ones that still have the most access to the patterns of movement they were born with.
--
Is being too picky, being too exact? Is being too picky, wrong?
Perhaps not when being too picky is saying we understand the whole, knowing that all is important.
Too picky is understanding that beginnings are the most important consideration because if you get this part wrong... well everything, everything that follows is wrong as well.
Simply everything.
If you don't get the beginnings right, then those problems created by getting it wrong, well, that is where our problems started, and until we get that part fixed, anything you build upon that will create problems for both of you. Both for you and the horses. Especially if that something is in you and is limiting your horse and interfering on him using his body fully as it was designed to work.
--
More importantly is for you understand that if you get the beginnings right, well, that is just you preparing the both of you for the next step. The next possibility. Another possibility that you haven't played with yet. But one that is now waiting there for you.
Prepared as if you had already practiced it a 100 times.
The next movement waiting for you, already premade in the beginnings that you got right.
True for every step there is for you to take on this journey.
Each step leading to the next step and the one after that.
And this is the secret that so many seem unaware of.
How when we get it right, the next new thing comes easily because it was premade in the beginning of what came before.
A golden thread we can follow to the very end.
--
You will always struggle if you think each new thing that you want to do is something that you need to teach only now in this moment.
Because this never was about us teaching the horse anything.
And subconsciously, you know that. You know that the horse can do every movement without us. We see it when they play with each other, as they play with their bodies as they grow up. Foals playing with piaffe and canter sideways, able to do it all and do it well without us. Without stutters and hiccups, which we so frequently see when as humans we say to the horse I want you to do this.
Knowing that fact, when we are on their backs where does the awareness of movement for the human/horse body come from?
The secret is, to let them train us.
--
Most don't seem to realize there is no logic in expecting we can ask the horse to do anything that isn't fully available first.
Long before we ask for it.
Every movement needs to exist in the horse already. And no, that doesn't mean that we ask for it in hand. It means the riding done to date is allowing that possibility to exist, preparing the horse for what comes next.
A beautiful secret that means once you understand that, you know which movements should be worked on, and in what order.
In the meanwhile few believe that Piaffe can be found on the back of the horse, thinking we need to train it in hand. Not realizing that if you follow the golden thread piaffe will be waiting for you when you get there. You just need to stay on course. Follow the thread that will lead you there. Each movement preparing for what you want to ask for next.
Being picky is to insist on having a beginning piece that without which follows, is wrong or incomplete. Pieces that make sure that you can find Piaffe through the work done in the movement before that. Pieces that make sure that you can request a specific diagonal in your halt-to-trot transition, etc.
Each movement easy for both of you to find together because of the work done before. Because you followed an unbroken thread that was the beginning for what could be found afterward. Making sure that the next movement is available before you even try it.
And something that you know you got right because at the end you found that thread burning brightly.
--
Too much of training through the years, lessons that you get charged for, end up being about just that. Going back and fixing the beginnings that weren't corrected earlier. Helping you learn to be a perfect beginner. The part you missed when you started.
In all likelihood, chances are small that any of this is your fault. Chances are you just listened to the instructions given. Although there is the possibility that you or if you were young enough, your parents put pressure on demanding that you do more sooner. Sooner than your skill set actually had developed to.
Almost all of retraining the horses, is taking out the damage caused by those that didn't know the aspects, the base of what you needed to have right to get started. And that is what retraining is. Trying to help them find once again the beginnings that were there, before we made them do it our way.
--
Is that perfect beginning hard, difficult, hard to understand?
Yes.
No.
Both.
No. When in fact it is in some ways exceedingly simple. Which is why it is so, so frustrating to see how many struggle and see how their horses struggle as well. Frustrating to see how many years people spend taking lessons, how much they spend, how much they care, but they are missing the key elements that make what follows true.
So, no, not difficult, just important.
Based on a very simple concept, learn to match what is in the horse first.
--
Well that isn't completely true, because to find it again once lost, once bodies both of you and the horse you are riding are patterned a certain way, well that is incredibly hard. Because movement once learned becomes unconscious and to some degree is natural now. And to change that pattern, to be aware of it even, can be incredibly difficult. So easy to start a child or an adult beginner to get it right almost from the beginning, hard to change it afterwards.
And it will never be the same for the horse. There will be those who will try not to hurt your feelings, who don't want you to feel bad, or maybe they don't want to be blamed for their part in not doing better themselves, with what they knew at the time. But the truth is that it won't be the same as what could have been. But that doesn't mean that we don't have to do all that we can to help our horses regain healthy beautiful movement which is their heritage.
So a part of me knows, sees, how simple it can be to start with the right beginnings.
--
But...
Is that perfect beginning hard, difficult, hard to understand? We gave you the argument for No, and now here is the argument for yes. Yes. It is hard.
Yes.
Because how do you know when you've reached the beginning?
Where is it? How do you know when you find it?
And that is what a lifetime of learning brings you. The understanding that what you thought was the beginning... well... a beginning sometimes has a precursor.
And when you find that precursor, you've found a new beginning. One that comes before the one that you recognized up to now.
And finding it resolves, simplifies and provides answers that maybe you often didn't even know you needed to find. But that is how you know you've found that most precious thing: a new beginning.
So I have to wonder how many times can you find a new beginning in one lifetime?
And is there an end to it all?
Is there a place that is the first beginning, and you can go back no further?
Just be warned that to find that next beginning sometimes asks that you step out of where you might be comfortable. Because it takes you in directions and onto subjects that you never considered as part of being on the back of the horse.
--
To find the whole is to know the Golden Thread to follow.
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