Day 107: What are you talking about...

Sunny Friday training :) 

The first thing most horse people know about horses is that they are certainly not people. I think we can all agree here? Then, perhaps we learn not to humanise horses so that we can treat them as horses.

And yet, we then spend years applying human logic to equine species. Because they are naughty, because they don't want to, because they are vicious etc.

What I find to be true is that human logic works for horses only in so far as clarity goes. When we know what we are talking about, when we are confident in our intentions and when those intentions are positive and applied with integrity, most horses are only too happy to oblige.

Sometimes we can create artificial clarity - if we want basic straighteners and natural motivation, we can do our warm up out on a short hack, let the nature work its magic.
We can repeat an exercise until we truly understand it - once we do, the horse usually does too...

If I try something and it doesn't work, whether I am riding or teaching, the first question I ask myself is this:

What am I talking about?

If I don't know then I am trying either to do the wrong thing or at a wrong time.

Wx