How Healing Taught us Expansive Riding So we always go on about how we dont ride with spurs and we dont use double bridles or severe bits, and I thought it would be interesting to explain more about why. It comes from how we have learned to interact with horses on the physical level, and that comes from understanding them on an energetic level. In fact what we know about riding comes largely from the perspective on life, and living beings, we have developed from practicing energy therapy. In particular Craniosacral Therapy. One of the things we have learned is that living systems seek harmony, they seek flow and expansion, and expansion is health, whereas constriction leads to disease. This principle applies to everything, how we think and how we act. On a spiritual level it means that being open to each moment - being present - is a state of peace, whereas closing down, fearing the present moment is an unbalanced, unfulfilled state of mind. Applying that to riding has meant channeling the horses movement towards balance, and not restricting it. As soon as we found ourselves restricting the movement, we would feel tension coming into the horse, and like the domino effect, that tension would perpetuate itself deeper and deeper. In fact the trail to avoid tension has led us to make many decisions, including aspects of lifestyle and nutrition - seeking the holistic way for both ourselves and the horses. Talking about riding though, in seeking to channel the movement, and to find control which is not restrictive, it has become clear that such control can only come from inherent balance. When an object, or a living being is balanced, they are able to respond to much more subtle forces. Think of how much easier it is to steer a balanced wheel barrow than one which is all loaded on one side. So part of riding without force involves channeling a horse to move straight, and that comes from the inherent straightness in the rider themselves. We are the load after all. When you can straighten a horse there is no need to use severe bits to limit their movement, and the magical part is that when a horse does become balanced, they use their postural ring to do it, and that creates all the physiological changes which are so beautiful, such as softening the poll, loosening the jaw, telescoping the neck, raising the back, lifting the tail and elevating the paces. None of which can be falsely procured with a double bridle. Another golden rule we learned from therapy work, is that living systems, more specifically the nervous system and its connection to the musculoskeletal system, respond to sensitivity not aggression. If you want to connect in a therapeutic way with another being, in order not to lower the defenses in that system, you have to listen and acknowledge what is actually there, and then interact with as much sensitivity and presence as you are capable of. Sensitivity on your part encourages the other being to merge with you, open up and reach a state of expansiveness which leads to greater sensitivity yet. This is the principle we apply to riding a horse. It applies in many different ways, but for this post - talking about spurs and why they are destructive - I want to talk specifically about the leg and how we use it to communicate with the horse. The approach we take is similar to massage therapy, we use our legs as sensitive but effective tools to reach a horse in a way that increases their receptivity. When you can use your leg to soften a horses sides in this way, they become physically more and more sensitive. It is a sensitivity which is interactive, I dont mean tension which pushes the rider away, but accepts and responds. Riders often resort to spurs because their aiding has made the horse less and less sensitive, and the spurs carry on that process. Something that causes discomfort will always create defensiveness in a living being. Then the structures will gradually harden and become less and less sensitive, and even more aggressive aiding is required to produce the same response. It is a process of constriction, whereas increasing sensitivity is a process of expansion, which is why it is therapeutic for the horse. An intelligent leg can open a horses diaphragm, clear their lungs, release held emotions and heighten sensitivity in the tissues by influencing the nerve supply. There is no need for conditioned responses when you ride a horse in this way because it is based on each unique moment with an individual human and horse, in a highly specific moment of time. Teaching learned responses is just another form of limitation and constriction, a kind of disengaging from what is actually happening and the process. Following the unwinding process, whether in therapy or schooling a horse, is one of the real joys of life.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 20:19:55 +0000
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