Amanda Barton's Blog

Providing feed variety for stabled horses and equine flavour preferences

2011-04-01T01:56:00.001-07:00

I’m doing a Postgraduate Diploma at Southampton University at the moment in Companion Animal Behaviour. Although it covers all animals that people might keep as companion animals there are plenty of lectures covering horses specifically. These lectures are run by a well know equine academic, Deborah Goodwin, who has many publications looking at a wide range of issues to do with horses including ethology and welfare.

When we were looking at the problems that arise when confining horses in stables we covered some interesting research that Deborah Goodwin has done to look at how we can make some simple changes to the way in which we give food to our horses. A horse is not naturally evolved to live in a 12 foot square (3.6m sq) space and improving the foraging available to stabled horses can help to reduce the risk of colic, stereotypical behaviour which may arise from boredom, eating of straw bedding and gastric ulcers. In their experiment the researchers compared the behaviour of horses who had one haynet in their stable with the behaviour of horses who had six different types of food to choose from[1]. These six types of feed were haylage, hay and hazel twigs hanging from the stable wall and three feeds were offered in buckets on the ground, swede, carrots and fibre cubes.

Significant differences were noticed in the behaviour of the horses if they were eating in single or multiple forage stables. In the single forage stable (where the horses only had hay) the horses looked over the stable door more often, moved around for longer, ate straw bedding more frequently and showed behaviour that the researches interpreted as looking for alternative resources. Even when the horses’ preferred food (established in an earlier test) was given as the single food the horses still looked over the door more frequently and ate more straw bedding than those who had multiple forages available to them. It should be noted that these food trials and behaviour observations only took place over a 5 minute period but it would seem logical that multiple forages such as hay, haylage, oat straw, alfalfa hay, chaff, ready grass or twigs in the stable are feeds that take the horse quite a long time to eat and offering variety could help the horses over a longer period than 5 minutes.

The longer term benefit of providing multiple forage to stabled horses was tested in a second study[2]. In this experiment horses were tested in a multiple or single forage stable for 25 minutes, twice a day on alternate days and over a 7 day period. As before hay was provided in the single forage stable and in the multiple forage stable the horses were offered 3 long chop and 3 short chop (chaff) foods. The results were consistent with the earlier study. Horses with multiple forages showed more foraging behaviour for longer periods, they ate all the different foods offered but had preferences towards certain ones. Stereotypical behaviours were only seen in the horses just had hay in their stables.

I found this research very interesting because it suggests a very simple and cheap way to improve the lot of horses that have to be stabled due to constraints of weather, livery yard requirements, available grazing or health. Even with a horse that is stabled due to a risk of, or diagnosed, laminitis it would be possible to offer a variety of suitable forages as there are many alternatives on the market now. Fortunately I am able to keep my horses outside 24 hours a day throughout the year but should a health problem cause one to have to be stabled for a period I would certainly experiment with this option.

In another related piece of research flavour preferences of horses were tested[3]. A wide range of flavours which have traditionally be used around the world were selected and the trials showed the following preferences for the 8 horses tested. The most preferred flavours, in order, were; fenugreek, banana, cherry, rosemary, cumin, carrot, peppermint and oregano. Interestingly garlic, which is widely used as a flavour for horse food was not favoured by the horses tested.

I need to go to the health food shop to see if I can find ways to put these flavours into food in order experiment with this myself. If you had a horse that was reluctant to eat a food (especially if it contained a supplement that you want him to eat) adding fenugreek might be worth a try. I am a great fan of Simple System[4] feeds as I have found great benefit in removing added molasses from horses feed and I am swayed by Jane Van Lennep’s argument that we should increase fibre and be careful of cereals in our horses diets due to the way that they are digested in the horses’ gut. Sometimes horses are reluctant to move from the sugary feeds that they are used to when owners change over to Simple Systems and perhaps the owner adding one of these flavourings might help the situation. Alternatively for a stabled horse or, one that is given a large amount of feed, it may be interesting to split this feed into several bowls each with a different flavour. Certainly when I was trying to pursue an underweight TB to eat more this knowledge may have made my life a lot easier.

[1] Goodwin, D., Davidson, H. and Harris, P. (2002). Foraging enrichment for stables horses: effect on behaviour and selection. Equine Veterinary Journal, 34 (7). 686 – 691.

[2] Thorne, J., Goodwinn, D., Kennedy, M. Davidson, H. and Harris, P. (2005). Foraging enrichment of individually housed horses: Practicality and effects on behaviour. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 94. 149 – 164.

[3] Goodwin, D., Davidson, H. and Harris, P. (2005) Selection and acceptance of flavours in concentrate diets for stables horses. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 95. 223 – 232.

[4] http://www.simplesystemhorsefeeds.co.uk/

Some centering exercises

2011-03-17T05:41:00.000-07:00

A series of exercises to help find your center

These exercises come with an apology to all those people who find it difficult to visualize a picture inside their heads as these notes are written with a visual reader in mind. On clinics we can work with kinesthetic people and do these same exercises in a different way but space does not allow me to write the full details for this here in these notes.

Finding your central axis

Before locating the specific point which is your center its useful to get an idea of your central axis. Dancer Andre Bernard said “ideal posture can be found when you allow the parts of the structure to balance as close to the central axis as possible”.

Choose one of the following exercises that works best for you.

1. Visualize a line of light and energy coming down from the sky and going through the dead centre of your crown, brain, neck, chest and abdomen, then exiting between the middle of your legs and continuing down all the way into the centre of the earth. Spend a short while aligning your body around this central line of energy, which you can think of as the core of your body. If you like you can gently rock your body a few millimeters from side to side in order to find the central point of right-left balance around your core, and then rock a few millimeters forward and back so that the front and back of your body can find their point of balance around your core. (Qi Gong exercise)

2. (Alternative to exercise 1) Visualize a miniature searchlight positioned between your feet, coming up through the horse and shining a bright contained beam of light up through your central axis. Imagine the light shining out of the top of your head. The place where the light touches the sky or the ceiling is directly above the place where it originated. (From Eric Franklin)

3. Visualize your central axis as a guitar string extending from a point centered between your feet to a point at the center of the top of your head. Pluck the string and see and feel its vibration in the core of your body. Hear the sound, what is the tone. (From Eric Franklin)

Exercises to help find your center

I was working with Vicki who was riding a rather worried Icelandic horse. This little horse was hell bent on going as fast as he could while his owner was equally determined to go slowly. I’ve got to be fair to the horse here, on balance he generally had the edge in terms of speed control, and his choice was fast. We helped Vicki to breath a little more deeply first of all but right after that we talked specifically about how you can focus your attention on your center. Vicki had a number of different thoughts going on her head and she wasn’t that centered when we started out so this was a big change for her and the difference was almost immediate and profound. The horse started to breath and he slowed down as if someone had flicked a switch and found a new gear. From here we were able to progress to some other areas of horsemanship with this new calmer horse.

Here are some exercises to help you find your center.

1. Follow the core line, light or energy of your body (see exercise 1 or 2 above) to the lower belly area, about 3 or 4 fingers width beneath the naval. This is your center.

2. Find your center. Visualize any image that you like and mentally locate that image in your center to help strengthen the feeling of this place. Examples could be a luminous point of light or energy at this place, an image of the sun or a coloured ball of some kind. Some people like to choose an image from nature that they enjoy. Choose the size of this image that suits you, this could range from something the size of a golf ball to something much larger.

3. If you find it difficult to make a mental picture you can feel the center, it may have a temperature, warm or cold, a feeling of spaciousness or a comfortable sensation. This works just as well as an image for many people. If you really want some fun you could imagine some kind of sound or music associated with your center!

4. Imagine yourself as the core of a tree. Imagine a cross-section of that tree taken horizontally just below your pelvis, the trunk is surrounded by concentric growth rings. The rings become smaller and smaller as they approach your centre, feel the power concentrated around your center (Adapted from Eric Franklin)

Introducing movement in your center

Once the idea of your center as a static image has become familiar to you, and you are comfortable with a few of the exercises above, (its ideal to work with an image on and off your horse for about a week before moving on), you may enjoy adding some kind of movement to your centre. The advantages of this are to strengthen the image and feeling of centering yourself, to incorporate the idea of energy flowing in this area and to start to bring your horse and his movement into the equation. You may well find that, with some practice, you can start to influence your horse’s movement with these images and so reduce the amount of physical cues that you need to use.

1. Imagine the breath traveling all the way down to your center, remember to do a long out breath first. What influence does the breath have on the center? Some people imagine that it grows or changes in some way as you breath out. Our minds are attracted to things that sparkle, is there a way that you can bring some “bling” into your image?

2. Its natural that as your horse moves underneath you, your center of gravity is challenged and may move away from the neutral, center point we have been practicing. Visualize the relationship between the neutral point in your pelvis and your actual center of gravity during movement, during a transition for example. Merge your center of gravity back to your neutral center point once again. The relationship between the neutral point and the centre of gravity is like a yo-yo. The hand holding the yo-yo is the neutral center, the yo-yo moves away but returns again to your hand. (Adapted from Eric Franklin)

3. If you visualize your center as being round then it could potentially roll as your horse moves. Centered riding teaches that the ball at our center rolls backwards as we move forwards. You can experiment with three plastic water bottles of the same size. Place two on a table and rest the third on top. Hold the bottom two bottles as you push them along the table. What is the direction of movement of the third bottle resting on top?

I have had some great results visualizing my center rolling backwards as I prepare to move forwards and then releasing energy forwards, in the direction I want to go as I want to move off. This image/feeling works well in reverse for the back up. You can also use the same idea for lateral work. This image is interesting because it starts to release the energy stored in the center outside the body in the direction of travel.

Some people think about their center moving in the direction of travel, this can work really well for some horse and rider combinations as well. There is no right or wrong with this stuff, it just depends what suits you.

4. Move from your center. It is most beneficial to initiate every movement from your center, often we move with our head leading the movement. This exercise helps to initiate movement from the center and clarifies your intent as to where you want to go. Imagine a winch is attached from your center to the destination you are riding to. Design the details so that they are right for you. What’s your winch line made of? How does it attach to your center and to the place you are riding to? When you are ready, ride your line with the help of your winch. (Adapted from an exercise used by Mark Rashid)

Exercises to develop connection to your horse

The horse’s center of gravity is on a line from the point of the shoulder to the point of the buttock. Its just below the 13^th or 14^th thoracic vertebrae, but thats going to depend on whether and how the horse is moving. If you draw a line down from the COG it falls closer to the front legs than the hinds so the front legs take 58% of the weight and back 42%. As the head and neck move forward so does the COG.

So where is a horse’s center of energy? Well a lot less is written about this than about the human center! Sally Swift writes in her book Centered Riding 2 that the horse’s center of energy is in the same place as a human’s, that is underneath the lumbar spine. However a lot of people find it useful to think about an area underneath where they are sitting (the horse's physcial COG) as they explore these ideas.

1. As you ride imagine the horses COG or center of energy and explore the connection that this allows you to feel with your horse.

2. In his DVD, Understanding Footfall, Mark Rashid describes 3 circles of energy that are useful to think about as you are riding. Two cover the horse and one covers the rider. The front circle of energy of the horse includes the front legs, neck and head and intersects with the rider. The back circle of energy on the horse covers the hind end and legs and also intersects with the rider and the front circle. Then the rider herself has a circle of energy which will intersect with both of the horse’s circles.

As a rider we have a choice as to whether we help the horse to connect the hind and front circles by allowing the movement to come through us or we can inadvertently block this by poor balance, poor breathing, excessive body tension or a poorly fitting saddle.

Getting a feeling for the horse’s circles of energy as you ride can be an extremely useful exercise to connect the horse and rider. Remember, there is no right or wrong here, this is simply a question of what the circles might feel like to you. The idea of our own center helps as we think about our own energy circle and our responsibility to help the horse with the connection from back to front.

A trip to New England to see Mark Rashid

2010-09-16T14:41:00.000-07:00

This summer my family and I traveled over to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, home of Tim Harvey, friend and regular host of Mark Rashid. I had a really enjoyable week assisting Mark and Crissi on a group format clinic and here are some thoughts and discoveries that arose from that experience. The group format means that 9 riders, in this case, rode at the same time while focusing specifically on their own objectives. The clinic was 6 days long and that gave everyone plenty of time to work on their chosen goals, the format created a really relaxed atmosphere and seemed to allow for a very organic type of learning. By that I mean that people had some really significant breakthroughs and made these for themselves and in their own time, having time to digest and process information in a way that really seemed to enhance the learning.

Breathing, centering and teaching the feel of connection
Its hardly surprising at one of Mark’ clinics that we should open with some discussion and exercises about breathing. Building on this we also discussed connection between horse and rider in more detail than I had come across at Mark’s previous clinics. When two living things are connected a subtly of communication is possible that far exceeds spoken language between humans or techniques and cues between horse and rider. When you experience this with another person you know how they are feeling, which way they want to move or what their intention is without them having to express this in words. I am learning about this intimately from my daughter Katie. With a horse, this connection is experienced when the rider feels that they didn’t need to use an external cue, the horse “heard” or “felt” their thoughts and responded as that thought formed in the rider’s mind. I don’t mean to say that there is anything weird or magical going on, its just that incredible sensitivity is available when we are grounded, focused, aware and connected.

Mark showed us a number of exercises from Aikido which illustrate the power of establishing a connection. For example, with one foot forward we gently moved our whole body backwards and forwards on a straight plane with the motion originating from our center. The point of this exercise is to use the gentle movement to connect our center with our nervous system and with the mind. You could think about this as reconnecting the mind and the body. We did this with a partner as well, one person placed a hand on the other’s arm. The purpose of the exercise was for one person to imagine moving their arm to one side, backwards or forwards and to see if the other person could feel which way they were thinking about. First of all the two people found a connection as discussed above and then one of them just thought about moving in a particular direction. Every group experienced that the lead partner in the pair didn’t need to move at all, once a connection had been made, and their partner felt which way they wanted to move. They were able to just think about moving and have an impact on the other person. This exercise showed very clearly that once you have a connection the most subtle imaginable communication is felt by both parties. This would be a very great feel to consistently replicate when riding a horse.

We also worked with some exercises with the reins to show that if we focus on breathing, centering and our connection we can work with braces offered by our partner (or the horse) with a quietly consistent feel that was very effective indeed.

The exercises that Mark’s showed us at this clinic were reminiscent of some exercises I have done at NLP workshops with Robert Dilts. In order to teach us to achieve a connection with our clients we work through an exercise of breathing, centering and then focusing on our heart center and finally our “third eye”, a point in our forehead. The intention is that we become grounded, open and aware of ourselves so that we are able to be connected with what is around us. The objective seems to be the same as with the exercise we were working on with Mark in that by becoming connected to ourselves we can open to the possibility of a subtle connection with others. If this works between humans who are relatively dull, as animals go, then there is no question in my mind that this works between a horse and a human. Anyway, if we don’t give it a go and offer this feel then we’ll never know.

While we were talking about connection between people and horses I was really interested that Crissi raised the subject of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons have been the hot topic in the psychology world for the last decade as they may explain imitation, empathy and language acquisition. A mirror neuron is a neuron in the brain that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. The neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other animal, as though the observer were itself acting. The original experiments showed that one money watching another monkey eating fired the same parts of the brain as if it were also eating, in other words we can watch someone doing something and have similar brain activity and sensations as if we were doing that thing ourselves. These neurons have been directly observed in a variety of different parts of the brain in primates, humans and other species including birds.

Is the horse breathing?
Its not just humans who adopt poor breathing patterns. Its relatively common that horses are not breathing very well at all when they are working. This is especially apparent during the canter because at that time we should be able to hear the rhythmical out breath in time with the outside hind leg pushing off the ground. There were a couple of horses on the clinic who were not breathing well and Mark worked with each of them on the lunge at the canter to ask them to move until they could find a way to breath well. Sometimes this takes a little while and its not an entirely easy process for the horse but the benefit is that the horse is going to feel a lot more comfortable once its found a way to breath properly. Once the horse is breathing better it is able to hold the canter more easily and can quite quickly find their way back to a good breathing pattern again when the exercise is repeated over the course of a couple of days.

Since getting back from New Hampshire this is something that I have emphasized quite a bit more in my own clinics and the results have been very positive. More often than not the humans are not considering the breathing of the horse at all but its really easy to spot a problem once we start to talk about it. In one example we were working with an older polo pony, she was not moving that easily and there was something short and a little tight about her movement. It was not so much a physical issue, more that she looked as if she was holding herself tight from the inside. We asked her to trot and canter on the lunge and we all listened …….... and heard absolutely nothing at all. We waited and still heard nothing. After quite a few rounds of canter she did start to slightly blow her nose, and then nothing. After a few more rounds we started to hear a very shallow breath about once every three strides. And we really needed to stain our ears to pick that up. Shortly after that she did a large amount of nose blowing and we heard a few rhythmical breaths where she did manage to breath out on each stride. We called it a day with that exercise and repeated it for the next two days of the clinic. The second day we saw a definite improvement as it took far, far less time for her to blow her nose and start to breath out and on the third day we heard a lovely rhythmical breathing pattern from the moment she started to canter. I can’t help thinking that she is going to be a lot more comfortable breathing like this.

Openings
Maybe its just me but sometimes its really useful to hear things again …… and again…. and again! I have heard Mark talk about openings on many occasions and it was nice to have openings be the “word of the day” on the second day of the clinic so that we were all reminded to focus on what this means for us and our horses.

Think about making a simple halt to walk transition with two different frames of mind. Here’s the first example: Say we want the horse to move away from his current position. We pick up the reins and use our legs to let him know that we want to move forward. Our emphasis is on moving him away from where he is standing right now.

And the second example: To make the same halt to walk transition we could think about creating an opening into which both the horse and the rider are going to move. In order to do this we need to pay attention to what happens before we start to make the usual physical cues. We can create an opening by thinking about where we are both going to go, what’s the space that we are going to move forward into together, is there a focus on where we are going? We will very likely still use the same physical cues (at least to start with) but they are directed towards what it is that we do want, which is to move together in the opening.

The interesting point here is that the feel changes because offering an opening is such a totally different way to go about things, its generally a less confrontational option.

I felt a really amazing physical example of what openings are all about when we were doing the dismounted exercises. Mark showed us a number of exercises along the same lines but the one that really stuck in my mind was very simple. One person braced themselves ready for their partner to try to push them backwards by placing thier hands on their stomach. The first time we did this the person just pushed at the stomach and most people were pretty strong and able to resist the pushing pretty well. In the second part of the same exercise the person doing the pushing imagined an opening behind the other person into which they were both going to move. The difference in feel was absolutely amazing, it was almost impossible to resist the energy of the second push and both people moved as one into the opening.

Time and again with my own horses and when I am teaching I have found that people do much better when they think about creating an opening rather than just pushing on the horse in the direction in which they want to go. Its something really simple that affects the way to approach the situation, usually to the benefit of both horse and rider.

My thanks to Mark and Crissi for giving me the opportunity to come and assist, to Hilary Lecluse for the photos used in this blog, to Heidi Uhlman of Deer Creek Farm for hosting the clinic, to all the riders for riding and to Peter and Katie for coming with me to enjoy New Hampshire.

Finding your center

2010-07-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

How heavy is a 2 year old child?

Well that should be a simple, empirical question. My daughter, Katie, weights about 12.5kg and, most of the time, my husband or I have no problem at all picking her up. Hum… but then there are the other times. When she does not want to be picked up she seems to attached to the ground in some way and when she really wants to be put down I feel as if I can’t physically hold her any more, I don’t mean she is throwing herself around in any way or that she is tight and braced in her muscles, its just that she is strangely heavy. I think this effect comes from her completely unified physical and mental intention and that’s the interesting part as we can use the same principle of engagement of the power of our core to be more effective with our riding. In the example above Katie has dropped her center of gravity and you could argue that I’m feeling an application of what martial artists understand as “life energy” coming from her center.

So what’s going on and what does Katie’s weird weight gain have to do with horses?

A simple exercise that Mark Rashid frequently uses on clinics illustrates the power of finding our “center” and the impact this has to our balance and how we feel to another person. Working in pairs, one person places a finger on their forehead and puts all their attention on that place. Letting the finger and arm drop down but keeping their attention on the forehead, their partner then gently places both hands on the shoulders of the first person and tests their balance. The object is not to flatten them but to just gently see how stable they feel.

Next we repeat the process, this time focusing on the area of the heart by touching an area on the sternum and again focusing entirely on that place. As above, the partner tests the balance gently by placing both hands on the shoulders.

Finally, the focus is placed on the “center” which is found about 3 or 4 fingers width below the naval. Sometimes people need a little time to focus and concentrate on this, dropping their attention down to their center, when they are ready the partner again tests their balance.

Whenever I have shown this exercise to riders in clinics, they have found more stability when they place their attention in the area below the naval than either in the forehead or the heart area. Very often the difference is dramatic, to the extent that it is actually hard to push them over in the third exercise whereas they topple easily when the focus is on the forehead. It follows that learning to ride from our center could help to improve balance and reduce the amount of muscular tension we need to do the job of balancing on top of a horse.

Centers – our physical center, center of gravity and center of energy

We could mean a few things when we talk about our center. Our physical (geometric) center is a point in ourselves which you could find if you imagine dividing your body in half from left to right, in half from front to back and in half from top to bottom. These three planes meet in just one point, that’s our geometric center.

The geometric center is not necessarily the same as our center of gravity. For most of us the center of gravity lies approximately in front of the second sacral vertebra at about 55% of our height. The exact location for each individual depends on their build and alignment. A man with a very muscular torso and long, thin legs would have a higher center of gravity. Another person who habitually stands with shoulders raised and leans slightly to the left would have the center of gravity up and to the left. We become more stable and balanced if we can lower the center of gravity.

I also want to explore the idea that our center is also a center of energy that is more than just our center of gravity. In Eastern culture and disciplines such as Aikido, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Yoga, Chinese medicine, acupuncture and meditation there is focus on our center of energy which is located pretty much in the same place as our center of gravity, that is about 3 or 4 fingers width below and behind the naval. This is referred to as the dantien, tan t’ien (Chinese), one point, hara (Japanese), manipura (Indian), navel or solar plexus chakra. The center is the place where our chi, or life force is stored. It is a reservoir for our energy and a place of inner strength. Eastern disciplines teach that if we can learn to live, move and act with our attention on our center then we will be more balanced physically and emotionally. We need to learn to see from our center, move from our centre, breathe from our center.

Although modern science has not proved the presence of energy centers in the body, there are several interesting things about the center from an anatomical point of view. It has been proved that the solar plexus (and heart) is surrounded by cells that are very like those contained on the cortex of the brain. These have been shown to allow some form of “intelligence” and may account for the intuition that some people attribute to “gut feelings”. Also there is a major branching of the nervous system along the spinal cord close to the naval center and it is linked to the glands of the endocrine system, specifically the adrenal glands and pancreas.

Depending on which discipline you study, there are other energy centers in the body which are connected by meridians allowing energy to flow around (and beyond) the body. Qi Gong refers to three energy points; the forehead (the third eye or Ajna), the heart (Anahata) and the pelvic center or many other disciplines, such as Yoga, refer to 7 chakras running up the spine from the perineum to the crown of the head. This also includes a chakra close to the naval. In the most simple terms these points are different ways of dividing up the energy in the body.

In a New Jersey State prison, muggers were shown videos of people walking along the road and asked which they would have mugged. Usually the prisoners were in complete agreement, it was those who where out of balance or out of sync in some way that they chose. Those who were centered were hardly ever chosen.

So what does all this have to do with horse riding!

What part of your body do you associate with strength? Upper body? In fact the strongest muscles of the body are below the waist, the muscles that attach to the pelvic girdle. By focusing attention here we can move in the most efficient way which means only using the muscles that we need to do the job in hand. Often people move with large amounts of muscular tension in the whole body, horses can feel this and will usually respond by matching this with tension in their own bodies. This is neither efficient for movement nor healthy in the long term.

There is also a connection between to extent to which we are mentally present and quiet in our mind when we are riding and whether we are centered. Focusing attention on the center stills an over active mind and improves our ability to communicate with the horse.

It generally seems to be the case they when a rider gets very analytical they are “in their head” and they quickly become unbalanced with a high center of gravity and no awareness of their center of energy. Its not surprising that we have such a focus on our heads, we have a big, heavy brain and many of our sense come from ears, eyes and nose which are located on our head.

We are often distracted with thoughts of the future and “what ifs”, fears or thoughts that are totally unconnected with riding a horse. In the exercise described at the start of this blog that’s like the first test of balance where the person is totally focused on a place on their forehead.

Instead, learn to focus on your center when you are riding. Not only will this help to improve your balance by lowering your center but also you will learn to still your mind. Focus on the center is so much more useful to the task of riding then many of the other unconnected thoughts that arrive, uninvited, inside our heads.

My next post is a series of exercises to help with centering, moving from the center and connecting with your horse by centering.

Take control of Fear

2010-03-21T15:15:00.001-07:00

You are walking down a dark alley late at night when you hear footsteps behind you. You take a quick look around and see a powerfully built stranger swathed in a large black coat gaining on you with long strides. His face is partially hidden in the shadows.

You quicken your pace. But so, it seems, does he.

Now you start to feel very apprehensive, you wonder why you are walking down a dark, deserted alley late at night. The alternative route is better lit and more frequently used.

Thoughts run swiftly through your mind as you briefly debate the possible scenarios. “I was stupid. How far is the other end of the alley? … If I started running now would I make it? ….. Suppose I started yelling? That’s stupid….. He’s just someone walking down the alley going home like me … Then why is he speeding up when I do?

You cross the road

So does he.

Then you run.[1]

This story is an example of a real fear and most people can associate pretty quickly with what something like this feels like. But for a lot of people this type of dialogue, and the fear response that goes with it, is not just restricted to a fear of powerfully build strangers on a dark night. There are so many people that suffer some anxiety, apprehension or outright terror when they are riding their horses. If one of those people is you, don’t despair, there are practical things you can do to help yourself control fear and ensure that you are on control of it rather than the other way around.

The purpose of this blog is to jot down some notes about how fear works, the physiological responses that it triggers in the body and, most importantly, what you can do about it so that you can start to feel better when you are with your horse.

At the outset its important to distinguish between real and unreal fears. Real fear comes from an immediate danger in the present, we have a rapid response system designed to keep us safe by responding immediately to what’s happening and learning from the situation. For example, imagine that you are walking along in the country, thinking about nothing in particular. Dusk is falling and you almost stumble into a deep pit. You pull back just in time, jolted back to the present moment, your heart thumping. It all happens in half a second. This is an example of real fear and the rapid response that you body automatically makes (pulling back just in time). There is nothing at all wrong with our response to real fears, we need it and it keeps us safe.

The problem for riders is all about unreal fears. An unreal fear is where we create the fearful situation in our imagination, its not something that is actually happening in real time. What you are imagining might be something that did actually happen once in the past or it may never have taken place outside of your own mind. You might think that you are keeping yourself safe by anticipating problems that might arise when you are riding. While safely is paramount when we are around horses, anticipating potential problems is not the best way to avoid them. Often by thinking hard about something and ‘putting energy’ into that thought it is more likely that the feared thing will actually happen for real. Horses also pick up on our mental state because of the impact it has on our breathing and heart rate (as well as other changes) and are more likely to take over and respond unpredictably if we have disappeared into an unreal fear inside our mind.

Unreal fears paralyze us because as far as our mind and body are concerned we don’t know the difference between a vividly imagined internal image and reality. As far as your brain is concerned the very thing you are fearing is actually happening already. Your physiological response to unreal fear is exactly the same as to real fear. The problem is that unreal fear goes on for longer as nothing ever actually happens for the body to respond to because there isn’t a real problem (until your horse picks up on the way you are feeling!).

But don’t despair, if you understand how unreal fear works it is relatively simple to make some changes to the pattern. Unreal fear is based on a learned reaction to certain triggers, if you can take responsibility to changing those responses then you are going to feel much better pretty quickly.

Its worth having a basic understanding of the physiology of fear. When we suddenly stop ourselves falling into the deep pit in the example above the fear response is activated. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is in charge of this and the sympathetic branch of the ANS triggers our flight or fight response. The body is prepared for immediate action by releasing noradrenalin to activate our body organs. Heart rate, blood pressure and respiration rate are all increased. Adrenaline is released which has a widespread effect on the body such as boosting the supply of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles and stopping non-essential processes such as digestion. Adrenaline is released from the adrenal gland, located just above the kidneys, which is why you get sensations in that area when you are frightened. This system triggers quickly but is designed to go back to normal quickly as well once the dangerous situation has passed.

As well as the ANS we have a second system designed to cope with long-term stresses and fears. The hypothalamus in the brain is activated which triggers a chain of responses that leads to the production of cortisol. The crux of the problem with unreal fears is that they are, well, unreal and imagined. So, as far as our body is concerned, they don’t go away until we stop imagining them, its not like the pit in our example where we either fall in or we don’t in a split second. So if we start imagining the worst case scenario when we arrive at the yard and continue with this all the way through our chores and then our preparations for riding and then all the way through our ride, this is a long enough period of time over which the body will release a cocktail of hormones into the bloodstream, including cortisol.

Cortisol is responsible for giving the body a quick burst of energy by increasing blood sugar and lowering sensitivity to pain, the significant downside of cortisol is that is lowers the body’s level of immunity, raises blood pressure and impairs cognitive performance. The other problem is that cortisol takes a long time to leave the system once it has been produced.

So enough anatomy, what simple and practical steps can we take to help ourselves to control an overactive imagination that’s busy thinking up disaster scenarios?

What are your the triggers?

The first step to controlling your unreal fear, rather than letting it control you, is to start to observe what initially triggers your fear response. Unreal fear is generally a learnt behaviour and all learnt behaviours have a stimulus, or trigger, which tells us to start doing that behaviour. That applies even though the fear response comes from an imagined image or scenario playing inside our head. What starts that dread and foreboding and imagination running away with you? Lets take an example. Now, I really don’t like flying very much and that’s been a great test bed for me to understand more about my own fears and to help other people work with theirs. What is the trigger for me to start my fear response? It could be any number of things, packing my bag, arriving at the airport, getting on the plane, taking off or turbulence while flying. But none of those things are triggers for me. The thing that really gets me is a change in engine pitch, that’s my trigger. As soon as there is an unexpected change in engine pitch my heart is racing in a millisecond and my breathing changes, and, now I am looking for it, I am aware of the vivid, moving, colour picture inside my head of a specific disaster situation. Note that this is the trigger for me, if I spoke to another person who has a fear of flying we would almost certainly have different triggers for the fear response. There may also be more than one trigger.

Now I know what the trigger is I can be ready to consciously keep breathing deeply and to change the image inside my head so that I can reduce or stop completely the fear response to an unreal fear.

As a first step its really worth taking a good hard look at the precise triggers that start your fear response.

Be in control of your imagination, not the other way around!

Whether you are aware of it or not, once the trigger has been activated you create an image or images inside your head that make your mind and body think that the fear is real and present right now. Your physiology does not know the difference between a real problem in the outside world and one vividly imagined inside your own head.

If you can start to control the images inside your head you really can make a huge difference to your fears. Psychologists have discovered that our internal images give instructions to the brain as part of our cognitive processes. For most people this is going on without any conscious awareness but once you get wise to what’s happening you can learn to have full control over the images.

As a rule of thumb, most people are very motivated to act on internal images that are big, bright, colour, moving (like a movie) and seem as if they are located in front of our eyes and quite close to us (its hard to describe that as the image is inside our head but if you imagine a beautiful scene of a situation you really enjoy you will get a sense of where that image is in relation to you). These are generalizations and not true for everyone but they are a good starting point. Be aware that there are quite a few people that can’t see their internal images or they can only see them very briefly. If you are one of those people, don’t worry. Leave this section and move on, there are ways to change the way you are imagining your fears but that is beyond the scope of this blog.

In contrast, the brain is not going to pay too much attention to an image that is small, unfocused, black and white, still and low down in relation to us.

So, guess what the attributes are of an internal image that is creating an unreal fear? Yes, big, bright, colour, moving and usually very close to us. Those need to change!

You can play around with these images by choosing a food that you really like but perhaps it would be healthy to eat a little less, be careful what you choose as just this simple exercise might change the way you feel about the food. Imagine the food in your mind’s eye and observe where it is, what is the image like? Most likely, its colour and big and bright. Where is that picture located?

Have some fun with changing the attributes of the picture. Can you move it so that it is close to the ground and maybe to one side of you if it was previously in front of you. Can you reduce the size, how small can you make it, can you push it further away from you? Can you change it to black and white? If it was a moving image can you turn it into a photo? Have a play with these ideas and see if you feel any differently about the image as you change its attributes.

It takes some practice to get good at this but once you have the hang of it you have all the tools you need to start to take the power out of the image that is creating your fear. A small, black and white, still image, close to the ground and the size of a tiny dot does not have the power to create a huge, great big fear response.

Learn to disassociate to reduce the emotion

When we create a picture in our mind’s eye we can do that in one of two ways, either we are viewing the picture as if it was through our own eyes or we see ourselves in the picture as if it was another person looking on. When we see things as if we are looking through our own eyes, that is called associated and if we can see ourselves, as if through another’s eyes, that is called disassociated.

Another useful exercise is to learn to manipulate an image inside our head so that we can either see it as associated or disassociated. It is most common for people to create powerful, fear creating images that are associated. This is usually more frightening as it is clear to the mind that its ‘me’ that is in this bad situation. The emotion connected to a disassociated image is just not as powerful. If you can learn to disassociate this is a great tool to reduce the emotion connected to a particular image and to put you back in control. You are learning to view things as if you are an onlooker to the situation.

State management

State management is NLP/coaching talk to describe our ability to influence our mood and state of mind. You may have noticed that some days, when everything is going well and you are having a really good day, you are not troubled by fear when you are riding, while other days are awful and you feel anxious about everything. On the good days, when you are in a really good “state” you are almost certainly more positive and there is little space for your imagination to get to work planning negative outcomes. On the bad days the opposite is true. Learning to manage our state is a very important skill so that we know how to navigate from a negative frame of mind to a good state where we function at our best. A huge part of this involves us taking responsibility for the way that we feel, if we are a victim at the mercy of what life throws at us then we are not in good shape to get ourselves to a positive frame of mind. Even if we are not in control of everything that goes on around us we can be in control of the way we feel about it.

Practice your breathing

The physiological response to fear is an automatic, innate response but we do have some power to override it and return the body back to normal as fast as possible. The most powerful tool that you have is conscious control of your breathing. If you practice some of the breathing exercises in my previous blog called “A survival breath or a thriving breath” this will be a very big help in a fearful situation, unreal or real.

Learn to be in the present

One of the most powerful ways to control problems with fear and anxiety in riding is to live more in the present moment. I have got to be honest, this will fundamentally change the response to fear and anxiety but takes a lot of commitment, work and awareness.

Its probably clear by now that an unreal fear comes from our imagination. The imagination is not based in the present moment because it is not a real situation but anxiety about something that might happen in the future, it has not happened and is not happening NOW.

It you want to learn more about living in the present get one of Eckhart Tolle’s books, I would highly recommend the Power of Now.

[1] Story adapted from Free Yourself from Fears by Joseph O’Connor

A survival breath or a thriving breath?

2010-03-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

One time I asked Mark Rashid why it is that he very rarely talks to riders about their riding position. His reply really got me thinking; he said that 90% of the issues of position and alignment are fixed by getting the person to breathe properly.

Could it really be that simple?

And there is even more to breathing as well... When people (and animals) get frightened they breathe more quickly and more shallowly than when they are relaxed. Horses can detect this a mile off, I’d argue that they know exactly when we are frightened by changes in our breathing patterns (and from other physiological changes that take place when we’re anxious). They are programmed to be sensitive to things like that as they are prey animals. But to add another challenge, people don’t just breathe poorly when concerned about something, it gets to be a habit and a huge percentage of us don’t breathe very well at any time, even when we are relaxed.

You could think of this shallow breath as a “survival breath”. It gets enough air into the body so that we don’t keel over but not enough to thrive in what we’re doing. Its hard to ever really be relaxed when survival breathing is the norm. We get into bad habits when we are children and learn, develop and practice poor breathing patters as the result of copying parents or peers or as a response to stress or physical discomfort. I asked my chiropractor, a specialist in working with babies and children, when the little ones stop breathing deeply and switch to a survival breath. He said it started at the age of 2. So some of us have been practicing for a little while!

Breathing and anatomy

The muscle groups that we need to use to breathe can be split into two; first of all the primary muscles of which the most important is the diaphragm and then the secondary muscles, which are located in the upper chest and neck, which are designed to be called into service in times of stress. They are strong and adaptive but only designed to be used for the short term. The problem is that due to our lifestyle, and factors discussed above, we tend to get into a habit of overusing the secondary respiration muscles (chest and shoulders) and under using the primary respiration muscles (diaphragm).

The balance between these muscle groups should be such that 80% of the work is done by the primary muscles and 20% by the secondary muscles. In my experience, the majority of riders are completely reversing this pattern and 80% of the work to breathe is being left to the secondary muscles which are not designed to do this job long term. If you want to see if you fall into the survival breathing majority then bring your awareness to your shoulders as you breathe in. If your shoulders move upwards as you take an in breath this is a strong sign that you are overusing your secondary, upper chest muscles for breathing. Instead your shoulders should move slightly outwards, widening the shoulders as you breathe in. Other check is to put one hand on your stomach and the other on your upper chest. Which moves the most? If you upper hand on your chest is moving the most there is every chance that you are practicing survival breathing. The stomach should be the place that moves the most, out on an in breath and back in again on an out breath. Confirmed survival breathers may find that there is very little movement of the stomach during breathing. Read on to find some exercises to change this pattern for the better!

Its worth getting familiar with the location and size of the parachute shaped muscle that forms the diaphragm. This should be the star of the show when it comes to breathing. Its really useful to be able to visualize the diaphragm so that you can have a go at the exercises below. Note that the diaphragm is not symmetrical, its higher on the right to make room for the liver. Its attached to each of the lower 6 ribs and to the lumbar spine. The lower part at the back runs close to the psoas muscle which is one of the most important muscles for riders. The psoas is the only muscle that attaches to both the spine and the leg, its main function is to flex the hip joint. Poor breathing adversely affects the way the psoas works which comes right back to Mark’s words about breathing and alignment at the very start of this blog. Correct breathing also rocks the pelvis slightly with each breath, rotating forward on an inhalation and backwards on an exhalation. The exhalation straightens the lumbar curve and effectively puts you in a more “collected” position. I think this is one of the reasons that an out breath serves very nicely as a half halt and helps with all transitions. Good breathing also creates some motion at the sacroiliac joint (where the pelvis meets the lumbar spine), another critically important joint for riders.

A good breathing habit and full movement of the diaphragm is really important for our overall health. The downward movement of the diaphragm gives the organs a massage with each breath and the diaphragm is attached to the heart by ligaments so correct breathing is also good for heart function. Scientists have even proven that cancer is anaerobic and does not survive in high concentrations of oxygen (see www.breathing.com).

Breathing and fear

Fear, anxiety, anger, frustration and other negative emotions tend to cause shallow breathing. This is part of the natural physiological response. If we can learn to recognize when we are feeling these sort of negative emotions, and we know how to breathe deeply, then we can consciously calm ourselves down and, at the very least, stay in control of a situation. While breathing is an unconscious process (we don’t need to think at all about breathing most of the time) it is one that we can consciously override for the better if we choose to.

A horse is very aware when we are not breathing well. Survival breathing gives him the message that all is not well and we are preparing for some kind of emergency. As we tighten the secondary respiration muscles to drag air into the body the horse will tighten corresponding muscles and it affects the way horse moves as well as his mental state. Often times this negative cycle can be reversed simply by the rider remembering to breathe properly!!!

Exercises

If you get at all dizzy during any of these exercises then stop right away. You are getting more oxygen into your body than its used to and you are perhaps doing too much to start with.

1a) The general principle of breathing practice is that we focus on the out breath and the in breath will take care of itself. For example practice breathing out through a straw. Just take a normal breath to start with, no need to take an extra-deep breath before you exhale. Push the air through the straw until you naturally reach the end of that breath. Make sure you hold the straw in a relaxed way. Practice for about 5 minutes and note the difference in your breathing when you have finished. After a bit of practice with the straw try the same exercise without it, just imagining that you have a straw (from The Breathing Book by Donna Farhi).

1b) As an alternative you can imagine that your out breath creates a thin golden thread that winds and spirals away from you as you breathe out.

2) Lie on your back on the floor and put a book on top of your tummy. When the diaphragm is working properly the book will raise up with your in breath and down again as you breathe out. Check that you are not using your stomach muscles to deliberately move the book, it will move naturally as you breath deeply.

3a) Imagine the diaphragm moving up on an inhalation and down on an exhalation. The motion is going to be in line with your central axis.

3b) Imagine that the diaphragm as a lift (elevator) moving up and down in its shaft (your ribs). As you inhale the lift goes down and as you exhale it moves up.

3c) Imagine the diaphragm to be a parachute. As you inhale the centre of the parachute drops downwards, the sides billow and the strings loosen. As you exhale the parachute expands its dome upwards and the strings become taught again. (3a to c from Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery by Eric Franklin)

3d) Visualize that you are breathing to a point below your belt line, this helps the diaphragm to descend. (From Centered Riding by Sally Swift)

4) You can see in the diagram above that the diaphragm extends downwards at the back in two “cords”. These are called crura and these attach to the lumbar spine. Imagine these two crura reach all the way to your tailbone. Visualize someone pulling these cords as you inhale and releasing them as you exhale. (from Dynamic Alignment through imagery by Eric Franklin)

5) Try feeling that the air is going through a big, flexible tube, right the way down through the center of your body all the way to your feet. It helps to imagine this tube any colour or texture that appeals to you. (From Centered Riding by Sally Swift)

6) When you are frightened or anxious you can imagine breathing in something that will give you the courage or relaxation that you need right now. You could imagine anything you like that might help the situation, whatever is right for you. The idea is to breathe in lots and lots of tiny versions of this object so that in every breath you will take many of them into your lungs and then breathe them out again. It sounds a bit odd but can be an extremely effective technique. (from Denise McCluggage The Centered Skier)

7) Riding in walk, count how many strides your horse takes on one of your out breaths and one of your in breaths. If its easier you can just count the number of times front legs move. Are you able to lengthen the out breath and stay comfortable? What impact does this have on the way your horse is going? (Riding exercise from Mark Rashid)

You will find many, many more exercises in The Breathing Book by Donna Farhi which is a must for every breathing enthusiast!

If during any of these exercises you find that either the in breath or out breath feels a bit uncomfortable or “stuck” don’t panic! Sometimes people find that they can release the out breath but the in breath still feels like it is restricted in some way. I think this is because the trachea in the upper chest, which leads air to the lungs, gets distorted by muscular tension. That makes the in breath uncomfortable and often people describe some kind of stuck feeling or blockage in the upper chest. This is the type of thing that we can resolve easily in lessons and clinics using visualization and NLP techniques.

Inspiring words

2010-03-02T03:29:00.000-08:00

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuitions. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary....

You've got to find what you love.... The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. "

Steve Jobs (founder and CEO of Apple Inc) i

You can see the speech on youtube.com at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM

Magical patience

2010-02-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there was an old man named Yu Gong, he was almost 90 years old. In front of the entrance to his home were two big mountains which made it very inconvenient for his family to come and go. One day, Yu Gong said to his family, “These two mountains in front of the entrance, they are just too inconvenient, why not get rid of them?”

His son and grandson heard this and they said, “What you say is true, tomorrow we shall start to do it!”

His wife felt it was too difficult to move a mountain and said, “Do you guys see how tall those mountains are? How can you move such large mountains? And where will you put so many rocks and stones?”

They all replied, “We only need to work hard, and then we most certainly shall be able to move those mountains. We can take all the stones on the mountains and put them into the sea.” On the second day, Yu Gong and his family began to move the mountain. His neighbor joined them and happily they went to move the mountain together. They weren’t scared of strong winds or if it was raining, in summer they didn’t mind the heat, in winter they managed the cold, and everyday they worked non-stop. Many people thought that the project was ridiculous and said to Yu Gong, “Is it really possible to move the mountains?”

Yu Gong replied, “We will move the stones on the mountain little by little and it shall become smaller. If we work everyday non-stop, why should we not be able to move this mountain?”

There is a happy ending to this story, the heavenly emperor heard about how hard Yu Gong was working and asked the mountain gods to move the mountains away.

I had a bit of a project myself over the last couple of years with a young horse that really was extremely troubled about going out into the big wide world away from my fields. Taking her out for a walk, day after day in rain, shine and wind seemed quite a bit like moving a mountain one stone at a time.

Magic is rising 3 now, she is already a huge dark bay warmblood and has been fantastic in all respects, except for being very frightened about things out in the countryside, especially living animals, large and small things that move.

I don’t do a whole lot with my young horses before they are four or so but I do like them to be able to go for short walks in hand away from their field and friends from as early as is possible. Before they can do this they need to lead well, stop, back and turn in order to manage gates. Out in the big wide world they will have an introduction to traffic on my lane and get to meet ponies, cows and donkeys out on the New Forest, just a short walk away. I much prefer to get this done before introducing a saddle and rider.

For Magic there was nothing simple about this idea, she was terrified of pretty much everything outside the field. I went very slowly and wasn’t too concerned about this for the first couple of days but started to get a bit puzzled when things just didn’t improve. Days turned to weeks, which turned to months and still Magic was very, very concerned away from the field.

So I had to put my thinking hat on.

The keystone to Mark Rashid’s work, and central to what I aim to teach myself, is softness. By this he is talking about both muscular relaxation (so that the horse will move readily without excess tension) as well as mental availability. What we mean by availability is that the horse is a willing partner in our activity and, more than that, we are striving for a connection between the inside of the person and the inside of the horse. That’s what Mark is talking about when he uses the word softness.

The principle is that if the horse is soft you are going to be able to take that softness with you wherever you go as it’s a physical and mental state of connection. So it followed that if Magic was struggling so much away from home I must have missed out something at home in our ground work. When the horse seems fine at home but explodes in a new environment we talk about this as a horse being “light” but not “soft”, quite often when a horse is “light” everything looks and feels as if its OK but it all unravels when in a new situation. Generally speaking it pays to go back and look at the relationship between you and your horse in more detail at home to find those tell-tail signs.

By now a year had passed, about 5 months of that over the winter had been spent taking Magic on short walks with a relatively small amount of progress to be honest. Then we stayed at home for the summer, partly to see if she was just too young mentally to deal with the questions asked by the big wide world and also to take the time to build the relationship further with some gentle long lining and attention to our basics of ground work.

In Autumn 2009 I decided to raise the subject of going out into the big wide world again. By this time I was very happy with the relationship between us, Magic did seem to be very soft most of the time and there was a good deal of trust between the two of us. So I was a little disappointed that things outside were not really any better at all. Going for a short walk was manageable but not especially pleasant. However, as I was now really happy with all our groundwork I couldn’t see any option but to stick with it until we started to see some progress. And that’s where I was reminded again of the story about moving the mountain one stone and a time!

The single most important thing I learnt from Magic is that some things can take a really, really, really long time. Even though this was a young horse that had certainly had no bad experiences to do with going “on the trail” she really needed a lot of time to build confidence that it was going to be OK out there. There were no particular separation anxiety issues to do with the other horses, it seemed to be a case of very genuine fear about things when out and about.

Now, in February 2010 she has definitely turned a corner. She can go out for longer walks and cope with a wider range of things that happen such as the feral ponies, donkeys and dog walkers. The explosions turned to balking and shying which turned to snorting which then turned to heavy breathing and now I know when she is challenged as the rhythm of the breathing changes. I also get the feeling that she is much better able to control herself and does not need to resort to an instinctive behaviour as soon as she is challenged in some way.

In total the project to get her walking out fairly calmly has taken 2 years work. Interestingly Magic is still not as confident, nor can she go a far, as her field companion of the same age went happily on her first ever walk out.

In my work I frequently meet people who are having problems with hacking out, or trail riding. Having had this experience with Magic I am coming to think that some horses really, really struggle with this. Very often traditional horse training methods would back a horse at 3 and only once backed would the horse start to go out for walks. Normally the horse would have a rider to think about as well as the new stimuli of the outside world. I wonder if many horse just can’t cope with this amount of new information all at once, they need to understand what is expected of them when they go out, then repeat the process with the saddle and then again with the rider. This doesn’t apply to all horses but for some I think its critical and fixing the problem later on could be even more time consuming that it was for Magic at the outset.

The are some other general observations and things that were clarified for me by this experience:

Softness - Immediately before we had a big breakthrough I felt a very definite increase in trust between the two of us. The feel changed. I trusted Magic not to explode in front of oncoming cars and I think she trusted me that I was not leading her to certain death. I would describe this as the two of us getting on the same page and a lot of more softness was the result.
Courage – there are times when there is no benefit in pushing a horse a little bit further as they are already fully stretched with what they have going on right now. It would be dangerous and counter productive to try to do more. But there are times when its essential to push further because you won’t get any learning until you do. That means that both the human and the horse will be pushed beyond their comfort zone for a time. Its easy for us humans to put that off as it’s a challenge but an essential one to progress. Courage does not mean that we are not frightened, just that we are able to deal with that fear and still function.
Leadership and boundaries – In a potentially dangerous situation like this its essential that you are in charge and have clear boundaries about space (i.e. the horse cannot jump into your space if frightened). I noticed a big improvement when I stopped worrying so much about how Magic was feeling and if she was OK and started being really clear about speed, direction and destination. Kathleen Lindley described this type of situation beautifully by talking about how women tend to lead by consensus and men tend to just say what it is that we need to do. A simple example would be that when a group of women are deciding what time to break for lunch they will check with everyone that 1pm is going to be OK. A man is more likely to say “lunch is at one”. We need to have a “lunch is at one” attitude with our horses, they often appreciate that.
Time - I have ridden horses at the yards of some professional trainers and quite often there is a well schooled horse there that you will learn “cannot be ridden out”. I wonder if these are the Magic’s of the world that really struggle, many people don’t have the time to invest in fixing the issue at the outset.
Breeding - Magic is a very specifically bred German dressage horse. Could it be that even in a relatively short space of time we are artificially breeding horses that excel in their field (exaggerated movement in the arena) but accidentally we are breeding out qualities such as courage in the outside world, or we are just breeding more neurotic horses? If you read Temple Grandin’s book, Animals in Translation, you will find examples of how selective breeding can influence temperament in extremely short periods of time.

Sometimes I think that people want progress very quickly with their horses. Sometimes we can make a relatively simple change and there is a huge and immediate positive response, but not always. What my experience with Magic has taught me is that sometimes you just need to work away at an issue one stone at a time and then when you are least expecting it you find that you have managed to move a mountain.

A festival of anatomy - Hilary Clayton

2010-02-16T03:25:00.000-08:00

I had a great weekend at the Horses Inside Out conference (Feb 13/14 2010) and hugely enjoyed listening to Hilary Clayton give a full day of lectures covering the horse’s limbs, back, neck and exercises for mobilizing joints and strengthening muscles.

There was far too much content covered to even try to put it all down on this page but there were a few points that I found particularly interesting:

Range of back motion

I’ve been interested in the amount of (or lack of) movement in the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae since Dr Dave Siemens introduced the concept to me that there is very little movement in this section of the back. Hilary Clayton has used cadavers to estimate the range of motion in each joint of the back. I Googled to see if I could find a picture similar to what she showed us in her slides and found a very useful diagram at the following link: http://nicholnl.wcp.muohio.edu/dingosBreakfastClub/BioMech/BioMechbend2.html

If you scroll down to “Degrees of motion of selected intervertebral joints” you can click through to a version of her detailed finding about the motion found in cadavers. There is only an average of 5 degrees of motion between each thoracic vertebrae and a picture at this link shows how this movement cumulates to give the overall movement of the spine.

My take on this is that its important to remember that the movement of the thoracic and lumber sections of the spine is relatively limited but that there is a movement in this section when you consider the compounding effect of a bit of movement at each joint. The maximum amount of movement takes places between about T10 – T14.

It was also interesting to see the calculations for the axial twist of the spine (the movement that a foal makes to suckle that’s equivalent to us twisting the head to the left or right leaving the ears and eyes on the horizontal.) There is no axial twist possible at all in the joint between Occiput/C1 and a 110 degree movement possible between the joint of C1/C2. This anatomical fact is often mentioned by Mark Rashid as he uses the ability of the horse to twist at C1/C2 to help him release brace at Occiput/C1 in some contexts.

What supports the weight of the horses’ structure and the weight of the rider?

The simple answer is the ligaments. Hilary Clayton quoted some research by Zschokke who took all the muscles off an equine cadaver leaving the ligaments in place. Even without any muscles the structure could still support the weight of a rider. The conclusion is that muscles affect function but not integrity.

The role of the abdominals is to;

Stabilize the trunk
Support the guts (which weight a few hundred kilos)
Flex the back and the lumbosacral joint.

They are not specifically part of the mechanism for movement.

Muscles along the back

Running along the back are the long back muscles, the longissimus and the deep back muscles, the multifidus and the iliocostalis. If the horse experiences back pain the multifidus will be turned off and will atrophy. The deep back muscles are very important for stabilization so its really detrimental when they are turned off. The interesting part is that the muscle will not automatically start to function again when the pain has been resolved. So it specifically needs to be activated by suitable exercises. Narelle Stubbs and Hilary Clayton have developed a series of exercises in the book ‘Activate Your Horse's Core: Unmounted Exercises for Dynamic Mobility, Strength & Balance’ which she spent a whole session of the day talking about. There are some relatively simple, dismounted exercises that anyone can do with their horse to help activate appropriate muscles.

Pliance system saddle mat

Hilary’s team have been doing some testing of saddle fit and rider balance using a Pliance System saddle mat. This has 128 sensors built into a pad that can be placed under the saddle. It shows the amount of pressure at each sensor with a colour coded system. Not only can the pressure of a poorly fitting saddle be assessed but also the impact of a rider leaning backwards or forwards, mounting or turning. Interestingly, the impact of poor saddle fit was softened by a sheepskin pad more than any other pad that was tested. Apparently reindeer pads have the same effect and are cooler!

Rein gauge

Another interesting piece of research that Hilary has conducted, and developed over a period of time, is using a rein gauge to measure rein tension. She discovered that the tension alternates during the phases of the stride, in the trot the diagonal stance phase (weight on the ground for one diagonal pair underneath the body) has greater rein tension and the suspension phase has less tension. Interestingly it didn’t feel like this to the rider to the extent that they originally thought that the readings must be incorrect. The horses were tested without riders and the same pattern emerged.

In Mark Rashid’s work we talk about softness in the reins and a steady contact. For what its worth, there is a slight fluctuation in the feel about 3 times a second. I think as riders we average this feel out and look for the overall feel and softness of the contact but if you concentrate on it you can feel the differences between the stance and suspension phases in the trot.

Bitting study

In a study of bits and bitting, Hilary looked at 4 different bits; a single jointed snaffle, Sprenger Ultra KK, Boucher and a Myler comfort snaffle. A number of different behaviours were shown by the horses when some rein pressure was applied to the bit. These included desirable behaviours such as a quiet mouth and gentle chewing. There were also less desirable behaviours such as opening and closing the mouth (which produces a clanking noise), raising the bit closer to the cheek teeth (and even holding in the teeth), drawing up the tongue under the mouthpiece and finally raising the tongue over the bit which seemed to form a cushion between the bit and the hard pallet.

There was no pattern as to which bit all horses liked or did not like or which behaviour was shown with any particular bit. Hilary was of the opinion that it was the pallet pressure that the horses did not like and she suggests that this is why many of the horses liked the Sprenger Ultra KK bit. You could argue that any of pallet pressure, tongue pressure or bar pressure could be causing the problems.

X-rays did clearly show the very small amount of space in the horses’ mouth between the tongue and the hard pallet. There is not much room in there. X-rays also showed the “Mickey mouse ears” formed by the single jointed bits. These are little curvatures at the joint of the bit which could clearly be seen to make contact with the hard pallet. However I got the impression that there was no clear evidence that the horses consistently reacted badly to this, it was more than the x-ray showed that the contact surface with the pallet was smoother on the Sprenger and Myler bits.

This research is useful in that it provides some great x-ray video of the actual behaviour going on inside the horses mouth (you can see this at the link below) but does not help me to understand from a scientific point of view why it is that so many horses seem to get on very well with the Rocking S bits. I can only think that the stability offered by the design of the rings on the side of the mouth assist with stabilizing the bit so that the movement is not so uncomfortable on bars, tongue or pallet. (See more info about this bit at http://www.markrashid.com/forsale_bit.html).

You can see http://cvm.msu.edu/research/research-centers/mcphail-equine-performance-center/publications for a full list of Hilary Clayton’s research and books. A particularly useful link is http://cvm.msu.edu/research/research-centers/mcphail-equine-performance-center/publications/usdf-connection-1/ where you can see the bit research and x-ray videos of the behaviours discussed. There is also research on a host of other subjects such as mounting problems, sway in horses and the effect of head and neck position on balance, all of which were referred to during the day.

Does your communication have one possible meaning (….or more?)

2010-01-28T12:36:00.000-08:00

Something that I have heard Mark Rashid say on a number of occasions is that our children help us with our horsemanship and our horsemanship helps us with our children. I reflected on this recently as another meal time at home dissolved into a great game for our 18 month old as she ran around the kitchen (when she was meant to be sitting down eating) and more of the food was finding its way onto the floor then into a little mouth. The time I spent cleaning up later gave me an opportunity to reflect on why it is that in some situations we had complete clarity (bedtime in our case) while other times were much more confusing and stressful for everyone concerned (dinner time).

It didn’t take too long before I started to see a similar pattern in my own and in clients’ horses. Some things were going really well and other areas just didn’t seem to have the same clarity, the outcomes were not as consistent or as predictable. And that got me onto ambiguity.

For those reading for whom English is not your first language, I’ll help you out a bit with this word. Sometimes there is a word which is just ‘right on the money’ as it says exactly what you’re trying to say and ambiguity is just such a word in this case. Depending on which dictionary you have to hand, it means “having several possible meanings or interpretations” or “lacking clearness or definiteness”. I think horses really struggle with any message that has several possible meanings.

A simple example of a mixed message would be a forward leg cue given simultaneously with a tight, holding rein, this would give the horse an instruction to stop and go all at the same time, which is pretty hard to do. But I think the implications of mixed messages are far more subtle.

I was working with a friend and client yesterday who is an experienced rider and a very considerate one as well. She absolutely wants to do the best for her horse and to learn from his responses so that she can refine her cues to be both subtle and effective. She also has some concerns about her saddle fit at the moment. When she gives a forward cue sometimes her horse goes forwards and sometime he swishes his tail and slows down. This is a perfect example of ambiguity coming from the rider. When she gives the forward cue, in part she wants her horse to go forward but because she has concerns about her saddle, concerns about asking in the right way and concerns about wanting her cue to be as subtle as possible, she sometime takes the cue away before the horse has responded. In other words she is not crystal clear about what she wants from the horse when she applies the leg cue. The result is that we teach the horse that sometimes we do need him to go forward but sometimes we will release the cue if he swishes his tail, puts his ears back and backs off. In this case there was a lack of clarity from the rider because of concerns about making a mistake or discomfort caused by the saddle. The long and the short of it is that the horse ends up thinking that the leg cue has two possible meanings, that’s ambiguous and its not going to give the best results.

Fear and other emotions in the rider is another area that can create an enormous amount of ambiguity for the horse. When we are frightened we generally leave large “openings” where we are not offering the horse direction because we are dealing with our own internal physiological stress responses. This is another time where we can give the horse mixed messages and we lack the clarity that he needs to help him through the situation.

The feeling that there is a “right” or “wrong” way to do anything with a horse gets in the way of a lot of people’s clarity. I really like Mark Rashid’s argument that there are many ways to do just about anything. Some may be better or safer or more efficient than others but if we leave the idea of “right” and “wrong” behind its much easier to try something with a horse with conviction and see what happens. Once we have some conviction that its OK to try something its easier to get clear and it really helps to stop those mixed messages.

So back to dinner time, what mixed messages had I been giving my daughter in relation to meal times? Well plenty! “Please sit down” didn’t always have any meaning and I needed to take a good hard look at my own attitudes to food, experimenting with new flavors and textures so that I could think about the subtle ways in which I was influencing the situation.

In summary, if something is not working out with your horse (or your children) then take some time to check that what you are communicating has only one possible meaning.

The Elephant in the Room - Part 2

2009-11-26T08:31:00.001-08:00

In the vein of thinking about personal examples of great leadership another wonderful and inspiring story came from the same clinic from my friend Helle in Denmark.....

She has kindly written it for us here..... (thank you Helle!)

My Old Boss….

In 2002 I had the privilege to start working for ”my old Boss” in the top end of Denmark… at that time I was 25 years old, and needed a year’s work to finish my apprenticeship as a dairy farmer. My Old Boss was 54 at the time, and going to the job interview was the beginning of an ongoing relation based on genuine friendship, acknowledgement, and deep respect going both ways. I was the ”girly-type” girl in farming (I thought) - I was really good with all sorts of animals, and because of that I hadn’t really had the chance to drive any machinery outside the stables with my former bosses.

Feeling obliged to tell the truth, I was only 10 minutes into my job interview when I promised him that I was the best card on the hand with his beautiful Red Danish dairy cows, and I could drive the machinery needed to do this, but NOT very handy with field machinery… not that I wouldn’t give it a go, but just pretty confident that he could chase up better people for these assignments. He just nodded his head and started asking me all sorts of other questions.

I got the job, and a month later I had my first day at work. The Old Boss’s place had 80 Red Danish dairy Cows and about 80 ha. This was a suitable size for one apprentice and the boss. A couple of hours into my first day, again I started feeling obliged to tell the truth - this time that I suffered really badly from Arachnophobia. This is often confused with people just being scared of spiders - but I was terrified, from several bad experiences in school etc, so it was very important to me to work on this - but also working in a cow stable is not the best spot for phobias of this sort!

I grabbed the bull by the horns and decided to tell him…I spent the next two hours working out how! I finally came across it about lunchtime, feeling pretty darn childish I tried to make the most of it, and to my complete surprise once again he just nodded his head (Danes from the north often talk slow) and after a short brake he just looked at me and said: “Well that’s understandable- I’ll make you a deal, I’m shit scared of mice - how about you do the ”Micey” jobs, and I do the ”Spidery” jobs??” That solved that one, and from that day on my old boss would sweep down cobwebs, and check for spiders at my tiniest suggestion….. and I carried old bags out- and checked for mice….and fairdinkum –I once saw him pull on a rain suit in the stable - and ALSO watched him jump out of it ever so elegantly when a mouse dropped out of one leg!! Time went by and spring came, with all the paddock work that needs to be done. I was driving tractors and big front end loaders in the stable and felt right at home doing it, but dreaded the suspicion that I might get set with paddock work. Here he took me by surprise - one day he came up to me and in the most normal tone he said; Helle I’ve hooked the Mulcher on the Ferguson tractor, do you think you can take it to the front paddock and have a go at mulching that paddock?

Now - what’s the answer to a question like that?? I was completely surprised to hear myself answer a big clear “Yeah I can do that!” Thinking back this question did not have “No” as an option….he was merely asking me to TRY- That was the least I could do! My old boss just had that way about him, he would always ask if I could “Give It A Go”, and of course I could! Through that year I was mulching, plowing, pulling tree stumps, loading big bales of straw, driving huge big straw trailers around the sharpest corners, and reversing them all the way back to be unloaded. For this bloke I would give it a go anytime!

It didn’t take long before he started having me do the hard stuff - like padding down the fresh grass for silage - with big front end loaders, working very precisely with putting down concrete blocks for the road around the stable and so on. He would simply come up and ask me If I could give it a go, and then he did not hesitate to let me know that now he was actually asking me this because I could do the job better than him!

On the other hand, this boss also admitted when he was wrong. I remember one day when I had a black heifer that got sick. She had just calved one or two days before, and starting having vaginal discharge, but very smelly. I told my boss that I separated her from the rest of the cows, and that my gut feeling was that she needed treatment (not all do). He didn’t agree with me, and besides it was out of phone hours at the vet. During the day she got a bit worse- the smell got heaps worse, and I talked to him again - and again he did not agree. Heaps of cows get this and its easily treated, and not very aggressive. He reckoned that she could wait until the morning. Just about an hour later she got really bad, started laying down and uneasy, so I went to my boss and put my foot down and said to him that she needed the vet today if he wanted her to live till tomorrow. He called the vet but NOT overly convinced - until the vet came, and concluded that this was an unusually aggressive vaginal discharge after calving, and that the heifer wouldn’t have lasted until the next day!

Now I wasn’t there, but was passing when they were doing the examinations and the talk. As I passed my old boss stopped me, looked at the vet, and said; Well then I have my apprentice to thank for this - she has been saying what you just said, all day!

So what’s the sum of all this cow talk?

I have had the privilege to work for one great personality, that showed me only opportunities, and kept me safe from any defeats I couldn’t handle. By accepting my spider issue, he had me brushing down cobwebs at the end of the year. By merely asking for The Try - he had me succeeding at great tasks, and developing from ”no good ”, to ”confident and knowing ”. By acknowledging his own mistakes, and giving me credits when it was mine to claim, he showed me respect.

My old boss is a bloke to whom I owe a lot more than he will ever admit too. I’m very proud to consider him my friend, and have close contact with him and his family still. He was splendid at developing exactly what I thought to be my weak spots, and he always went about it in the softest way without any fuss. He took part in shitty jobs, and he listened intensely to my suggestions….he never lost his temper, had a mountain of patience….but if you ask me Would he put his foot down? The answer is Yes! He never had too, but not one single moment did I ever doubt that he would….he just didn’t need to - and to that there is a great difference!

The Elephant in the Room (don’t mention the ‘L’ word)

2009-11-24T06:34:00.001-08:00

I was in the arena working with Judy and her bay gelding, Sam. It was coming to the end of the last of our sessions together at the end of a three day clinic. She had come to the clinic wanting to work on some issues she was having with her horse when they were riding out in the countryside together, Sam had a tendency to spin and spook and got particularly upset when they passed other horses on the trail.

Although its hard to work directly on this sort of issue while in a totally enclosed indoor arena there were plenty of issues that did come to light that seemed as if they might be closely connected with the problems Judy was having. Throughout all our sessions I made many references to leadership, and I was talking about the clarity of Judy’s leadership of her horse. My plan was to use some exercises to show Judy that if she were to get sure about some boundaries with her horse and showed him how fast to go, where to go and which way to go (speed, direction and destination) then there was every chance that she would quickly find some improvements in the situations she was encountering out on the trail.

We were just about to finish up when Judy said something that really got me thinking; “You know”, she said, “I really don’t feel comfortable using the word ‘leadership’ in relation to my horse”.

I think Judy’s honest comment reflects a widely held view, certainly among women in the horse riding community and it does not matter if I talk to people in the UK, US or mainland Europe, I think this feeling is fairly common.

So why is the ‘L’ word the elephant in the room with us? (Saying that the elephant is in the room with us is an English expression for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed.) I think leadership has become a dirty word in many riding circles because of heavy handed or dominance based work that we have all seen at demos, on DVDs or in some clinics where the trainer is attempting to establish some kind of dominant control over a horse in the name of leadership. For many of us women, lacking the skill or physical strength that is demonstrated in that sort of demo, we see a picture that we don’t want to copy in our own horsemanship and so reject the whole picture, including the label that goes with it: “Leadership”.

So, its really easy to focus on the things that we don’t want, but it isn’t the whole concept of leadership that’s flawed but just one particular interpretation that some of us are not comfortable with. So what interpretation are we happy with?

A clinics recently I have been getting right in to have a good look at the elephant right from the start of the clinic at the group dismounted session. What I ask participants to do is to find one example of a great leader they have come across at some point and in some area of their lives. This might be a teacher, a friend, a work colleague or boss, it could even be someone on the TV, a national figure, a fictional character or an animal. I ask people to think about what it is about this leadership style that they really like and to sum up the most important characteristics of this style in just a few words.

Here is an example of one of the leadership stories that we discussed at a clinic, this is about an English teacher, kindly shared here by Steine.

Kirsten Mcguire was an exceptional woman and teacher. She possessed so many admirable qualities that did not only influence the way we were taught but the way we lived. First of all she was a calm and balanced woman. She never lost her self control, never raised her voice and never seemed annoyed. No matter what happened she was always in complete balance. You might think we could do as we pleased since she never corrected us, but she possessed a large amount of authority which made us respect her, we had no doubt that she could put her foot down if necessary and for exactly that reason it never became necessary.
Beside this she was highly motivating. Especially because she had the amazing ability to meet each individual where they were. This made everybody feel good enough and encouraged a positive development because she would always focus on the things you did well. She was so enthusiastic that you could not help but being caught by her joy.
When it all comes down to it she was an encouraging teacher who gave us all trust in ourselves, she was dependable, a steady rock to lean on. She was consistent and present and she made the classes a sanctuary for us all.
I never thought about leadership back then, but the moment I was asked to think about one person whom I looked upon as a great leader she was the one just coming to my mind. She possessed every value which is important to me, and most importantly she made everybody feel accepted and good enough, made them comfortable and to me this is the greatest thing to do for another person.

From this story we can establish certain values that are important to this person, for example; calm, balance, authority, motivation, the ability to meet people where they are, consistency, presence, dependability, trust and acceptance. Its really useful to know what your values are as they are associated with worth, meaning and desire for you. They are the primary source of motivation and when values are met people feel a sense of satisfaction and harmony, when they are not met the feelings are often the opposite. Note that our values are very personal to us. Other typical values identified by others on the same clinic were achievement, creativity, integrity, caring and freedom.

Any time someone encourages you to adopt someone else’s leadership style, and the values which go with it, then its likely that the elephant will continue to stand quietly in the room with us. However it is worth noting that leaders do just that, they do lead effectively so on some level our great leaders do need to have an ability to find authority and present things in a way that we actually want to follow.

Our job it to design a personal and effective leadership style which incorporates these qualities and is going to have integrity and congruence for us. We may need to learn some new skills that are going to help us to do that in all situations with a horse but just a change in attitude and acceptance that leadership can be a positive idea can turn around many human - horse relationships for the better.