I just laughed at  myself – this post goes in more categories than any other most I’ve ever written!

Errrr how can you call that a ride?” I hear you say. 

On this ride, Bobby showed me the second baby step towards real leadership in the saddle and we didn’t ride more than 100 metres in the hour or so that we were out there. 

(The first baby step is a stable, “plugged in” seat and I got that from Peggy Cumming’s Connected Riding work.  I can’t recommend a connected riding clinic too highly.) 

Coincidentally, there’s one at our new place just outside of Warragul in Victoria (AUS) for 6 days, starting 23^rd November.  Peggy Cummings herself, is out from America, Trisha Wren from New Zealand and Robyn Hood of TTeam and her daughter Mandy, will be here from Canada. (The original mistake has been corrected here.)

Sue McKibbon is organizing it and I think there is one rider place left last I heard, and quite a few non rider places.  Email me jenny@bookswithspirit.com and I will forward it to Sue or paper plane it over to her house!) 

Back to this ride where Bobby showed me another important aspect of leadership under saddle… 

Click here for the rest of this story about leadership under saddle.

Because it enables us to respond to our horse’s needs in our pursuit of what it is that we want from our horse and the fastest way to get our horse to consider us, to co-operate with us in whatever it is that WE want, is to consider them and co-operate with them first.

So how can we do that?

We can respond to our horse’s mental, emotional and physical needs with sensitivity. 

So what is sensitivity and how can we be sensitive with our horse?

It is the ability to notice:

• That something needs changing.
• What that something is.
• And make the adaption, take whatever action is needed, as early as possible.

The more sensitive we are, the earlier we notice that something needs changing, the earlier we notice what it is that has to change and the earlier we take action.

All this sensitivity, this noticing, this awareness stuff, comes from LISTENING to our horse.

And we all listen to them in different ways.  One of the reasons that people think they cannot “hear” their horses (and I promise you, everyone can) is because we humans have many different ways of experiencing our connection with our horse and have many different ways in which we notice what needs changing.   Zen Connection with Horses addresses that “problem” with its audio lessons that lead people step by step through their awareness.

I throw this little challenge to you: 

• Decide to notice when something needs changing in order for you to get what you want from your horse.
• Decide to notice what it is that needs changing for you to get what you want from your horse. 
• Decide to take action as early as possible so that you can have what it is that you want from your horse, as easily and smoothly as possible.
• And make the time to just “be” with your horse on a regular basis so as to make all this noticing easier.

And why am I making such a “duh” suggestion, such a simple suggestion?

I am shaking my head and smiling at my reply to this question.  Because your whole world with your horse will change in the instant of that simple decision.

Here’s a free horse riding lesson sitting right there at home:

The first step to this improvement of intuition is to notice when you feel something that I call Not Quite Right, when you are around your horse.

Not Quite Right is a slightly uneasy feeling, an early warning signal if you like, that something is not OK.   You can systematically strengthen this early warning signal and figure out what it means.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Tying up is a painful muscle condition, with cramping,  stiff movement, they don’t want to move when it’s really set in. Their heart rate is elevated and they are breathing faster.  The horse is in serious pain when they are tying up. 

There is a strong school of thought that nervousness of the horse is a big contributing factor to horses that tie up. 

The method of communication that I write about in Zen Connection  with Horses and teach in clinics,  usually makes it possible  for a nervous horse to become a confident horse quite quickly.   At the very least, they become a lot more confident.  It’s very powerful.

I had just finished a healing session on this tying up and the lovely little horse was walking with much looser steps and looking more relaxed in the eye. 

I decided to teach her rider how to listen to her horse’s emotional communication so that I could go home for the night knowing that the right things would happen at the right time – so that she would know when to walk her, when to rest etc. 

This incident reminded me of how easy it is to teach people to do this and made me decide to post this helpful article here on the blog. 

Click here to read the rest of this article about how you can notice when your horse is communicating with you emotionally.

I am so happy to be able to tell you that we don’t need to walk that path any more.

 Click here for the rest of this article.

Anxious, nervous and a lack of confidence are all words that we use to dismiss our fear.  The problem is, we are supposed to listen to our fear, not dismiss it. 

Our fear is designed to keep us safe.

Yep, that’s right – we are supposed to listen to it, we are supposed to know something about it or we are supposed to do something about it and then we are supposed to take some kind of action to make ourselves safe.

What?  Nobody told you that either?

I don’t know about you, but I am over 50 years old now and the ground has got harder every year – so being as safe as I can be is a very high priority for me.

These days, I don’t wait until I feel anxious or afraid to make myself safe.  I pay attention and take action on a very small early warning signal that I call Not Quite Right.  Listening to Not Quite Right and taking action on it has taken me on the most amazing journey, both with horses and in the rest of my life.

When you get off that horse, I don’t know how long you’ll be with your horse on the ground.  But I do know that you will enjoy being on the ground, developing a relationship with your horse that world class riders would envy. 

By the time you’ve finished the 8 simple audio lessons that you take out to your horse on your MP3 player (the 8 lessons that are in the  Zen Connection with Horses book and CD package) you will be getting back in the saddle with a different and wonderful perpective on what a horse and human can be together.

And you are entitled to not only be safe – but feel safe.

Zen Connection with Horses comes as a printed book and CD package or you could be reading the e-book in five minutes and I’ll post the CD of the audio lessons out to you. 

Zen Connection with Horses, like all my books, comes with my personal ”love this book or get your money back” guarantee.  Click here.

Click here to read about how you can help your horse strengthen his back for the saddle work.

Of course, it was complete coincidence that his major foot problem came when I wouldn’t listen to him when he was saying “ride Matt” “ride Matt” for months. … yeah right!

Anyway, I have had some pretty interesting insights whilst bringing Bobby back to “work” the Zen Connection way.  For those of you who haven’t read the book yet, Zen Connection with Horses came from obeying Bobby’s strong request that I “ride Matt”.  So Zen Connection is Matt’s book.

Bobby’s been what they call a “short horse”.  That’s a horse who when things aren’t right, doesn’t move forwards.  I have come to understand quite clearly what made him like that – and in all kinds of ways, it was me.

Amongst other causes not important right now, in my natural horsemanship training I completely misunderstood the purpose of getting the horse to stand still while we do stuff to them – like throwing ropes, flapping plastic bags and cracking whips.  And I completely misunderstood that sleepy look that Bobby got when I was doing these things.

That sleepy look was about putting up with it, rather than about being completely comfortable about what I was doing. 

Using the Not Quite Right that I describe in Zen Connection with Horses, I have discovered that Bobby was standing still and putting up with an awful lot of stuff that was not in his comfort zone.  I am astounded at how generous he was to write Bobby’s Diaries when there was still so much there.

I am astounded at how generous he has been all his life to politely hold his feet to be done when it was never really in his comfort zone and I am astounded about a whole host of other everyday things that were not completely in his comfort zone. 

I misunderstood Bobby, when he was prepared to put up with something – when he was being generous enough to put up with something – I misunderstood that as being in his comfort zone.

When you are just putting up with something, do you feel really happy about doing it?  I thought not…  It’s kind of a contradiction isn’t it?  And when you’re just putting up with something, do you think you get as much enjoyment out of that situation as is possible?  Hmmm I thought not too….

So when I understood what was happening and looked for Bobby to be really happy about everything that I do with him, not just be generous enough to put up with it, then our relationship moved to a new level.

Click here to read how I changed it from just putting up with it, to being really comfortable about it.

 If you never read anything else in your life, Click here to read the rest of this article.