I have just finished another wonderful clinic at Tonimbuk, with a bunch of wonderful people getting wonderful progress with their horses. And I’m back here at home, all excited to share with you an insight that completes the picture of how our horse works together with us, that I started to get in Zen Connection with Horses.
If you’re wondering whether this book will really give you what you and your horse are looking for, then have a look at this email. I understandably love to hear these really lovely stories.
Those of you who have read Zen Connection with Horses, will be aware that Bobby has been out in the paddock, doing nothing, for a bit over a year while he grew a complete new hoof.
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.
When I decided to write this article, I had just heard a particularly beautiful story from a discussion group member. In contrast, I had a particularly awful moment with one of my horses and I thought to share with you the different ways in which I might change that for the future – in case that is of use to any of you out there.
It’s all very well to share with you the beautiful stories – I personally love hearing about the awesome things that people are getting with this work. But what do you do when it’s not going well? What do you do when you think you’ve stuffed it up? Bobby told me a long time ago that there are no mistakes any more – just things that work and things that don’t and if they don’t work, then change it.
Well here’s a way to change it, here’s a way to get the awesome stuff happening again.
Click here for the rest of the story.
In the last clinic we had a beautiful thing happen that brought a whopping hit between the eyes insight for me and for everyone else there too, I think.
It has made me think that it may be possible to work with a group of horses at the same time, on the same issue, by working with just one horse. If this is as re-producable as I think this is, this could be an exciting discovery in horse behaviour.
So click here to see how you can join in with this experiment.
Prompted by some students experiences, we’ve been doing an experiment within our discussion group - exploring whether it’s consistently possible to work with one horse on an issue and have a positive affect on the other horses there.
Feedback from the discussion group so far indicates that yes it is happening to other people too. Here’s three of my personal experiences from the last three weeks.
I’m thinking that you could use this teamwork approach to help a horse who has really deep seated trauma with people or some part of the connection with people, like saddling or catching or feet trimmed or saddling, or going into the starting gates or whatever. It could also be extremely useful if the horse had dangerously reactive behaviour patterns that could be risky to work on if the person didn’t have really good skills and techniques.
This is the second clinic in a row where I’ve seen deep seated fear stuff/ sudden reaction to chronic fear / chronic withdrawal/ chronic resistance released so thoroughly that the horse became this little baby horse who needed explanations of how to do something considered known before, e.g. how to lead, how to do feet, how to load on a float etc.
The sheer beauty of the look on those horses’ faces just made me melt.
This release has in all cases so far come from one horse watching another horse do the release process in Zen Connection and releasing trauma/resistance/whatever, themselves. It’s like the horse can find a place of comfort through which to watch and mentally join in with another horse who is doing the work – without feeling the pressure of doing it themselves.
The result was like having a blank canvas again – starting from the beginning, with the opportunity to do it much better this time than had been done before.
The key though, appears to be that the horse being worked on has to be working towards their deep comfort zone and releasing their own old trauma or resistances voluntarily.
To look at the process of releasing deep seated resistance and trauma from your horse, whilst developing an extraordinary relationship, click here to have a look at the books.
Bobby’s Diaries has a chapter in it about how we solved a really bad, long term, biting horse, that is absolutely brilliant.
I’ve just made an excecutive decision to put that chapter up on the website. Trouble is, the chapter uses eye opening concepts that are explained in great detail earlier in the book. But I suspect you will still get heaps of value out of it and of course, you can always buy the book.
This last clinic in New Zealand has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I wonder if that’s always going to be the case from now on.
You don’t have to have a problem horse to get a significant improvement in your relationship with your horse, but the problem horses do make the most spectacular stories!
Shade, a Welsh thoroughbred cross, came into the clinic with his lovely owner Crystal desperate to solve his incredibly dangerous problems. He was a nightmare to ride in company, running backwards at high speed to attack other horses. He would double barrel them, getting them from 10 metres away, frequently connecting with the riders at the same time. A very unpleasant character to go out riding with.
No matter how fond people were of Crystal, nobody wanted to ride with her any more – and who could blame them.
Click here for the rest of the story about what Shade was REALLY doing and how Crystal fixed this.
Cheryl, our New Zealand clinic host at Wainuiomata has a very peaceful herd of horses. They usually run together and the humans can walk amongst them all in absolute safety with all the horses kind of mooching around quietly as the humans move amongst them. I noticed this particularly on my first visit to her place. In my herd, I have to insist that nobody play dominance games when humans are in the paddock, but Cheryl and her horses have created this lovely safe and feeling safe environment. (I think I’m going to have to figure out how she does that and create it here at home too!)
During the clinic, it was much easier to put the new horse, little Nugget, who had been elsewhere on the property for a week by now, with his mate Apples into the paddock with Whisky. ”Promise me you’ll look after him” Cheryl said. And Whisky agreed. Cheryl has been working on excellent communication with Whisky for some time now.
So, they put Nugget into the paddock and within a minute or two, Whisky had asked Nugget to move, Nugget said “no”, turned around, backed up to Whisky and kicked out. Then the thud of hooves smacking into flesh could be heard and felt from clear across the paddock as Whisky gave young Nugget a hiding.
Becx, Nuggets owner, was wringing her hands in distress at her baby being on the receiving end of such violence and Cheryl was upset too at what she saw as Whisky breaking his promise. “But, Whisky”, she said, “you promised to look after him!”
“I AM looking after him” said Whisky.
Then the pennies started dropping into place. Becx had been in the paddock with her children who had always been safe amongst this herd that never pushed each other around or played games amongst the humans, when Nugget had chased another horse towards one of the children. It only stopped in time because of its own effort to not run over the child.
“Oh my God”, said Becx, as she realised that Whisky was actually protecting her and the children by establishing the ground rules of this herd in this really special place. “Thank you Whiskey!”
You know, we say everything happens for a reason, but sometimes it’s from a kind of empty place, with no real hope of knowing what the reason was. In this extraordinary communication with our horses, we develop the ability to find out what the reason really is. Like Cheryl and Becx did, with Whisky and Nugget that day.
Now, you might think that this story is a bit “out there”, but there are more and more people who are “hearing” their horses in this extraordinary way … consciously and deliberately. “If you want to hear your horse like Cheryl and Becx and learn the secrets of the great horsepeople of the world click here to buy Bobby’s Diaries right now
Yesterday we finished a private clinic here at Tanjil South that featured an amazing lady and her Friesian “soul connection” – her horse for those of you who don’t talk like that yet! This little horse (not so little, really) had been really intimidating. He would barge straight in on you, had had HEAPS of training costing lots of money and the only way she could get hin to stand off her was to be REALLY hard on him – which didn’t fit with who she was, who she wanted to be or with the relationship that she wanted with her horse.
We pretty quickly made the discovery that there was a connection with his “oh shit I’m dead” zone and his barging. (See the electronic Bobby’s Diaries – Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You” for an explanation of that concept click here to buy it now.) And nobody learns anything in the oh shit zone except survival reactions. So we went about establishing a place of deep comfort for this lad and then introduced our need to have him stand off us in the “not too sure zone” where all thinking learning takes place.
We made the discovery that most if not all of his training had taken place in the “oh shit I’m dead zone” and that although he deeply wanted to be close to his person and be with them, he was terribly afraid of what would happen when he got close (whacked for barging on top of them!) – thus he lived his life in a constant and awful fear of humans.
We realised that Friesians had been war horses and as such had been selected for their ability to keep going ahead through fear and even pain (that’s where the barging comes from), and for their devotion to their person. (Lots of other characteristics too I’m sure, but these were the ones that were particularly noticeable throughout the clinic!)
We learned the art of having major breakthroughs by not doing very much at all. (And that’s the understatement of the year)
We learned that a HORSE’S heart can sing and almost burst with joy too when us slow humans “get it”.
We had the most amazing days in the most gentle and connected space.
That was my week, what was yours?
This beautiful horse’s training was based on the electronic book “Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horses Mouth to You”. This book contains the secrets of great horsemen (even if they don’t realise it yet!) Click here to get this book through the most secure financial website in the world – you could be reading it in five minutes.
