Joy Blog!

I just stubbled across this great website and this was the most recent blog posted - I really enjoyed it and though it was worth sharing! Hopefully you enjoy it too and you can check out the website for yourself here:
http://www.greatday.com/

THE POWER OF JOY!
See the things you do not as work, but as opportunities for joy. Put the power of joy into the entirety of your day, into the whole of your life.
You can always choose your perspective, no matter what may be going on around you. Living from a perspective of joy and positive presence gives you great power to manifest that joy in the world at large.
Don’t limit the joy in your life by thinking of it only as something you must find or acquire. See joy as one of the greatest gifts you have to give, to yourself and to all of life.
You don’t have to live in a fantasy world or deny reality in order to be joyful. Simply release joy from the limitations and conditions you have placed on it, and it can always be a very real, and realistic, part of your experience.
The place to always find joy is in your miraculous existence. Allow that joy to flavor each moment, each situation, every effort and every choice.
Live your life with the power of real, true, uninhibited joy. And live the great treasure that is always yours.
— Ralph Marston

The Attitude of Justice - Parelli Principle # 5

It sounds simple and we know our attitude is vitally important on our horsemanship journey! Then, why, does it sometimes feel so hard to carry out the attitude of justice?

In my path of helping humans learn about natural horsemanship I am often repeating the need for the ‘attitude of justice’ while demonstrating a technique or concept with a horse. In answer to this statement about ‘justice’ I am greated by blank stares or nodding heads with little to no change to how the student is handling their own horse. What I have discovered is that this response comes from a core difference in belief on what “justice” and “natural” actually mean. So, I’ve looked up a simple and concise definition from Wikipedia to help us get on the same page:

Natural – “existing in or caused by nature, not made or caused by humankind.”

How interesting! . . . What does it mean to be natural? Often when people hear the words natural horsemanship they think, “oh good, I can think great thoughts about my horse and they will do what I want just because I am thinking it” or  “I will never have to become effective to be understood and my horse will become a willing and safe partner”! Somehow when people first hear of ‘natural’ their minds travel down a thought pattern of believing that actions no longer have consequences. However, if you take the quote above and think about things in nature – things “not made or caused by humankind”. How many actions in nature do not have consequences?

If, for example, an ant colony gets lazy and decides not to go out to gather food, what happens to the colony? If a horse herd leader can’t outthink a predator, what happens to the survival of the herd? If the herd picks a leader that isn’t aware, effective, and smart, what happens to the herd?

Just for the sake of argument let’s say that same herd chooses to have no leader, in fact every horse is equal and has a chance to “voice their opinion”. Now imagine, this herd full of mares, foals, yearlings, and a stallion ranging all the horsenalities LBI, LBE, RBE and RBI. They are all eating grass happily enjoying their equal opinions and contributions. They hear a rustle in the trees. The LBI’s say, “oh it’s probably nothing, let’s wait and see what happens”. The RBI’s say “ “ (nothing – they have frozen for the moment). The LBE’s want to go check out what made the noise, maybe they can play with it and the RBE’s are running circles around the herd, they want to leave but don’t want to leave the herd. At this stage they agree to have a meeting to discuss what should be done about the rustle in the bushes and who’s opinion they should follow. After several minutes of deliberation they have come to the conclusion that they can not act on any ONE opinion and are better off not reacting at all so as not to offend the horses feelings that were voted down. So, at the end of a lengthy discussion they have chosen to do nothing. This time the rustle turns out to be a squirrel and everything is fine, but what about next time when it is an approaching group of wolves/lions? Will the herd loose a few members? Does this system really work in nature? Of course not! The herd needs a leader, right or wrong the herd can follow the leadership and have a better chance of survival. It makes sense if you think of nature. Nature has laid out a perfect system, one where without humankind intervening their feelings and opinions the species survives.

 Now here’s the interesting part, somehow humans have decided that our way is better and that everything should adapt to suit what we ‘think’ is best. Some examples of this specifically in the horse world range from not allowing horses to interact with each other; so they won’t get hurt. To never allowing horses to experience consequences for acting inappropriately in the human environment, until they are so uncontrollable we have no choice but to put them down because they endangered themselves and others. Perhaps we should put children in a bubble wrap suit with an air purifier mask and have them walk around in a little bubble. This way they can’t get hurt, they won’t get any germs and the bubble will protect them from getting to close to other humans, just in case the other humans say something ‘mean’. Also, the bubble will protect the other children in case the perfect little angel is mad and feels like hitting or slapping someone. Sounds perfect doesn’t it? The funny thing is that to some humans this does sound perfect, this way we can control everything that happens to the individual and be sure no one is ever hurt, but is it natural? Is it natural to keep horses separate from their own species? Is it natural that their actions have no consequences in our human world, until it is too late (doing more later instead of less sooner)? Is it natural for humans to think we know more about what horses need then horses do?

To me the attitude of justice isn’t about punishment it’s about cause and effect. If you touch a hot stove - you get burnt. If you stick your hand in a fan blade - you get whacked. If you don’t look and pay attention to where you are going on uneven ground - you fall. Plain and simple – no emotion involved, it is just natural. It is the most natural part of learning. Cause and effect is how we learn. If you text while driving in traffic you could crash – simple, no emotion, if you choose one path/action there are reactions put into motion.

When I talk about being effective with horses and using the attitude of justice all I am saying is to be natural. Sounds simple, however, this doesn’t mean that it will be easy. Many humans get into habits of living and ways of acting that are supremely unnatural, this can cause the shift to becoming natural again challenging. To be successful this new and natural journey must be filled with thought, decision and purpose. One doesn’t just wake up and say “I’m natural” and then go about their day as usual. Becoming natural requires a conscious choice and many choices along the path until natural becomes our new way of being, of living, until it makes more sense than all the other ‘stuff’.

In the end studying natural horsemanship may be a different picture then some had originally envisioned but if you are dedicated to becoming truly natural, it is a never-ending journey worth taking! One filled with discovery, awareness and a feeling of peace to experience “existing in nature”. The horses give us a window with which to peer in to the world of natural. The love for the horse gives us the motivation to go against the flow and learn how to become natural. The attitude of justice is intrinsically natural horsemanship. If you can remember and internalize what natural truly is, your horsemanship journey will proceed with more smoothness and fewer stumbling blocks. So, if you endeavor to take the journey, keep ‘natural’ in mind and see what unfolds!

Performance and the 7 games

Recently I had the opportunity to attend the Rolex 3-day Event in Kentucky, a test of the top competitors in the 3-day eventing field including many past and future Olympians. Among some of this years riders were Karen O’Conner (from “The Future of Training” with Linda & Pat Parelli and Karen & David O’Conner), William Fox-Pitt (this years Rolex winner), and Marlynn Little-Meredith (finishing a close second).

              In Eventing, the horse and rider are put through 3 days of challenges. The first day is Dressage, the second day consists of a Cross-Country jumping course – over 30 obstacles (including 3’ 6” tall jumps with a base of over 8 feet and jumps into water and at a gallop) while on course the riders and horses often exceed 20 miles per hour, and the course is 4 miles long. The final day (for those competitors able to continue) is stadium jumping (a course of jumps set up in an arena), meant to test the horses stamina and athletic ability. Eventing was originally designed to test horses aptitude to be mounts for the military. These horses needed to have great athleticism, maneuverability, courage and stamina to be good mounts for military men, hence the intense nature of the sport!

I have attended the Rolex event at least a dozen times in the past, it is where I found a passion for event horses and the challenge of the sport! After all those times watching the horses and riders this year something struck me with a new clarity. It’s one of those things that I’ve heard, talked about, practiced and even taught but “all of the sudden, out of nowhere” a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) comes and smacks you right between the eyes! This BFO was: the 7 games, and how they were a part of everything happening over the 4 days of competition. Most of the riders have never wiggled a rope at a horse to back them up, but their success depended, in large part, to the quality of their 7 games while riding!

Over the long weekend I was able to watch the horses progress through the disciplines and I started to see a pattern. On the first day of competition I watched the riders go through the dressage test (to test these supreme athletes ability to exhibit precise movements). Keep in mind these are horses that are fit enough to jump and gallop over 4 miles (the following day) and we are asking them to come out and show their rhythm, relaxation and obedience the first day! As the horses were flexed around circles, asked for precise transitions (between gaits as well as within gaits) and demonstrated their lateral maneuvers. All I could think was Circling Game for every arc and bend that they did. Yo-Yo Game during the transitions, and Sideways Game during the lateral maneuvers and lead changes! Not to mention the obvious friendly game with 1,000’s of spectators and international waving flags from various countries!! And here’s the best part: Pat says “Observe, Remember, and Compare” – what a great opportunity to do just that! I had the whole day to observe these horses and see if right circles or left circles were easier, to see if upward or downward transitions were harder and if the energy of the crowd bothered the horses. “Well, how will this affect the cross country day?” you might ask, after all the horses will no longer be in an arena, they will be galloping not walking and trotting a predictable pattern and it will be over uneven ground vs. a groomed arena?? Here is what I observed: the horses who had more trouble on their left circle, for example they might leak out through their right shoulder just a little – making a slightly bigger circle than the rider wanted or doing it with a funny angle in their body. These same horses on the cross country course, when unsure about an obstacle/jump, would duck out to the right and refuse the fence instead of going straight as an arrow over the jump. The horses that had more trouble with a downward transition in the dressage ring were the horses that had trouble coming back from a gallop to a canter when approaching a jump and as a result may jump ‘flat’, meaning without balance causing them to have a hard landing or need more space after the jump to recover their balance. This meant that they were not  going to be ready for the next obstacle and may fall down or refuse to jump! Also, those horses that had beautiful half passes right but lacked the same ease left might miss a sharp turn, push through/ignore the riders leg and end up taking the long way around the course costing them valuable time (the riders often get options when coming up to several jumps, a difficult but fast way or a easier but slower way – the course is judges on time, so a rider needs to go as quickly as possible while making sure their horse jumps all the obstacles)!!

                As I watched these simple (simple not always easy) things happen and build as the days of competition went along it reinforced in me the passion Pat has about playing the 7 games with excellence. After all he has often said that Level 4 is just Level 1 with excellence, and after seeing (with new eyes) the Rolex, all 4* Eventing is; is 7 games with excellence! As I watched the riders and horses struggle with the balance of the 7 games I knew ways to solve those problems on the ground without having to struggle through while riding. Thanks to Pat and Linda I have tools that will help me even at the most advanced Level of competition. I have a foundation that brings those pieces of the puzzle into focus and helps me know how to solve the problems that show up. The simple brilliance of the 7 games has given me the horse-mans tool kit to puzzle solve the most complicated problems, and Level 1-4 has given me the emotion fitness to look at those problems as puzzles and something to learn from vs. something to dread and avoid!

So, with a renewed passion for excellence in the simple things I am on the road again teaching and seeing just how good I can get those simple things with my horse. Even though we may not be riding every day I can be practicing what it takes to be excellent at my riding goal every moment I am with my horse. There doesn’t need to be a day where “we just played on the ground, and didn’t have time for riding - so I didn’t progress towards my goals”, every day even if we just halter and go out for a bite of grass I can ask myself how am I preparing positive patterns today that will serve me when I’m riding on a cross country course? How was his flexion when I put the halter on? Did he pull on my lead rope while he was eating grass? If yes, then we’ll take an extra moment to fix the flexion or to be sure I am not practicing heaviness by my horse pulling me around to the grass. One day that lead rope will be my rein and I need lightness so that there is no question about my horse sitting his weight back after a long gallop and getting balanced and ready for the next set of jumps/challenges! No matter what our goals or dreams are as horse-man no moment with our horses needs to be practicing the wrong thing, we can get excellence in the littlest things, after all our big goals are just made up of lots of little pieces.

Kathy & Taurus "Getting to Know Each Other"

My newest partner, Taurus!!

I am excited to get to know my new horse partner Taurus! He is a 6 year old Fresian from Florida and found his way to me due to his size and a less then ideal first 60 days under saddle. I am really looking forward to developing a relationship with him and he may become my new demo horse that travels on the road to clinics, etc.

He is extremely people friendly, and curious about people and their 'toys'! He is eager to learn and loves it when I pick him to play with!

At the moment I am getting to know him on the ground only :-), and John has agreed to put the first 30 or so hours on him while I focus on keeping myself and our new (not yet arrived) baby cool and healthy during this very warm summer!! Here is a picture of Taurus with his first session under saddle on our farm. . .

To begin with he was a little concerned with the motion behind his drive line, but by the end of the ground and riding session, he was looking lovely and relaxed . . .

Thank you John for your help, and I can't wait to watch as he continues to progress!!

What I have been focusing on after our first sessions together:

*Improving Taurus' confidence with things 'switching eyes', particularly in zone 5

*Higher energy friendly games

*Approach and retreat with canter

So far Taurus has made great improvements and is now able to accept the stick and string over his back with relaxation (nice low head, and soft eyes). He has also started to learn to pick up the right lead in front and behind (to start with the right lead was often a counter canter), and he is starting to read my body language and energy so that he knows if we are playing friendly game or driving game.

I'll keep you updated with his progress and look forward to learning more about him!

-Kathy Baar

A really useful article that I copied from Daniel Stewart's Newsletter! If you don't already get it you can sign up here!

Donna asks "My instructor is encouraging me to set goals. I think it's a good idea but I just can't seem to get into the habit. I've spoken with a few other riding friends and they can't seem to get into it either. Is this normal"? I commend you on your desire to include goal setting in your training program and encourage you to not get discouraged, it's actually quite common for many riders to struggle with it. Having said that, goal setting is one of the most beneficial tools any of us can develop, it helps us learn to use our training time more efficiently, stay focused on what's important, identify strategies that lead to success, provide us with feedback on our progress, gives us reasons to keep going and provides us with a clear vision of what we want to accomplish. There are many reasons why riders might struggle with goal setting, knowing what they are may help you understand what's holding you back: Fear of Failure - We might avoid setting goals so that we can avoid the possible disappointment of not being able to achieve them. Fear of Success - We might worry that if we achieve a goal today we'll have to keep achieving them in the future or be labeled a slacker. Impressions - We might believe that others will think badly about our weird way for training or of trying to exceed being average. Wrong Tool For The Right Job - We may have been discouraged in the past because we set outcome goals (only focused on winning) instead of the long and short-term goals that create success. A lack of willpower can also lead to goal setting difficulties. Willpower is defined as having the self-control to resist instant gratification so that we can achieve long-term success. Many riders believe that goals require too much time and doubt that the efforts they put in today will benefit them tomorrow. When done correctly however goal setting can actually be a time saver because it gives our training sessions greater structure and purpose and makes them more efficient by focusing more of our time on the skills that will benefit us the most. Understanding why we don't set goals is only 1/2 the battle... the other 1/2 is learning how to set them. For more information on how to do this I suggest you read the following Tip of The Month and to remember that: Any goal worth setting is a goal worth working for. Thanks for the great question Donna! If you have a question you'd like me to answer in a future newsletter feel free to email it to me at: www.stewartclinics.com

Tip of the Month Setting Goals For Success Riding is a very goal-oriented sport, whether we're training a young horse, moving up through the levels, learning to jump or developing a conditioning program, goal setting is an integral part of what we do. Learning to set goals is important but it's just as important that we learn how to achieve them. Below are a few tips that can help you do this: Correct tool for the correct job - Set short and long-term goals that focus on your skills and behaviors instead of those of others. Worthwhile - Goal setting requires hard work and dedication so your goals should make the effort worthwhile. Realistic - Set goals that are challenging but achievable, too easy and you'll loss motivation, too hard and you risk feeling disappointed. Schooling and Showing - Since the vast majority of learning occurs in training you should set goals for your lessons as well as your shows. Self-Determined - Goals should be all about you, meaningful to you and not someone else (avoid setting goals to make others happy). One at a time - Goals work best when you set 1 long-term goal at a time and set no more than 3 per season - quality is better than quantity. Measurable - The best goals let you know if you've achieved them or not. Non-measurable goals like "trying my best' are too ambiguous. Time Bound - Create a target date for your goals, it makes them measurable and helps you avoid procrastination or complacency. Believable - If the gap between your ability and your goal is too big your mind won't be able to accept the discrepancy. Perpetual - A goal that requires a lifetime commitment is fine but goals tend to be more achievable when you work on them one day at a time. Ethical - Setting goals that go against your morals (i.e. sacrificing your horse's safety for a ribbon) will leave you wondering if it was all worth it. There are many other ways that goal-setting can set you up for success... watch for more goal setting tips in future newsletters!