“I saw a stop sign, and it occurred to me that just as no one expects a stop sign to stop a car, I shouldn’t expect words to substitute for experience. That’s not their job, though words certainly can be misused in that way. The job of words is to direct us toward experience, to round out experience, to facilitate experience . . . (Derrick Jensen)
Our aids, in and of themselves, don’t make our horses do anything. They are the words we use to talk to our horses. It is, of course, important to study and practice our aid vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. If we are fluent in the language of the aids, we choose the right words, in the right order, in the right tone. But even if we say all the right things to our horses, many of us still don’t communicate well with them, because
a) we talk much too loud, and
b) we never shut up.
Many of us just keep shouting at our horses, even when we don’t need to say anything.
The art of good horsemanship is the art of the pause, the art of finding that moment of silence, when the horse gets a chance to respond. The stop sign does not stop the car. The correct aids for the canter depart don’t make the horse canter. The correct aids for the shoulder-in don’t make the horse perform a perfect shoulder-in. The correct aids for the canter-walk transition don’t bring the horse to the walk. If we want our horses to respond to light aids, we have to ask for an appropriate movement at the right time, then quit giving the aid and allow the horse to do what we asked, with light contact and a following seat. We can’t physically maneuver the horse into a lateral movement by pushing with a stronger leg aid, or poking his side with the spur. We can’t pull the horse into a down transition. We have to step away from doing anything for that moment. We have to quit interfering and micromanaging. We have to just be with the horse who, if we prepared him well, now steps into the canter or flows into the shoulder-in.
Of course, this is a best-case scenario. Horsemanship does not always work this way, not even close. Like any form of communication, it is a process of trial and error. More often than not, we miscommunicate. We ask for the wrong thing, or at the wrong time, in language the horse can’t understand. And our horses may not answer in the way we expect because they are distracted, anxious, tired, uncomfortable, frustrated, or bored. We mis-read each other’s signals for a number of reasons. We talk past each other, or over each other. We let our emotions get in the way. We take what our horse tells us way too personally. But when communication works, it’s a beautiful thing. When we use light aids, then fade into the background and let the horse move, horsemanship becomes a dance with two active, happy, willing participants, not a shouting contest or a wrestling match. It takes lots of patience, and lots of practice, but it’s worth the time it takes to get there.
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