Unity and Communication: How to Really Listen to Your Horse

Access to the Zone starts with tossing your ego out the door. The horse doesn’t care if you’re a famous novelist or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He doesn’t care if your father is a rock star or a famous football player. He also doesn’t care if you have no claim to fame. He doesn’t think less of you for it.

It’s the same with any sport. The basketball, the baseball, the golf ball—they don’t care. You get no break for your credentials and no disrespect for your lack of credentials. That’s the beautiful nature of all sport. But the horse, unlike those balls, is blood and bone, heart and soul.

The horse takes you even farther down the evolutionary road, by requiring you reach out to him in a spirit of receptivity—that you listen and feel compassion, empathy, kindness, benevolence, humility, and gratitude. He requires you acknowledge the truth for what it is without sugar-coating it or embellishing it with positive or negative drama. The horse requires that you to have faith in that truth and in the processes of life—of health and growth—and that you have faith in the time-honored process of training horses that we call by its French name, “dressage.”

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The source for all this goodness is an underlying love for the horse, and the result of meeting all of the horse’s quiet requests is an underlying feeling of peace, serenity, and joy. In short, the horse requires that we be our very best selves. This is serious fuel for the magic that occurs in the Zone, and it’s fuel for the charming addiction that befalls so many horsemen.

It all clearly takes place in the part of the mind that is non-thinking, and it involves reaching outward in an egoless and receptive state.

How to Listen

Do you know anyone who is truly a good listener? Someone who looks you in the eye and hears what you have to say without mentally rehearsing her response? Someone who doesn’t have a preconceived notion that she is right—and perhaps that you are wrong? She who is truly a good listener is, of course, truly informed, and when she does finally have something to say, everyone listens to her. It’s the same when conversing with horses.

A good listener is curious, searching for the truth whether it be in politics and world affairs or within the tiny world of rider and horse. Curiosity is a questioning state of mind—the ability to reach out and say, I wonder. Riding horses is all about wonder. I wonder. I wonder how you feel today? I wonder if you can step under my seat? I wonder if you can go promptly? Can you stop without me using my hands?

Wonder. Because you wonder, you ask your horse questions and receive answers. Wonder is the basis of all good conversation. The state of being wonderFUL holds the promise of many conversations that require listening skills. In order to listen, the mental traffic that is typically headed in a direction that is ironically called “out of your mind,” is forced to do a U-turn and head in the other direction to allow traffic to go “into your mind.” When you’re listening, the mental traffic is entering your mind. In normal conversation, the traffic goes both ways—in and out.

With your physical aids, as you know, you alternate between active and passive aids. It’s the same with the mind. You can be active but also passive. There is a physical circle of energy when riding horses (which I detail in When Two Spines Align), and I imagine that there is a comparable mental circle of energy (below). Traffic flows in and flows out in balance.

Most gifted conversationalists are good listeners. They listen and then they speak and listen again. The mental traffic goes in and out in balance. It’s the same with riders. Riders need to be good listeners and clear “speakers.”

We’re accustomed to “listening” being the purview of our ears, but as most people know, we can listen with other senses to increase awareness and feeling. For example, pay attention to your sense of smell. When the aroma of cinnamon buns is wafting through your kitchen, “monkey mind” disappears. When you notice the scent of a lilac bush, you can’t be, at the same time, figuring something out or criticizing it. Just try.

Become aware of your sense of hearing. Listen to a great vocalist singing…there’s not much thinking going on during that.

Use your sight. Look at a brilliant work of art or the natural beauty of the ocean, and analytical thought disappears.

A delectable feast will trigger the salivary response, and the perfect wine coupling isn’t a taste that can be described with words, so most of us don’t even try.

And then there’s the sense of touch—the sense that all riders seek to master. The sound and the tempo and the feel of that swinging trot is so sensually engrossing that thinking is impossible although access to the knowledge we’ve learned is available at will—as a kind of backdrop that is always there. It must be similar to how horses experience information. Once they are cultured about a concept or movement, they don’t think about it. It just is.

Occasionally, we see riders who talk and talk and talk while they’re riding, which, after a point, is just plain disrespectful to the horse. Olympian Sue Blinks says, “It’s a waste of your horse’s time.” Quality riding requires listening to your horse—even when you’re taking a break. Silence is more important than you might think. Research shows that brain cells actually regenerate during silence.

Feeding the Good Wolf

Love and compassion require reaching outward—reaching beyond the ego toward another living being. They involve care, concern, sympathy, kindness, and other positive emotions that are directed outward—away from the self. Because compassion is directed outward, it’s never self-absorbed, so it involves a complete lack of ego. Compassion also immerses us in the now. Compassion is current. It’s about what you feel now rather than how you felt yesterday or how you will feel tomorrow.

Most riders and horsemen in associated careers innately love horses, so they are way ahead of the game. This underlying joy is fuel for the magic. Love surrounds and cushions every action the horseman makes. When the rider disciplines the horse firmly, that love is still there, and it makes a difference. When love for the horse is the omnipresent underlying emotion in riding, it transcends all mistakes, misunderstandings, and even transgressions.

Love for the horse influences everything. The key word is “underlying” because at any given moment, a horse might be difficult in several of a thousand different ways, but when the rider’s basic emotion is positive, the whole experience is essentially positive. For example, you may be riding a horse who is heavy on the left rein, spooking at a ghost in the bushes, or distracted by a spotted pony on the horizon, but your basic emotion can still be essentially compassionate.

Positive thoughts always precede positive action. As you know, we’re successful with horses when we communicate what we want. We fail when we focus on what we don’t want. Horses give humans this extraordinary gift of positive thinking because they don’t understand the negative.

Grounded positive tension utilizes the entire body and is extremely strong. Not only that, athletes with positive mental tension have a keen, positive outlook along with increased awareness and mental acuity. This young athlete has found the Zone.

Positive tension is physically “stretchy” and strong rather than contracted and strong (left). This quality of positive tension is about physical and mental “reach.” The horse reaches toward the bit. He reaches with his hind legs and shoulders. The rider reaches down and grounds herself to the earth; she reaches up through her spine to the crown of her head toward the sky. She reaches from her center, through her elbow, toward the bit. She reaches to excel.

I explored this quality of positive tension in chapter 2 of When Two Spines Align: “When your body is open, your muscles are stretched, and you’re in a state of positive tension—that is, tension with suppleness. In contrast, when your body is closed, the muscles are tightly clenched and you’re in a state of negative tension. Lack of tension or slack relaxation also has the effect of closing the body.”

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the active attention to the now, so being mindful is a prerequisite when communicating with your horse. The mindful rider is thoughtful because she pays attention to all the little details that make up a given situation.

In her book Real World Mindfulness for Beginners (Sonoma Press, 2016), Brenda Salgado speaks of the “basic skills for mindfulness.” These points all sound familiar to equestrians. These same principles help us enter the Zone, where we can communicate with our horses and ride effectively:

Noticing the present moment. As you concentrate on the present moment, you are able to listen deeply to your horse.
Staying grounded and in your body. Positive tension grounded to the earth is what makes riders strong. It’s tempting, in the face of difficulties, to lift yourself, thereby losing the body’s innate organization and grounded state. Grounded, positive tension is the easy way to be strong.
Recognizing thoughts and emotions for what they are. Thoughts and emotions inform positively, but we should realize they don’t represent the whole truth. We acknowledge shortcomings and work on them.
Encouraging curiosity and a nonjudgmental attitude. Curiosity and a nonjudgmental attitude are what you need to bring to the saddle as a rider. You need to put the inner critic aside and open yourself up to learning from your horse by listening to him.

Thoughtfulness

One of the greatest compliments you can give a rider is to say that she’s “thoughtful.” The thoughtful rider is caring, listens to her horse, and honors his nature as she works with him. But imagine this rider’s mental state during the actual moments in which she’s caring, listening, and honoring his nature. Is she thinking? No. Thinking has subsided. She’s in the Zone, in the now, the state of non-thinking dynamic meditation that is the opposite of thinking.

So why do we call that “thoughtful?” The rider is not “full of thoughts,” so maybe the word is just a misnomer. It’s still a nice word.

Positive tension, when it is grounded to the earth, is extremely strong, and it is the easy way to be strong. Believe it or not, positive tension is not only reflected in your posture, but also in your emotion. It is open, receptive, and joyous. Horses and riders with positive mental tension have a keen, positive outlook along with increased awareness and mental acuity. Not only that, but positive mental tension brings with it a sense of self-fulfillment. Just as grounded positive tension in the body utilizes the entire body, positive tension is emotionally fulfilling.

Debbie McDonald, at only 5 feet tall, was as effective on Brentina as she would have been if she were 6 feet tall, because when she is riding, she uses all she has—from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head. Positive tension throughout the entire body grounds her and makes her very strong. Positive tension creates feelings of mental and emotional fulfillment.

Playfulness is the “right” mind for riding, which is more about feeling than thinking. It’s not overly serious. The playful mentality enables creative solutions to common problems. Riding should be fun for both horse and rider. Challenge yourself and your horse in a way that your horse will have fun! Does he think you’re fun? Does he try to please you? If not, why not? Are you letting him know when you’re pleased? Don’t underestimate the value of gratitude.

An “attitude of gratitude” gets rewarded. The universe somehow delivers to people who express gratitude. It always pays off, from a universal perspective as well as a relational one. The rider who innately feels the need to express her thanks when the horse performs well will bond with the horse and develop an obedient, happy partner. The rewards of gratitude are far flung.

Patience comes from having faith in the process and having a big toolbox of training skills. Dressage riders tend to be process-oriented rather than outcome-oriented. Process-oriented riders don’t mind going back to the basics and regaining the prerequisites that will make a movement easy for the horse. For example, when the leg-yield starts to get crooked, the process-oriented rider will simply straighten her horse and try again. When the second four-tempi change is crooked, she won’t consider asking for the third one. The outcome-oriented rider feels compelled to crank them out.

Making an outcome-oriented rider into a process-oriented rider is like changing her religion. It’s not easy, but the process has been proven to deliver the outcome!

Process-oriented riders also don’t expect the horse to give them an emotional “high” every day. Experienced horsemen don’t let a “bad ride” ruin their day. They expect the normal range of human experience to be comparable to the normal range of experience with their horse. They are pleased with a small amount of progress because they know the horse can absorb only so much in a session.

When you fully understand how transitions develop the connection and then collection, you quietly and patiently do transitions until you get the connection you want. Then, and only then, do you work on collection. The system always, always works with horses who are sound because the system is based on the laws of nature. The process takes time, but it produces happy horses who maximize their potential. When you’re process-oriented, you’re inclined to have patience—but, ideally, not too much patience. Dressage takes time, but you don’t want to waste time, either.

Persistent consistency is a quality associated with self-perfection or at least improvement in the face of some difficulty. Olympian and renowned educator Kyra Kyrklund said that the difference between Olympians and the rest of the riders in the world is simply a matter of persistence regarding the basics. Kyra brings all the necessary ingredients to the table: love of the horse, attention to detail, and persistence about getting all these details right in a playful, often humorous way. More recently, Charlotte Dujardin echoed Kyrklund’s feelings about persistence and said that every rider is able, for example, to do good transitions, but the best riders always ride good transitions. If they make a poor transition, they correct it by making a good one, so the horse, in the end, only knows how to do good transitions. It’s that persistent concentration on the basics that makes good riders great.

Mental Health and Riding

Because riding horses brings out our best selves, our sport has a positive influence on mental health for the reasons we’ve already discussed. A relationship with horses encourages us to develop healthy attitudes and emotions while discouraging negativity. Also, whereas any physical exercise promotes mental health, exercising with another living being builds trust and faith. It organically requires that you converse in a balance of give and take within an atmosphere of kindness and gratitude.

However, subsidiary aspects of riding can be mentally and emotionally challenging. For example, training horses can be financially demanding because horses, with their dietary, veterinary, farriery, and other needs are unreasonably expensive. Many riders aren’t educated in business and finance. Professionals are not always prepared to deal with the mathematics of it, and they might be dismayed by the demands of sometimes unreasonable clients.

Uncertainty regarding the health and soundness of horses, at some point, becomes an issue for every equestrian. One can prepare for an important show for years, and then the horse injures himself before the big event. Even when horse and rider are able to ride down the centerline, winning doesn’t happen all that often and can be hard on the ego as well as the pocketbook.

The lifestyle of equestrians is physically demanding, too. As a form of farming, the successful rider faces days, weeks, months and years of hard work.

Finding balance between personal and horse lives can be challenging for amateurs and professionals alike. Some riders find help from meditation, and professionals might seek help from outside experts who are educated in the horse industry: an accountant, a sports psychologist, a general psychologist, a physical therapist, a primary care physician and whoever else might fill a need. Peer support groups often take the form of professionals and amateurs gatherings at conventions and conferences where like-minded people gather to learn, enjoy their friends, and realize that they’re not alone. These get-togethers help tremendously.

The bottom line is that the most challenging kind of stress is the kind that you can’t influence or control, and many of a rider’s challenges fall into that category.

Summary of Chapter 8

Essential Information About Positivity That Invites You into the Zone

The horse requires you to reach out in a spirit of receptivity; listen to him; and feel curiosity and wonder.
He requires you to acknowledge the truth for what it is and that you have faith in the time-honored process of training.
The horse requires you to be your very best self and deal with him with love, compassion, positivity, and gratitude.
Mindfulness, the state of being in the now and grounded in reality in an open, nonjudgmental way, is the way for successful equestrians.
These positive qualities are prerequisites to being in the “Zone” where you can communicate with the horse optimally.
The many innately positive aspects of riding horses help develop mental health for riders, but the sport poses significant challenges because of the expense of horse care, the time required to train horses, and uncertainty regarding their health and soundness.

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How Two Minds Meet: The Mental Dynamics of Dressage by Beth Baumert is available from Trafalgar Square Books here.