Basic Training at Liberty

Posted on by bonnittaroy

I never tire of using a large round pen for having fun with basic training and workout for both me and the horses. This year Alderlore has been able to completely re-do the back paddock (cut down trees, dig drainage ditches, build a silt/ run-off collection dam and re-grade and seed some of the edges)– to allow us to create a much larger area to play in.

Last year the paddock/ pen area never really dried, so we didn’t have a chance to do any liberty work. Last week I worked with both Jhana and Rio in the paddock to see what would come up for them.

I was happy to see that Jhana was really alert and spunky. And boy is she confident about herself! This is what I like to cultivate in my horses. Here is a clip of our playing together. Basically, she sets the game up as “king of the hill” — the top of the paddock is the “territory” we are claiming; while I am asking her to meet/ share this territory with me in a mutually affirming way, with mutual respect, while also being able to move around the entire paddock when I ask (without stopping to claim the territory). The “teaching” here, is that the horse can be asked to do a task, be willing to do a task, without diminishing her spirit, self-confidence, or her ability to lead under certain conditions.

Lets go to the video “tape”

In this second video, I am playing with Rio – who at 3 years old, has only been in this situation once before. Rio is a well-mannered, even tempered boy, with a singular problem. Somewhere along the way, he has developed a “sticky” right hindquarter. It braces when you put pressure on it. And he likes to kick you with it — sometimes just because you happen to be walking by. I think he developed this from the way the horses line up to eat. His mother is on his left, but my morgan Dawn (3 years older) is on his right, and tends to be the horse that takes on the role of his disciplinarian. Therefore, while eating, 2 x a day, 7 days a week, he protects his plate by bracing on the right hind.

In this session, you will see that the  only task I am trying to accomplish, is for Rio to make a soft circle in a clockwise direction around me. You will see that he wants to default to moving counterclockwise — which keeps me on his left side. Here is where the paradox comes in. His left side is DOMINANT — therefore, confident, and does not brace. On the right side he feels VULNERALBE — therefore he wants to keep me on the left, or alternately, if there is too much pressure, keep me OFF the right side — by kicking if there is too much pressure. So the last thing I want to do is put too much pressure on the right side, making that hindquarter more apt to keep kicking out.

Let’s go to the video tape

Justin Morgan Had a Horse …

Posted on by bonnittaroy

I love morgan horses. Not especially the new-fangled high steppin types, with small bodies and frantic minds, but the older confederate breeds, of solid bone and tremendous sense of balance, purpose, and pride. They are proud and willful beings with great athletic talent. Justin Morgan had a horse that stood out statistically. Until then, horses ability to pull and ability to run fast followed a standard correlation curve. The more a horse could pull, the slower it ran; the faster a horse could run, the less it could pull. Those were the facts until Justin Morgan’s horse came along and shattered the curve. He could pull way more than his speed would predict; and he could run way faster than his pulling strenght would predict. The rest is history.

Morgan horses were the backbone of the confederate army and the western cavalry. They weren’t no cowpony. I have two morgans. Bob, a 33 year old and Dawn, who is 5 years old. This weekend my morgans and me were playing around in the paddock. Someone had a camera (thanks Audrey, for the pics):

  Dawn hops over the wall.  Bob prepares for a lift-off.

Khemancho’s Soft Trot

Posted on by bonnittaroy

For those of you who don’t know – Khemancho and I have been taking dressage lessons. My actual teacher/ trainer is Margaret Beeman, who started Khemancho as a 3 year old colt 3 years ago. (How time flies!). You can see her work here. Although I have never met her, I also consider Karen Rohlf a teacher, since I have spent hours and hours studying her DVD and book training series. You can read about Karen at Dressage, Naturally. My “goal” in dressage is not only to do what ChoCho seems born to do and loves to do! (I had expected him to be an endurance horse since he comes from Belesemo Arabians, who breed endurance horses, and he has full siblings who are endurance champions) –I  had never ridden in a ring before I started with a dozen or so dressage lessons last fall- – but my goals are to execute/train at dressage  in ways that are consistent with my interest in cultivating the soft and joyful horse. I am learning a lot! And in some ways I feel that here is where the rubber meets the road, where the proof is in the pudding, where we get to walk the talk (how’s that for a string of euphemisms).  Last week ChoCho worked at a lovely trot, and also offered what Karen Rohlf terms “the let loose posture” — which is the foundation of balance and softness, upon which collection can be correctly (that is biomechanically) built.

Let’s go to the video tape:

Here we are trotting a simple figure eight

Here ChoCho is offering the “let loose” posture at the trot:

Blueberry Meditation # 4

Posted on by bonnittaroy

A mixed media meditation on the blue beta Blueberry (scroll down to see exciting video finale):

from one of the most cherished books on my bookshelf,  William Gass’  On Being Blue (1976) for a cherished fish of blue..

Blue pencils, blue noses, blue movies, laws, blue legs and stockings, the language of birds, bees, and flowers as sung by longshoremen, that lead-like look the skin has when affected by cold, contusion, sickness, fear; the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium; Russian cats and oysters, a withhedl or imprisoned breath, the blue they say that diamonds have, deep holes in the ocean and the blazers which English athletes earn that gentlemen may wear; afflictions of the spirit — dumps, mopes, Mondays– all that’s dismal– low down gloomy music, Nova Scotians, cyanosis, hair rinse, bluing, bleach; the rare dahlia like that blie moon shrewd things happen only once in, or the call for trumps in whist … and correspondingly the flag, Blue Peter, which is our signal for getting under way; a swift pitch, Confederate money, the shaded slppes of clouds and mountains, and so the constantly increasing absentness of Heaven… consequently, the color of everything that’s empyy: blue bottles, bank accounts, and compliments, for instance, or when the sky’s turned turtle, the blue-green bleat of ocean (both the same), and when in Hell, its neatly landscaped rows of concrete huts and gas-blue flames; social registers, examination booklets, blue bloods, balls, and bonnets, beards, coats, collars, chips, and cheese . . . the pedantic, indecent and censorious . . . watered twilight, sour sea: through a scrambling of accidents, blue has become their color, just as it’s stood for fidelity.

and you my blue blue Blueberry… amongst the bluest of the blue of this world

so shout and celebrate before the shade conceals the window … while there is time and you are able, because when blue has left the edges of its objects as if the world were bleached of it, when the side blue eye has shut down for the season, when there’s nothing left but language … watered twilight, sour sea … don’t find yourself clergy’d out of choir and chorus … sing and say … despite the belly ache and loneliness, new bumpled fat and flaking skin and drunkeness and helpless rage, despite dumps, mopes, Mondays, sheets like dirty plates, tomorrow falling toward you like a tower, lie in wait for that miraculous moment when in your mouth teeth turn into dragons and you do against the odds what Demosthenes did by the Aegean: shape pebbles into syllables and make stones sound; thus cautioned and encouraged, commanded, warned, persist … even though the mattress where you mourn’s been tipped and those corners where the nickels roll slid open like a slot to swallow them, clocks slow, and there’s been perhaps a pouring rain, or factory smoke, an aging wind and winter air, and everything is gray.

Still there will be you, in life or longing, matter or merely mindful memory, you my blue blue Blueberry!

Just Be Yourself

Posted on by bonnittaroy

I have been witnessing Klaus Hempfling for a little over five years now, through his books, DVD’s and website http://hempfling.com/   I find him to be a remarkable teacher, and one who is most closely aligned with the Alderlore Experiment. Alderlore’s tag line “To Know the Horse is to Recognize Your Self” suggests a kind of developmental progress, from engaging the situation that the horse brings to you, to engaging the self to which the horse has carried you in the process. The underlying theme is that the horse is always carrying us forward to our own destiny– which is our most fundamental self- our authentic core which is the life-force. Similarly, we can follow Klaus as he moves from  horse to self to life-force, each turn like the turn of the dharma wheel, both a circle and a spiral. Here is his latest short clip – just put up on the web. I hope you enjoy it and absorb the energy and enthusiasm it offers.

~ To Know the Horse is to Recognize the Self ~

Posted on by bonnittaroy

 

Horses are magnificent beings.

We hope to understand their energy.

We hope to connect with their spirit

But how do we do this?

There is a “test” that we must pass

before the horse will reveal himself.

First we must be willing to approach
the horse in an honest and open way.

Then we must be able to dissolve
our “defense shield” – the layers
of our emotions that come between us.

We must be able to offer a balanced
and coherent presence for the horse to meet.

We must allow the encounter to unfold
on its own terms, in its own timeframe.

 
 The horse already “sees” you on a deeper level.

The horse senses your bio-electric field
the system of all your emotions.

The horse feels your subtle energy field
the system through which energy moves
within you and radiates outward to the world.

The horse already “knows” you on this deeper level.

If you don’t know this yourself
you present a puzzle to the horse.

On the outside you may have a smile and some kind words.
On the deeper level, you may be a bundle of nerves.

On the outside you might be dressed like the commander
shouting commands with all your training gear.
On the deeper level you may be spinning
in a whirlpool of ambition and  frustration.
 
On the outside you ask  the horse
for trust , companionship and love.
On the deeper level you yourself
are distrustful and hollow and
have nothing to offer in return.

This is a state of incongruence, that the horse rejects.

The Horse will remain a mystery to us
as long as we are not aware of our
Self at this deeper level.

~ To know the Horse is to recognize the Self  ~