Is riding an art? A Science? Or it is a journey? Is it a look into our selves, a test of our strengths and our weaknesses?
As a woman I understand that I need to find the power in myself to help guide the animal. I need to find the confidence in my abilities in order to help the horse find confidence in his. We are a union, a symbiotic unit, the horse and I. The horse needs to find me calm and confidence in order for him to feel secure and at ease.
When I speak of ease I do not mean as one who is subordinate to another, one who has no thoughts of his own. It is here I speak of ease of heart. For the animal will still have his own desires, his own thoughts, but the more I can make those thoughts mine, by ease, by unity, the better for us. As long as I remain strong in my own desires, the animal will remain strong in mine.
How can we learn this inner strength, where does it come from. Why do children seem to have it, and as we grow older we seem to lose it altogether.
It is unknown for me at this point, yet I think that we need to overcome our hesitation, it is only then we can strive to have the unity with the horse that the animal deserves. It is only when we master our inner fears and reservations that we can come to be with the animal and lead the animal through our will alone. Of course you can use things to drive this, tools, equipment, fear and the crop. Yet this does not strengthen the bond, it relies on fear, the one thing we are trying to resolve. The killer of unity.
I think we can only achieve this by doing the thing we fear most, riding the speeds and methods that drive us away from achieve our goals. We must overcome them. We must be able to be carried and to carry as fast as the horse is can go.
We must ride like we stole it.
Hi Ho!
LW
I think part of the reason children have it and we lose it as we grow older is that children don't know all of the bad things that can happen. They are blithely ignorant and that ignorance is part of their strength. They can forge ahead without worry where we as adults have a much more difficult time setting aside concern over what we know could happen.
ReplyDeleteCase in point, the way kids career around bare-back without worry. They know they can fall and that falling hurts, but their experience is that they will survive and so why let that concern get in the way? Most don't know anyone who has died or been paralyzed by a fall, so as far as their world is concerned, it can't really happen.
Whereas adults know all too well what happens when we go splat and that we may not recover from it and find it much harder to just let go and do...
It's a matter of death perception :p