Buck Brannaman Clinic 2010

Just got back from a four day horsemanship clinic with Buck Brannaman. I would like to say it was all old hat and I had fun talking to people. Wish I could say that.
Wish I could say I know it all, and really these Buck clinics are like a refresher, just a little polish on an old pony..

Wish I could

But I cant. I come back from these things and realize just what a dink I am. Realize just how little I know, realize just how little I know and how long I have been doing this and just kinda sit stumped.

Softness, feel, timing, getting to the feet, riding it out, checking all the gears, get it done.

Easy words, oh so easy how they roll of my tongue, and whisper in my ear. How easy it is to forget that each one of those words has years of practice, each one of those are something to strive to, to work on, to achieve.

Words are so easy.. We can sound so smart. Yet when we are asked to know which feet are moving, and when to release a horse, when to set something up, how to perfect something. We stumble along blindly in the dark, thinking we are so smart..

Then when we really listen, when we really try to see, we realize how ignorant we are.. How stupidly we thought to be good at something we could just jump into the saddle and ride.

Oh that’s not say people don’t just do that. They do, put they lose the quality, they ride with tie downs, side reins, tom thumbs and full cheek solid bits. They never push their horses through all the gears and they never ride outside the arena, and if they do, they have every “crutch” known to horsemanship on their animals.. Sure you can ride, but can you do it with quality. Sure you horse and move on the halter rope, but is it halter broken….

I walk away from these clinics with so much more then I did before. I realize now, that learning horsemanship is like learning how to read or write. It takes time. Time to understand how the letters are formed, how they are combined, and then the meaning with them. Then you have to learn how to put them together to make simple sentences.. Then you can learn how to write a paragraph, a short story, a novel or something beautiful like poetry… Horsemanship is like learning to write… So much..