CONNECTION – It’s the buzz word in horsemanship at the moment. Fifteen years ago when I started using it and called my horsemanship program “Connecting with Horses, Riding with Synchronicity” I hadn’t heard anyone else using that word. What connection meant to me then and what it still means to me now runs very deep. Back then I couldn’t even find words to explain what that feeling of connection was, it so deep and almost intangible. It was touching that horse’s soul. Feeling them at the level of their soul and them feeling you at the level of your soul. Its where form (our physical form) disappears. The horses feel it when you feel them at this level. They know, that you now know them.
There are many ways to think about connection. So I thought I would start doing a series of posts about it. Firstly, connection is not synonymous with attention. You could get a horse’s attention with pressure but that is connection or relationship destroying.
Here is one way to think of connection. “Knowing your horse from the inside out. Knowing WHO they are and HOW they are.” Meaning how they are feeling?
And then, what develops connection, is that once we know HOW they are, we CARE about how they feel. We have to care about how they FEEL about what we are wanting them to do, equal to if not more than, how much we care about accomplishing the goal or task. This cultivates connection and relationship.
How well do you know your horse ? How accurately do you sense how they really feel? If you were to describe your horse as a person what words would you use ? What are the names of the emotions you would use to describe them? The more specifically you can name the emotion the more understanding you will have for the horse.