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Calm - Engendering Trust
Living without fight/flight  

Recently I saw this quote floating around and it made me happy.  FINALLY this message has hit 'the hundredth monkey' mark!!!

artwork by Viza Arlington

The very first thing you will learn in a lesson from me is how to turn off the fear, create calm and engender trust.  That's because it's the most important thing to know how to do!

What's the benefit of this?

All of the 'balancing the head' stuff is how to turn off the fear/fight/flight mechanism.

It actually does have a physical component and if you do the physical thing -- as in, move the body parts the way indicated, the fight/flight mechanism turns off.  There is a very similar reaction in the horses when you ask them to put their head down.  With both humans and horses, the resultant posture is the soft poll where the joint between the skull and the top of the spine is free and moves easily.

The other component with people is that the head is 'centered' on top of the spine and is 'flat' to the ground.

When you get your head centered, your body will automatically release tension and take a deep breath.  The brain chatter goes away, too.

The importance of the rider being released is that we are providing an example for the horse to follow.  If we are in flight/flight, we are essentially telling the horse "You do fight/flight, too" -- not the message we want to give.

In terms of movement, when we are released we are able to automatically move with the horse (which makes it more comfortable for both of us!) and the horse can move more freely (which is where you get the ooo's and aaahh's)

Bruce Lipton maintains that any amount of fight/flight shuts down all learning.  

At first I thought this was a little extreme.  Ten years later I get what he's after.  You really want 100% calm.  Any portion of fear and it can explode into a fire storm.

An Approach

There are a couple previous articles I've done -  

• The Blue Ball
• The Ferris Wheel 

Of course, another option is some hands on guidance and feedback!  Interested?  Call or email or pm and and set up a lesson!  This is what I teach.  Let me share with you how to use these concepts for greater  understanding and harmony with your horse.  The fabulous rides follow.

Lynn 
Centered Riding Instructor & Level III Clinician 

ps - so are you sitting there thinking, "Wait a second, isn't she the one who goes on about the horse with no brain?"  Why yes, I am.  We're getting better.  Here's the thing, all I can do is show up myself.  I cannot make Tammy be calm.  In fact, the longer I've been with the Tammy, the more I've come to understand this.  She's a very headstrong mare!  And in some ways she epitomizes the downside of putting a horse in a fearful situation and doing the wrong thing.  Through no fault of anyone in particular, her first few encounters with riding did not go well.  (YES, it involved 'professional trainers' other than myself, and I've now decided I can't possibly ever do worse than they did!)  No-one intended for things to go sideways, they just did.  And the nature of this horse is very much along the lines of "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."  It's been an education!

Books: Amazon Assoc. / Old Favs

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"The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities." 

~ James Allen