Satori Center

Resources

Tidbit

And now to do ... nothing... 

what?

Today I was playing with a 2nd level movement -- pick up the right lead canter as if to circle right, then peel left to B, hang right and continue on down the longwall in 'counter canter.'  As movements go, the hairy part w

That's when I do 'nothing.'

I let the experience be hers. 

It's one of my favorite aspects of riding: letting the realization land.  There's this moment where you can tell the gears have turned in the horse's head and they realize something -- they are learning.  And the trick, as a rider, is to leave them alone so that whatever it is they just got, they keep it!  

It has now become a regular part of my riding.  I liken it to the 'dead man's pose' in yoga.

So years ago I started doing yoga.  Back then, the way I thought of it was: There were these poses - called asanas, where you'd test your balance and coordination and ability to breath while doing weird things.  Then there was this 'dead man's pose.'  Where I was supposed to just lie there on the ground.  And it had to be between every pose.  There was even this little blurb in there about how this was the hardest but most important pose to do. Blah Blah.  Just let me get to the next pose.  See - I can stand on one foot! 

Then time goes by - years go by.  Yoga gets to be really popular, and I move in and out of a regular practice but this funny thing happens.  As time goes by, I get to where I really like this 'dead man's pose.'  This actually is important, and I get it.    It was a slow realization.  It was so slow, I'm not entirely sure how it landed.  It could have been the Somatics.  It could have been the Centered Riding Shake Out.  It could have been that line in "Sprial Dynamics" quoting Barbara Jordan: "Change: from what, to what?"  It was there all those years ago, kept alive in the memory of the voice of my High School Band Instructor saying "Music is in the rests."  Or maybe it was something from NLP, that learning happens in an instant -- and it happens when you recognize something. It is not an arduous task, it is a natural instinct.  But the trick is the recognition - the awareness.  If you don't know something changed, there is no learning.  When you are aware something happened, something is different, you've learned.

So I set this up in riding now, and I cherish it.  I let the horse 'complete that thought.'  And I find it all goes so much better.

Books: Amazon Assoc. / Old Favs

Links

  Books 

"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