Who Moves Who?
Do
I move me, or do you move me?
When we're on the ground, practicing how the body moves on
the horse, we have to initiate the movement and pretty much
make it happen all on our own.
For instance, the 'choo-choo' movement of the arms when
we're on the ground without a partner is done entirely by
us. We initiate and observe how our joints articulate,
what our range of motion is, what'd going on in our
torso. We do it all because there's nobody else there.
With a person partner we begin to learn how to stop making
all of that happen. We start to experience what it's
like to give control over to an outside force that makes the
movement happen while we continue to observe and then at times
influence. But we're no longer doing the 'choo-choo'
movement ourselves.
Eventually, and this can be a long eventually, when we're
on the horse, it is the movement of the horse the establishes
how the 'choo-choo' is done -- how far forward the horses
mouth goes setting up how far forward the hands go, opening
the elbow and shoulder, how much movement is in the alternate
leg thrusts setting up how far forward the torso lifts and the
opposite hip drops, and more.
As a rider we are, primarily, receptive to the the horse movements.
This means giving up a lot of control and tension, which
then make the rides very pleasant.
Then eventually after that we will learn to modulate these movements.
So the order is: learn the movement, transfer the movement
to the horse, learn to modulate the movement.
(This is just the opposite of doing something and expecting
the horse to do what it's supposed to.)
So something to play with as you're riding around is to notice who
moves who. Are you moving yourself independent of what
the horse is doing? Or are you allowing the horse to
move you? Who is moving who?
L
Baby Squirrel Monkey from Tokyo Zoo
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