As Horse people we talk a lot about Training. We work with our Horse on this, we train them on that, we teach them to do this, we teach them to not do that. But what about Human Training? How trainable are we from the perspective of the Horse? How does the Horse suggest ways for us to provide tools that make more sense? We are told to think like a Horse, does the Horse attempt to think like a Human?
A common training method is pressure and release, apply pressure and when they give, we release the pressure. I’m of the opinion that when Horses apply pressure to Humans, most of them are corrected or punished for that technique. A Horse learns from this technique, a Human forbids this technique.
Another common theory when Training Horses is Herd Alpha. Here, the Human is the leader and is in charge of ‘moving’ the other Horses around and putting themselves in the position of Herd Alpha. So, does this imply that the Horse teaches the Human what it needs by creating situations where the Horse can act submissive in an effort to make a point? Doesn’t seem likely.
Its interesting for me to note that as Human, we seem to look for answers when our Horse is being resistant. So… do Humans need to meet with resistance from the Horse in order to search for proper training techniques that gain compliance? Do Humans learn through resistance training? If so, is this how we want to be? Trained through resistant behavior from the Horse? It’s interesting to note that many of us have been trained to look for alternative methods of communication because we have been ‘Resistance Trained’ when our Horse is resistant to our idea of a request, we then search for another way to provide information.
How do we learn to relate, communicate and instruct our Horse without having to bring out resistance first? How much of our training and communication has nothing to do with cues and aid? Horses are highly intuitive and instinctual, their survival depends on it, and as domesticated Humans the more we embrace these attributes the more proficient our training becomes.
Or, perhaps we can forgo the idea of training altogether and invite the process of ‘Enlightenment’ we could look at it as ‘Enlighten’ the Horse, as well as ourselves as we attempt the transformation of learning new things without the element of resistance.
The Invitation
In your session with your Horse, spend part of it with your usual ‘training’ technique, and spend part of it in the mindful space of becoming more Enlightened as you seek to share this Enlightenment with your Horse. Notice any changes or shifts that occur, whether there is more progress or less progress. By spending time finding out the subtle differences that influences improvement or digression we become more aware of the brilliant wisdom abundant between the worlds of Horse and Human.
Delaya Diana © 2020