Re-posting fascinating comment from Derek

[kya]

I thought this reply to Wozzer was really interesting and have re-posted it (hope you don't mind Derek and Wozzer) so that everyone will see it.

Hi folks,

Here's something that you can do with the "What-If" voice. I can't promise that it will solve all your problems just like that, but it usually helps at least a bit.

Firstly, locate the position of origin of the "What-If" voice. Where exactly is it located, inside your head, outside it, on the side, above, behind you? Be as precise as you can about this.

Next, remember a time when you said something really positive or supportive to yourself. It can be about anything at all, not necessarily riding or horses. Most people find that the location of their supportive voice is in a different place.

Once you have identified the two different locations, next time the "What-If" voice says something, gently move the voice to the location of your supportive voice and then ask it what message it has for you.

Many people find that the nature of the message changes into something much more useful.

As someone who works with a lot of "confidence issues" (and also as someone who learned to ride as an adult) something I think is important to recognise is that what we perceive as a lack of confidence may actually be our "inner guide" wanting us to examine our competence for the task at hand.

Horses are bigger than us, stronger than us and faster than us. While it may appear that we can control them, in most cases this is an illusion. We may well get a long way through life without ever having a problem. That may be just because we've been lucky up to that point!

In my experience, a confidence issue is when someone's mind over-reacts to a particular experience - for example, if I burnt my hand on a cooker as a child and I then grew up with a phobia of all kitchen appliances, that would be an over-reaction. Tools like hypnotherapy, NLP, EFT, TFT, flower remedys, etc, are excellent ways of getting over things like this.

On the other hand, if, for example, I found that I was unable to stop my horse from running one day, especially a horse that had "never done that before", then any fear or anxiety I experienced around my horse after that might actually mean that my mind was working perfectly well and was telling me to check whether I was really as competent a rider/handler as I previously thought I was.

Just because someone has taken lessons, or ridden for a long time, or even completed Badminton doesn't necessarlly mean that they actually _have_ the skills necessary to manage an emotional horse. The only true test of a skill is whether or not you can get the desired result at the time when it really matters.

I think the funny thing about horses is that, most of the time, they don't really test our skills to the limit, so it's easy to be drawn into a false sense of security. Then, on the rare occassion when the horse really tests us (gets really excited or emotional, in other words), we find out what our true skill level actually is.

There are at least two different ways to respond to this - acknowledgement of the reality and seeking further education, or denial and carrying on as before. Very often, someone who has taken the second path (either deliberately or unconsciously) ends up believing they have "lost confidence".

Food for thought ...?

Hope this helps...

Derek

[kya]

Thinking about this further.... I often wonder why a flight animal (such as myself) would choose to get on another flight animal (my horse) and regularly scare the knickers off myself. Riding is such a complicated thing. I hack almost exclusively by myself, and I couldn't tell you what it answers in me. This idea of questioning competance... I completely agree. However, why is there that thrill when competance is challenged and you survive it? I was run away with last year by my horse and went into a cool, rational state in order to pull him up. Back to the wall I could do it. IF, God forbid a horse really bolts, managing the crisis is not complicated but it does take nerve. We do become passangers at that point. I think most of us on this board would not ride if we had push start horses who lumped along and did all they were asked at every given moment. Somewhere there is the need for that sense of uncertainty. Not making much sense Derek, but exploring my feelings and ideas. Anyone?

[wozzer]

Kanga - can I just say, I love the way you write (having your knickers scared off ya! ;D) Didn't you say you wrote for a living or am I getting mixed up here

Yeah, why exactly do we do it? It's because we must all have a memory of an idyllic ride and how wonderful it was and, of course, we all adore our horses ;D If every single ride was a horror story, then I am sure we would not continue, but whilst there is hope (!), we carry on.

Fabulous stuff from Derek (thank you, for sharing your expertise with us ).

Agree entirely, when we do get a situation, we all seem to be experienced riders and we actually manage it, be in a lorry, a llama or whatever.

Just read the threads on here - something happes, we cope, we share the experience on here and we carry on.

I shall be telling my what if voice to talk to my other voice and see what kind of argument they are going to have LOL!!! xx

[kya]

I do... I have a weekly page plus other pieces in an Irish paper on house-building, buying/selling and interiors. Working from home allows me all the freedom I need for my horsey adventures. Don't get to kick my heels up very often writing wise, but I'm working towards fiction.... aren't we all! I have a legion of little old ladies (2-4) who love me and call me when their taps are dripping or their in-laws are trying to wrest the house from them. I think you all write really well on this DG, because you write in conversation.

Have a great ride Wozzer. I'm going out in the morning too and determined on a long canter through the woods. Strangled voice fading....

[Derek Clark]

Hi folks,

Kanga - thanks for re-posting this. I love your thinking-out-loud that followed it too.

Wozzer - glad to be of some help. Thanks for the kiss too. I didn't know you could do that on the net! My missus says she's going to have to watch me more closely from now on ;D.

It's a very interesting question, I think - Why on earth do we do this crazy, (sometimes) scarey horsey thing? A few years ago, Tony Robbins (big famous self-help guru who is often on the telly in the USA), did a modeling project to find out what made people happy. He looked at all sorts of people, fat, thin, rich, poor, etc. The thing they all had in common was that they declared themselves very happy people.

His conclusions were very interesting: there are essentially 6 needs that we have that must be satisfied. They come in 3 pairs and each have an inbuilt conflict between each side of the pair. The first pair is Certainty and Uncertainty. By Certainty, he means things like knowing that we can pay the bills, that our other half loves us, that our society will be as safe tomorrow as it was today, and so on. The thing is, if you imagine a world where everything was safe and secure and we knew all the time what was going to happen, we wouldn't actually be happy for very long, so the balancing part of the equation is the uncertainty - otherwise known as risk taking I guess the more certainty we have in life, the more risks we want to take. When we're suffering a bit more uncertainty in life in general, then our "exciting" hobbies start to seem a bit more like "frightening" ones.

I can give you an example of this from my own experience. I got into riding relatively later in life and was basically pretty scared of ... well, I don't know what really, 'cos when I finally fell off (and knocked myself unconscious in the process) it wasn't half as bad as I'd imagined.

I have had an unusual equestrian education, though. Because I've spent over 20 years coaching elite sportsmen, I knew that if I wanted to get good at this new game, I'd better find some really good instruction so I could learn to do it right.

All my early contact with horses was moulded by the IH world and since then I've been training with Craig Stevens for the past few years, learning how to ride and train horses in the French classical style (like the Cadre Noir). What really got me hooked on horses was when I discovered there's "someone in there" that us humans can reason with.

The funny thing is, now that I've overcome those early fears by actually learning how to ride really effectively, I'm now drawn much more to re-schooling horses who are extremely energetic or emotional, rather than the quiet, safe ones I always thought I'd want to ride.

Funny old world, innit?

Derek

[wozzer]

Here's one for Mrs Derek Just so you know there was nothing other than a thank you, intended ;D

(Please note am happily married to "Mr Wozzer", most of the time LOL!!! )

[dawnb]

Very true! I hadnt actually conciously thought of my horse having an "emotional" reaction before but that really is a great metaphor. I mean if I can have an emotional day (which these days is every bloody day) then why cant by boy?? Thanks for the food, I will certainly devour it and digest )

[nich]

nor had I - but my girl is reactive, and I wonder how interlinked her anxiety/emotional reaction might be, with her hormonal problems. are highly strung horses more likely to be hormonal, and is hormonal = emotional, as it would be with humans??

[kya]

What an interesting background Derek. We're lucky to have you here and please do throw your hat in the ring if you see something we are waffling on about that you can rationalise with your training. Thanks again.

Being knocked unconcious wasn't as bad as you expected eh? Love your angle!! ;D

[Derek Clark]

Hi all,

Just so things don't get misinterpreted, I just wanted to point out that I'm not saying that horses becoming emotional is a _bad_ thing. Quite the reverse, actually. The only reason a horse moves at all is because it feels like it - so emotion in the horse is the source of all impulsion.

Once you are really able to direct the motion of the horse without opposition (in other words, your skills are "true"), then producing beautiful and graceful movement becomes pretty much all about generating the appropriate level of emotion in the horse and reducing it to "zero" again at the rider's whim.

General L'Hotte made a famous comment many years ago, that the horse must be trained to be calm, forward and straight - and that the order matters. Once you have a calm horse, then you can play with raising and lowering the emotional level which allows the horse to produce movement and show its brilliance. When the horse is trained in this way, then he can be taught to keep _himself_ straight, all of which are the real meanings of lightness and self-carriaige.

Emotion can be a very positive thing (love, joy, excitement), or it can be negative (fear, anger, confusion). Unfortunately for the horse, you can get flashy looking movement from either, but brilliance and grace only comes from the former because it is accompanied by relaxation.

One way to achieve calm is to take care of the lifestyle of the horse, though in this case the horse's "confidence" may be a function of his environment and you may still have to deal with the issue of calm again once in the saddle and away from home. The essence of the French classical philosphy is to achieve calm through educating the horse into a language of the aids.

Once the horse and rider are able to communicate via the aids (a two-way process!), the rider is able to reason with the horse and the horse can develop a genuine confidence in his rider. Wouldn't you feel more confident in the company of a leader who actually listens to you?

The amazing thing is, all horses seem to naturally understand the grammar of simple natural aids (direct rein, indirect rein, half-halt and reverse half-halt). What the rider needs to do is learn the alphabet - in other words, how to direct the horse's forces without ever pulling!

Derek

[Catherine M-S]

This is a really fascinating thread so thanks in particular to Kanga for drawing our attention to it again and to Derek for his insightful input.
I really understand the bit about training the horse to be calm. I put a post up a while ago in this section about my journey with my amazing horse Hattie as we have come from a very dark place to a really amazing place. I used tapping to help me with my confidence issues and because I finally manged to banish the demons Hattie thought that she ought to follow suit (we really are a team!).
Upshot of it all is that we taught Hattie to stand still when she became worried (I could be on the ground or riding) andto work through her worry before moving off again. She now knows how to manage her fear (supporting her with her issues around hormones, kidneys and conformation has played an invaluable role here) and can bring herself back down from a 10 (very worried) to normal state (1 or 2). She is a 7/8 TB chestnut mare so this is no mean feat.
Important that I support her through her worry by staying strong (using bear down for Mary Wanless fans) and breathing normally.