Aging Well


I have never been one to fear getting older.  At thirty there was no fear, no remorse.  At 40, divorced, no children, still there was no fear.  Time still stretched before me and there seemed to be enough to accomplish all the things I should.  I mean, the things I thought  I should accomplish.  A few months ago my 45th birthday arrived and suddenly a cliff yawned wide.  What have I done?  Who am I?  WHERE am I?  And what does this have to do with horse training? 

Everything.  Nothing. 

One reason this blog came about was because I wanted to reflect on how far I had come, or not come in the process of being horse trainer.  To some I am sure this is a silly question.  There are many trainers who were lucky enough to be born to parents that owned and trained horses, perhaps made a living at it.  Mine were not.  I grew up in Hawaii where horses were for the very wealthy, it seemed and were not too available.  Others had parents who encouraged them to be around horses, and yes, mine encouraged me to do things that I wanted to do.  The thing is, I limited myself.  I never asked for riding lessons because I assumed it would be too expensive. 

So at age 23 while living in England, riding lessons finally became a reality.  For the next 5 years I took riding lessons continually.  It took that long to learn to really sit a horse well, with no bouncing at any gait.  To achieve the stillness of the best riders takes many hours and many lessons.  That, however, is not the only thing that one has to learn. 

Anyone else who has tried to break into the horse business without the benefit of coming from a horse background knows how difficult it can be.  Starting at 23 learning to ride set me back even further.  Many people learned the ropes by showing or rodeoing as a child.  For me, showing is a luxury.  A luxury that is too expensive on top of just owning the horses. I also learned to ride as an adult and it affected what kinds of things I was willing to do.  Adults are more cautious, less willing to try things like riding bareback at full gallop. 

Be that as it may, I have worked hard to get where I am now.  I can ride well, sit the trot on a large dressage horse and ride out most bucks.  I can take a mustang from wild to green broke, and then to finished.  There is always more to learn, however and it can make you feel...small.  Humble.  Just when it seems like you have learned, really learned all about horses, you realize that you know NOTHING!  Horses have a way of bringing you back to earth very quickly.  Then again, sometimes they surprise you by allowing you to teach them something which they learn far better than you ever thought possible. 

During my years in college at CSU I never really knew what I wanted to do when I graduated, except be around horses.  Riding was very important and after that, training.  As part of my senior project, we did a business plan for adopting mustangs and training them for the public to purchase.  We utilized pen and facility design that Temple Grandin taught us, and things I had learned about mustangs and the market for horses. 

My friend Leigh Ann and I honestly tried.  We sat down, found a somewhat willing barn owner and formulated a plan.  Then we asked ourselves a bunch of questions.... how would we handle this kind of issue, or that?  It became clear that we needed more experience with training horses.  My friend and I kind of went separate ways at that point.  I worked with a woman named Bonnie Stephens, who agreed to take me under her wing.  Leigh Ann joined us some of the time but her schedule didn't allow her to be there all of the time. 

In any case, the dream faded.  It's difficult to run a horse business unless you own the property or have an excellent relationship with the owner.  All of these things took time to learn.  Once I developed a lesson and training business most of it took place at other people's homes.  I would travel all over to people's barns or homes to giving lessons or training their horses.  You don't get rich doing things like that but you learn a lot.

Today I read an article in which the author laments not being perfect.  About how her mental picture of herself wasn't exactly like she had imagined it should look.  Let's face it, there are those among us who appear to be aliens or robots, people who accomplish amazing things while raising 14 kids, having a career in law and blogging 10 pages daily.  Oh, and they belong to the PTA, and a women's domestic violence support group....  they are, outwardly at least, perfect.  Then there are people like Bill Gates and that Facebook guy.  The rest of us feel like we need to match up, that somehow we should be accomplishing something big... well, at least I do, and my sister. 

I have no children!  I have no excuse, I thought.  But the fact is, life gets in the way.  I never had that incubatory period as a young child where I had access to horses.  For a long long time I thought that it didn't matter, I could catch up.  For the most part I have, but I will never be at the level of Clinton Anderson...unless I can devote all my extra time to training horses.  The thing is, I have a family and a job.  I need to have a steady income.  A beginning horse trainer does not have a steady income and this has always held me back.  As a teenager it would have been possible to learn the ropes, live at home and have an intermittent income.  Or, I could pay thousands of dollars to John Lyons or Pat Parelli to become certified in their way of training.

Not gonna happen.  So here I am, at 45, still not at the level I want to be but wanting to train horses all the same.  Time is my enemy as is age.  I have come to the grim realization that I won't ever be Clinton Anderson or John Lyons.  I can accomplish more, but in reality I will do more by accepting that I don't need to do more, or be more.  I am right here, right now, and I have horses, ride horses and even train horses, which is what I always wanted to do.  My dreams have already come true, it just doesn't look like I thought it would. 

How many of us think that we must reach a certain goal or particular level and will  feel less about ourselves?  As a woman, do I see myself as not having reached high enough?  Should I be able to do as much as Martha Stewart?  When will I admit that Martha has wealth and assistants who help her?  She is also divorced and alone, which gives her unlimited time to do crafts.  None of us knows what those super people do in their down time, or what is messed up in their lives, we only see the fantastic accomplishments.  We assume that everything else in their life is going really well.  I was secretly relieved when Brittany Spears lost it.  The funny thing is, she is probably feeling the same way I am!  Yes, it's TRUE! A recent interview with Janet Jackson revealed to me, anyway, that she isn't really that confident.  Not like you think she would be.

This mental struggle has been going on in my mind for the last few years.  My husband listened patiently and even supported me when I said I wanted to start marketing my horse training.  I told him I could be BIG, and successful and RICH.  "What do you think?" I asked breathlessly after pitching my ideas.  "Sounds great", he replied.  By the tone of his voice I knew that he knew that I would never do those things. He was smart enough to support me anyway. That's not me, though.  I had already admitted as much.  I just had to accept myself for who I am.  I am not super trainer.  I am not a public speaker and I am not a good marketer of me.  So what.  So what?  Is that so bad?  Yes, society wants us to be business people, and sell sell sell, and market yourself, and be BIG.  So what if you aren't big?  What if you are quiet and small?  Can you still train horses?  Yes, it's ok.  Be true to yourself, I realize.  Just be me - right here, right now.

When is it ok to stop thinking I'm not good enough? Am I good enough right now, even though I will continue to get better?  I think the answer is...YES! 

Grace Under Pressure

If anything describes horsemanship it is the words "grace under pressure".   The ability to ride any horse, under any conditions and make it look easy is what I would call grace under pressure.  The best riders and trainers remain calm, un-flustered when things go wrong.  When the horse bucks, spooks, forgets something, over-reacts, under-reacts, whatever can go wrong a true rider can handle it and not let it ruin his/her disposition.

I was reading a book called In Search of Captain Zero by Allan Weisbecker. Essentially it is a book about a serious surfer - not the pro-surfer type, the gypsy globe trotting kind.  Looking for the perfect wave, the perfect place, etc.  If you aren't familiar, surfers can be serious hobbyists, taking their sport to heart like other people take religion to heart.  It can be a spiritual, intellectual and athletic undertaking to surf waves all over the world.  What does this have to do with horses? 

There was a part in the book where the author was talking about how sometimes when surfing the "I" dissolves and melds into the wave, you become part of the movement and the moment.  The same thing happens in riding too.  If you have ridden a horse to the point where it  is moving effortlessly under you, responding to your cues to the lightest touch or sometimes with barely a thought then you know what I mean.  It's when everything comes together - the weather, the horse and you to create this moment where riding the horse is spiritual, you lose the sense of dominating the horse and instead know that your desires are your horse's desires. 

In training you constantly struggle to get the horse to follow your agenda.  There really is no nice way to say it - unlike surfing, the horse needs to be molded to our goals.  They have a personality and an agenda of their own.  The younger the horse when it's started the easier it is to convince that it should go along with you.  My horses were all older when they were trained, for various reasons.  Most of them are still deep in the process.  Snickers was 12 when we got him, and convincing him to go along with my wants is sometimes not easy.  Angel was 9 and had very little formal training.  She only knew that if you squeezed with your right leg she should trot.  Pulling back on the reins meant stop.  And she kind of neck reined.  Both of them were stiff, fell in and out on circles, went their own direction and speed but were otherwise pretty mellow horses. 

It has been a joy to see them grow into well-mannered and trained horses.  They are ridden in the pasture - we have no arena, so they have to deal with ditches, small trees and clumps of grass.  They used to trip a lot.  They had never had a bit, just a hackamore and so I put them in a bit for the first time. They pulled and rooted the reins out of my hands, wouldn't listen.  Over time Angel especially has become a wonderful horse to ride.  She has a smooth trot that blossomed into a wonderful floating trot.  She learned her leads in a week, she can side pass and do shoulder-in.  In short, she became a cooperative and willing partner and a joy to ride.  She looks forward to learning new things instead of fighting me.  I had to figure out how to get her to like what she did, and what worked absolutely the best was clicker training. 

Finally, one day I was riding her at sunset after a solid week of working her daily.  Suddenly everything came together - I could feel her listening, ready to do anything I asked.  She was flexible and fit.  We could canter without drifting to the left, or charging.  Her tail never swished with irritation like it used to, she didn't balk or rear up or object.  That's a lot of "nots" and "didn'ts"... But Angel had become an angel.  She had become more than either of us thought she could be - she was beautiful and strong.  She was athletic and powerful and graceful. 

When the horse is finally light, and strong and flexible and knows all the cues, that's when "horse" and "rider" become a team and the "dissolution of the I" occurs.  It doesn't matter what kind of riding you do, this is always true.  You can tell when a particular horse and rider lacks in this area because instead of constantly improving they actually start to regress.  The horse develops it's own reaction to cues that are incorrect, or it becomes lame more and more often.  It gets sour and won't perform.  I am thinking of a particular horse and rider.  The horse was purchased for a large price from an excellent trainer.  It had a wonderful pedigree and a disposition to please.  Anyone could have ridden that horse and it would do what was asked.  This rider competed on it and it gradually became sour, unwilling.  It wouldn't do things correctly.  It became lame after shows.  In my opinion, the rider lacked compassion and the ability to bring the horse along.  They lacked patience with themselves most of all, and it came out in their riding. 

Riding well is about losing your ego even while having the self-confidence to be a leader for the horse.  The horse functions as a mirror for the rider, showing us our flaws.  Many many great riders and trainers have remarked on this fact, it is something that you can't help but come across if you do any research into horsemanship.  To me it is unfortunate to change such a great horse as this person had, but they also missed the opportunity to learn about themselves.  It is easy to put people down, to bad mouth them and make fun of their flaws.  It is better to learn from them, to look at what's happening to their horse and make sure it isn't happening to your horse.  What affect are you having?  Does your horse like to be ridden?  Is it getting lame or sour?  Is it getting and staying flexible?  Do you have those moments where riding is effortless, where you feel like you are one with your horse? 

Making a great horse is also making yourself be the best you can be.  Surfers have a much smaller margin of error.  If they aren't aware, if they don't bend to conditions and gather their courage for the monster waves, they could wipe-out or even die.  Riders can also put themselves in danger, for sure, but it's different.  The number of horses that are truly that dangerous are very small.  And because the horse is a living being, I believe that we usually have the chance to reach it's mind.  Waves ask for no compassion and give none.  The wave forces you to face yourself over and over.  The bigger the surf the more this is true.  This is where the "dissolution of the I" happens.  In riding, you face yourself in a more subtle way.  You have to look, to watch the horse to see your mistakes.  Once the horse is well-trained, it creates the mirror for you and begins to reflect the rider's flaws. 

Some people like to ride on a purely recreational level, and I understand that.  Not everyone practices riding like I do, or top level riders do (I am not a top-level rider but if I had the means I would go for it).   But if you do, there is so much joy and incredible oneness that can be achieved with the horse.  When you work hard and are honest with yourself, it becomes as much for you as for the horse.  Your agenda and the horse's agenda are the same, your ability matches the horse, you are improving each other and you are growing. That, to me, is what the purpose of riding is.