August Goals

Somewhat to my dismay, I did NOT follow through on posting my August goals on Thursday, but I had my reasons. To be honest, I had a temporary emotional crisis of sorts. Thursday morning I had a ride which was really not at all bad, but I was feeling so discouraged and over-whelmed I ended up on the verge of tears and just called it quits.

Why? Well, it’s complicated, but what it boils down to, I think, is simply my lack of clarity as to WHAT I want and HOW I want to go about getting it. Like I’ve said before, all the conflicting input gets to me sometimes… I get why people want gurus; it’s easier! What a relief it would be to assign rightness to the opinions of one other human being and follow without question.

When I started developing Finn, I had a desire to take a “more practical” approach, to spend more time in the saddle and less playing on the ground, and to ultimately make it back to eventing one day. I wanted to do enough on the ground to have a genuine partnership, not to do groundwork for it’s own sake. The course of our partnership has most certainly been shaped by that.

As you know, however, I have recently been exploring more Liberty. In some ways it feels like retrograde movement, because the development of Liberty doesn’t seem very practical. But, it speaks to the part of me which is still yearning for a connection that goes deeper. The idea (or ideal) that with conscious development we can communicate with horses with our thoughts alone taunts me. How much lighter can it get, I wonder.

It’s not like these things are necessarily mutually exclusive, but problems arise when I allow myself to be influenced so strongly by any random thing I hear, see or read without maintaining MY focus on the big picture and the end game. When this dynamic results in a incoherent series of rides that go so far as to contradict each other, of course I get frustrated! How could I not?

So I spent a couple of days asking myself, what do I want? Do I REALLY want Liberty? Do I really want to dive so deeply into a whole different paradigm of interacting with horses, perhaps at the price of delaying my progress towards my goals for Finn’s career? How do I really want to move forward? I spent a couple of days leaning towards the “practical” side… and then I bought a book.

The book is called “Building a Life Together; You and Your Horse” and it was written by Magali Delgado and Frederic Pignon, who are world-famous for an approach most people wouldn’t consider very “practical.” I questioned my logic, but intuition pushed me to make the purchase. The quotes I have already read from the book are so aligned with some things I’ve been thinking, and the title SO exactly synched with a critical underlying theme of my relationship with Finn, reading the rest seemed an absolute necessity.

So what does this mean for me? At first I took the easy way out and jokingly declared, “I want it all.” But I don’t want it all, I just want a true friendship with Finn, to enjoy our time together, and to gradually accomplish our goals. Before writing this post, I reviewed the post I wrote in June about my vision… that depiction of where we’re headed still rings true.

While I don’t necessarily feel like this blog post depicts any great shift towards clarity, I do actually feel somewhat clearer on where I’m headed. Perhaps simply for knowing that I’m pursuing the Liberty and some new thought processes as a means to an end (the end being to have a more genuine friendship and more refined communication with Finn), not so much as an end unto itself… if that makes sense.

In any case, expect some additional reflection when my book arrives. It should be here by Wednesday. And in the meantime, I HAVE spent some time thinking about where to direct my focus for the month of August and this is what I’ve come up with:

1. Prioritize a consistently positive, patient, and kind attitude, always. No matter what happens. Recognize lapses early and be committed to interrupting the pattern.
2. On the ground, "master" backing circles and a correct turn on the HQ, ala Buck... which means pivoting on the outside hind so Finn learns to bear weight on his HQ.
3. In the saddle, focus on feeling the feet through the HQ/FQ turn and improving the accuracy of the movement, and start teaching backing circles.
4. Improve Finn's walk by increasing the energy of his default walk while encouraging him to offer more while I do less. Chase the feeling of him being truly and consistently "in front of the leg" at the walk.
5. Experiment with clarity of transitions between and within the gaits so we can distinguish between faster walk vs trot, or faster trot vs canter.

Initially I was going to keep it even simpler and limit myself to three goals, but I think this is a reasonable amount to focus on for the next 29 days. I am really hoping that keeping this handful of things in the forefront of my mind will really help me feel progressive and productive! Of course there will be other things that come up, and hopefully opportunities to take some of this stuff out on the trail. I’ll still get the poles out a day or two a week, and continue to experiment with some Liberty. But the main focus will be on these five things throughout it all, and hopefully at the beginning of September I’ll have some nice improvements to report!