When we see that energy and emotion can be truly independent of each other, we can begin to master both. We can employ energy to our purpose without getting angry or defensive or excited or manipulative. And we can choose where to place our emotions, to avoid spending them foolishly. This changes the question from “How angry must I be to get a response?” to “How much energy must I exert to make this happen?”
We live in a world where there is energy in us, and we share that energy between ourselves and all the life-forms around us.
We bring that energy into focus by harnessing our attention. We shape our attention with our intention, to bring about change. When we learn to use that intention impeccably, it becomes the vehicle for the expression of our purpose or our will in the physical realm.
We can induce changes when our energy is properly harnessed by our intention. This works most effectively when it remains uncluttered by emotion. We achieve this clarity by learning to summon our attention without attachment.
That is a tall order for people because, as predators, it runs contrary to our nature. As hunters and fighters, we are programmed to package energy and emotion together. Think about how anger enables us to summon massive amounts of energy.
The horse gives us a different perspective on energy and emotion. He is expert at reading the visceral and intuitive energy we give off subconsciously in our body posture, head position, and hand gestures. He will always try to read our energetic intention, but the message can get garbled when mixed with emotion.
Pure intention is energy; emotion, on the other hand, reflects appetites, needs, and ambitions. The horse can become confused because we jack up our emotions when we really mean to summon more energy. So instead of simply perceiving more energy in play, he is also reading, say, anger or frustration. We clutter up our energy.
The horse’s important lesson becomes: “Stop! You don’t need to stir emotion and energy together.” In fact, our energy works far more effectively when it is emotionally neutral and drained of any reactive association.
We can learn from the horse to be more mindful of the play of our energy in our daily lives. For example, we may ask him to accelerate from a walk to a trot. Often, I will see students start yelling as they get after the horse when, in fact, that confuses him. He is perfectly willing to respond to an energetic signal, but when we holler at him to get going he is confused by the sudden aggression. So he teaches us self-control — to overcome our instinct to get aggressive and instead draw on our reserves of energy.
Mindlessly yoking energy and emotion together is exhausting, depleting, and unhealthy. We must show respect for energy — our own and that of others — by pacing ourselves and using it sparingly. We want to transmit energy in as pure and discrete a form as possible. No judgment. Not good or bad. Not happy or sad. Just effective.
The quality of energy should not depend on outcomes. Think of your vital energy as the gas pedal in your car. If you are pouring on the gas in a moment of road rage, you are not accelerating to get up a hill or steer out of a curve. You’re mad; you’ve let your emotions hijack your energy.
Apply the gas without emotion. When we summon more energy to address a need, we should ask ourselves: Do we want to apply this much energy to this problem? Or did we unintentionally let emotion creep in?
We can train ourselves to summon emotion by choice, not by default.
We must always understand “the why” of what we are teaching the horse. Knowing “the why” shapes the timing, and the timing reveals “the how.”
For example, if a rider wants to teach her horse to back up, the first step is to teach him to pick up his front foot because that is the initial movement required in backing up. The rider’s intent should be to release the horse as soon as he first lifts his foot. In fact, the rider should sense the moment when her horse is thinking about picking up his foot because the moment of release will happen as the foot leaves the ground.
Many riders try to learn techniques by rote, but no one can develop an impeccable release from a recipe. Impeccable release stems from a profound understanding of the horse’s nature, and why and when he will respond. Study every movement, every gesture of the horse, until you profoundly understand how and what he is thinking.
Energy is always in a state of flux, morphing between static and dynamic forms. Static energy is applied with a fixed intensity. If I simply lay the length of my calf along the side of my horse to make him soften his flank and elevate his rib cage, that is static energy. I do not change the intensity I apply.
Dynamic or driving energy is a pulsatile, rhythmic form of energy, rising crescendo-style, then dropping, then rising again in a rapid, percussive style. If my horse will not soften his flank with the just pressure of my calf against him, then I can pulse him with my heel (or even my spur if I am wearing it). The rhythmic, wave-like pulsations are more forceful and therefore more difficult for a horse to ignore or resist than static energy. Driving energy will compel a horse to yield more quickly.
By the same token, we can break our own energy down into passive and active forms. When our energy is passive, it is at its lowest state — drained out of our body and deposited in the ground. I sometimes call this my “bus stop slump.” I imagine standing at a bus stop and there is not a bus in sight. My shoulders are stooped and my head is down. But when my bus comes along, my body fills with energy. It goes active: “Hey, wait a minute! That’s my bus! Over here!” My body has become energized. It wants something to happen.
Or imagine someone standing peacefully behind you in a queue. Your body is tranquil, in a low, passive energy state. Now someone tries to break into line in front of you. Your body is instantly activated, energized. We need to observe how it feels to assume a passive energy signature as opposed to consciously trying to make something happen, to effect change. Our horse will know this before we do.
Dynamic energy cannot exist without a basis in static energy, and activity cannot be shaped unless it arises from passivity.
It must be in our genes. We see a horse and immediately want to throw a leg up and ride it. We are sometimes downright foolhardy when it comes to mounting a horse and trusting it to go immediately out on the trail. There are a couple of good reasons to compel you to linger on the ground.
First, the relationship between human and horse is most meaningful to the horse on the ground. There, two species are interacting using their body language, partners dancing together in a choreography of energetic initiatives. When the person climbs on a horse’s back, everything changes to indirect communication. Weight shifts. We apply leg pressure and bit pressure. Why? Once you are on the horse’s back, he can no longer read your energy and your body language directly. In fact, you are sitting right in the large blind spot behind his head. Granted, he can look upward out of the side of his eye, but under saddle he must sense you indirectly.
Second, anything that does not work consistently on the ground will never translate well under saddle. In fact, it will always get worse if the foundational work on the ground is not solid. It can only deteriorate when the horse has to deal with the indirect signals from his rider while balancing the added burden of carrying her.
All difficulties in horsemanship begin on the ground or end there.
The rule is simple: Stay on the ground until the lesson is virtually perfect, then try it under saddle. The corollary is: If it is not working well under saddle, get back on the ground.
A friend of mine once said, “I’ve found that the more I get thrown out of the saddle to the ground, the more demanding and refined my ground-work technique becomes.” That is the hard way (literally) to learn the value of partnering with your horse on the ground. All difficulties in horsemanship begin on the ground or end there.
Energy has certain properties, and one of them is that it gets sticky when it stops moving. It is a bit like rolling a heavy barrel. It can take a lot of effort to start it moving, but once under way it picks up speed, and then it requires substantially less energy to continue. Letting a horse stand in place, on the other hand, or petting him too many times for too long, will make him stick to the spot. Once he gets stuck, it will take far more energy to get him moving again.
A good rider will get her horse moving before applying intention. Once he is flowing, it requires far less energy to teach him. A moving horse is a lot more willing than a standing one.
Stopping, resting, and taking a break are all fine. We take complete responsibility for the energy we engender. Say I decide to take a break and have an affectionate moment with my horse in the shade. I am mindful of bringing my horse into the shade and let him “stick” to the spot. I am intentionally grounding our energy, letting it drain into the ground. It is quite another matter, though, if it is my intention to have my horse circling at the trot and I just let him simply slow to walk and then stumble to a stop and then go up and pet him.
A moving horse is a lot more willing than a standing one.
To the master teacher, an impeccable moment is one in which intention is totally and perfectly expressed. Nothing is left undone or carried out improperly.
An impeccable session is a string of impeccable moments. And an impeccable life — enlightenment — is an uninterrupted stream of flawlessness. Enlightenment is rarely achieved because it requires such an unrelenting demand of energetic focus. But focusing on enlightenment, fostering the habit of mindfulness, is a prerequisite for enhancing well-being and contentment in one’s life.
Our fundamental nature is a given. It is written. It is largely genetically determined, and railing against fate is a waste of time. What we can do is become adept at modifying our instinctual responses. That is the true measure of discipline and self-control. The shorter the gap between the innate, reflexive action and the well-thought-out, deliberate response, the greater the power of the warrior.
Horses have their own brand of wisdom. Because they are prey animals, flight is their primary defense, and it is critical to their sense of security to be free to move their feet.
I had a buckskin filly named Pepper who, most of the time, was fine but would flip out upon discovering she was tied to a rail. It was as if she unexpectedly glimpsed the true terror of the situation and would go berserk, pulling back with all her might. She could rip hitching posts out of the ground. Once she reared and flipped completely over on her back.
I told myself, “I’m a horse trainer. I can teach this horse to stand still.” I launched into my usual routine, working with Pepper when she was tired and gradually desensitizing her. When I tested her to see if she would spook and pull back, she stood there cool as a cucumber, looking completely cured. I patted myself on the back, pleased that I had finally fixed the problem.
Then, a few months down the road, and without warning, Pepper exploded again.
I started reflecting on what really spooked her: the fact that she couldn’t escape. So what would happen if she were never tied up?
“What?” I thought to myself. “I’ve spent half my life teaching people to tie their horse to the rail with a slipknot, and now I’m going to give in to Pepper and not tie her up at all?”
I hope you can tell what was wrong with my thinking: “I’m going to give in to Pepper . . . ” No, Pepper wasn’t trying to force me to surrender; she was trying to show me something new. I started playing around with the lead rope, just looping it once around the metal hitching post. When she spooked, she pulled back and met virtually no resistance. She backpedaled, and then she stopped reacting.
Periodically, something would happen and Pepper would return to her panic reaction. Eventually, she learned that there was nothing, ever, holding her back. She finally calmed down and could think her way through the problem.
Human civilization and culture demonstrate, to a large extent, society’s collective ability to move to beyond instinct and into the realm of creative thinking. We don’t accomplish this by fighting or suppressing our personalities. We acknowledge that we are born with or develop certain traits over which we have little or no control. That is our makeup, but each of us is responsible for thinking our way past those shortcomings.
The desire to dedicate our lives to this task is what makes us heroic. The ability to do it as a society is what makes us civilized.
We are creatures of habit. The reason it is hard to change the status quo is that we are comfortable with it. The human organism is designed to plan and organize so that life does not offer us any unwelcome or potentially disastrous changes.
Rhythm, however, helps us accept change.
Horses appreciate rhythm. Energy that comes in a rhythm means the crescendo of the wave of energy is predictable. Adding a rhythmic, pulsatile character to our energy can allow us to drive or move a horse with less work than it takes to sustain static energy.
In the natural world, almost everything with the power to change has a rhythm — a beat, a pulse, a wave — from the ocean to the human heart. Although energy can be applied as a sustained, unwavering presence, like a dead tree lying across a stream, static energy is more likely to create resistance than change. Sudden, unexpected, and explosive energy, on the other hand — a lightning bolt, an earthquake, a punishment — is disruptive and untrustworthy and brings about dramatic and often destructive transformation.
But energy applied with rhythm, pace, and predictability — like the waves on the beach — is at the heart of purposeful change. We know it and recognize it as such immediately.
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”
Joseph Campbell