Spring In the Air

February might seem a little early for a first spring ride but the ice had melted off the road, the mud was soft.

I was just back from an Eponaquest Instructor update in Arizona. “The Power of the Herd; A Nonpredatory Approach to Social Intelligence, Leadership and Innovation” is the latest book by my mentor Linda Kohanov. Predatory Leadership is the old “shit rolls downhill” model; Non-Predatory Leadership ia the “support everybody dealing with their own shit so nobody has to eat it” model.

Linda outlines the guiding principles in the book and developed Equine Facilitated Wellness(EFW) exercises, so people can experience and practice their new skills and understandings with horses. Through my experience learning to facilitate the exercises, I noticed that although I am comfortable with dominance, I am afraid of abusing it and can confuse it with fear aggression, especially if I’m scared. There were more insights but this is an article, not a book.

My fear came up when I finished tacking my fussing Freya up and put on my helmet. We were both definitely “on our toes” as we rode off down the road. The farther we went, the more excited she was and the more I had to focus on deepening my seat and my breathing, and softening my hands and my eyes. When I’m feeling anxious, if I’m not mindful, as well as getting aggressive, I can also end up curling slightly into fetal position.

We were doing just fine until the car went by. The driver very politely slowed right down as she passed us but when she stomped the gas pedal from what seemed a reasonable distance ahead of us, Freya dove into the mud with her front hooves like a fox after a mouse. The aforementioned tendency toward fetal position has led to inadvertent dismounts, when she’s pulled this stunt in the past. She was pretty disappointed it didn’t work this time… so she gave it a second try.

It wasn’t until later, when we turned homeward that we started to spend time on the vertical plane as well as the horizontal. She likes bunching herself up like a Lipizzaner to spring in the air, all 4 feet off the ground , with a kick out flourish at the top. She’s special that way.

For my part, I was pretty surprised not to be experiencing the fear aggression that I have in the past. Sometimes I can get caught up feeding the resistance, out of fear of the future, making it worse. I just kept riding, and breathing and keeping my hands still and soft. What was happening underneath me was an interesting challenge but I felt very stable and was able to find things that worked and use them.

It was a Big Difference for me which I can mostly attribute to the Eponaquest experience I’d had, of attending to my softness and breath while practicing dominance. Another contributing factor could be my body work with Dianne Noort of Horsefly Yoga over the winter. Either way, the combined self/body awareness(foundations of EFW) definitely transformed my experience of myself and my world in that moment!