Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones

Jan29

lesson learned

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Several years ago I went to a clinic being offered in our neighborhood by someone who was an “expert” in “Natural Horsemanship.”  We came with our daughters and brought some low chairs to sit and watch.  The instructor was working with a young Arabian stallion.  She kept shaking the lead rope at him – something that is often taught in Natural Horsemanship as a way of getting the horse’s attention, or causing them to move away from the handler.  It makes the rope look like a dancing snake.

Each time she shook the rope, she increased the force, saying in a sarcastic tone, “Hello!!  Hello!!”  The little stallion was clearly upset, wide-eyed, head straight up in the air and doing anything he could to get away from the rope and the person on the other end of it.  I could feel my stomach tighten and  my daughters’ consternation as they watched.,  Suddenly the instructor walked up to the horse and punched him in the face, turning to explain that she needed his attention and his respect.

In one movement, all four of us stood with our chairs, and walked out, my girls’ eyes streaming with tears.  She called sarcastically after us that we obviously didn’t now anything about horses.  That was a lesson I will never forget.

The little stallion also learned a lot that day.  He learned about distrust, about violence and flight.  He did not learn about softness, dependability, curiosity or cooperation.

All during the four days of my workshop with Mark Rashid, I was drawn to look at the mouth of his horse Baxter.  I found myself loving the roundness or it, the way he held his jaw, his lips, the softness there, the fact that he never opened his mouth or struggled with the bit.  The reason for that is that there was nothing to struggle against.  Mark’s hands on the reins are soft, flowing, generous and yet effective.  Baxter is a peaceful, quiet, balanced horse, which tells me he is working with a feeling, connected and kind rider.

The human habit of responding in kind – harsh to harsh, fast to fast, force to force does not work with horses.  For one thing, they outweigh us by usually around ten times.  They can always pull harder and run faster.  It also doesn’t work for us.  It puts us in a mindless spin of reactivity and one upsmanship.  A frightened animal (or child or person) cannot learn, cannot listen – we all want to get away from the scary thing.

Mark said that we humans are not good at connecting, but we are good at creating openings.  What I think that means is that our big brain is flexible, improvisational, and good at generating options and possibilities.  But for that to happen, we have to go inside.  We have to be willing to go deeper, to feel ourselves and let go of the program.  Sometimes, that requires a lot of undoing, and sometimes it can happen on an exhale.

That is the lesson that I learned, and one that I will happily carry with me in place of the other.

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Jan28

the big picture

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Helping.  Breathing.

These are the two themes that floated to the surface for me today in the workshop with Mark Rashid.  Helping was a theme for all three days, and one that I needed to hear every day.  He asked us to consider this question:  “How can I help him to do what I am asking, not how can I make him do it?”  Because of our big brain and the big ego that accompanies it, we often default to making, not helping.  Helping requires us to continually move inside toward listening and feeling.   For ego driven humans, that is very hard.  We direct, we make things happen, we push, we demand.  Helping engages different parts of us – the more tender, vulnerable, receptive and willing parts.  Somehow in working with these generous creatures who show us through their bodies exactly what we are doing -both right and wrong – we have to homogenize these parts of ourselves.

How?  Well, Mark dropped some hints like, “An exhale would go a long way here.”  Or, “When the wheels come off, try exhaling.”  During my lesson, he saw that I was not breathing – not in a way that would allow me to open to the horse, or sustain the activity of riding.  So he had me breathe in on a four count and out on a five count in rhythm with the walk.  He had me maintain that rhythm in the trot.  And in his perfect way, Sam, the lovely blue roan quarter horse I was riding, began to breathe himself, his stride opening and lengthening, and then I noticed that I was having fun,  And what is more important than that?

Jan27

the dance

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At one point in the workshop with Mark Rashid today, he began to show us the dancing magic partnership with his horse.  Forward, back, side, side, forward diagonals, back diagonals – light, soft steps in any direction – articulating each foot like an improvisational tango. I fantasized my beautiful dancers, DeAnna and Ingrid in the arena with Mark and his horse – listening and improvising together – an unimaginably gorgeous quartet.

Today was fodder for about twenty blog posts.  What I am loving about this experience is that it confirms everything I believe about the human-horse connection as a template and groundwork for spiritual practice.

Here are a few highlights:

  • Allow the horse to tell you what is going on – if you can learn to listen to the horse, you will get an education.  If you don’t listen to the horse you will get experience.
  • Ask ,”How can I help you do the things I am asking, not how can I make you do them?”
  • Instead of trying to fix the problem, focus on what you want.

During my ride today, Mark helped me to create the walk that I wanted – engaged, moving forward with softness and ease – from the first step.  The horse that I am riding had inadvertently been taught to walk off reluctantly, with no forwardness.  Most of the change in his walk had to do with creating the desired walk inside of me and then transmitting it to the horse. Not using more and more leg. That is the dance of creating from the inside out, not just mechanically changing the outside.  The same thing works with children.  It works with any creative effort that I have ever been a part of. It works, every time, no exceptions.

Jan26

inside of me, inside of you

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I am in Savannah, GA taking a workshop with cowboy-Aikido master, Mark Rashid.  I have written about him before, and being able to ride with him and experience his work firsthand is a dream come true.

Today I rode a horse named Sam who had, as Mark said, “an industrial strength brace” that showed up in the way he hit the bits by throwing his head.  Sam would hit the bits so hard that he would back himself up – like a wave hitting a sea wall.  He could not soften.  With me on his back, Mark again and again corrected him, backing him up all the way across the big paddock where we were riding.  That sounds harsh and punitive.  It wasn’t.  What was interesting was with all that backing, I could clearly feel when the horse “homogenized”  in other words, stopped feeling like four separate, blocky quadrants and suddenly came together in a smooth flow.

When Mark showed me what he was doing with the reins, by having me be the horse and brace my hands and arms, he softened my resistance with something that felt like to me warm water moving up the reins.  He explained that he was sending intention, and “going underneath,” something that comes from his practice of Aikido. His point is that the fix is not mechanical, but happens by finding the connection between the inside of the rider to the inside of the horse. He says that if you aren’t connected to yourself, there is no way that you can connect to the horse.

Then he had me take the reins and instead of meeting the horse’s resistance with my own resistance, just picture my hands moving toward the horse’s mouth.  Doing that dissolved the brace for both me and the horse, and gave me a sensation that I have never experienced before.  Which for a smart somatic person was pretty exciting and humbling. He also cataloged my own stiffness without hardly looking at me in about five seconds.  Like I said, humbling.

For those of you who have been following the Deo Diaries, you can imagine how excited I am to go home and try all of this with him!