Here is all I want. Here is what I cherish, what is dear, what I love, what I miss.
Jun28
Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones
Jun27
staying in the saddle
Staying in the saddle means that regardless of how rough the ride, we try to maintain balance. I am not talking just about riding here. When our youngest daughter ran away and cut off all communication, dropping out of the college and basically shattering her family and mucking up her life, we all came unseated. It took me about two months to even find my horse and try to get back on. I am back in the saddle, but there are days when my balance is poor, when I do not want to ride or even get up.
Those days a fewer and farther between. The universe, curiously, has delivered me two great gifts: An artist’s fellowship from the state of Connecticut and a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. I take those gifts to mean that not only must I ride forward, but I have to be firmly seated in my own life, my own work, moving into the days with a courageous heart. When Mark Rashid told us to ride with “feel, timing, blending, balance and breath,” I took that as an instruction for living. His idea is that those elements result in softness – the kind of irresistible Aikido softness that can move mountains. My horses already feel the difference. So do I. My daughter may be lost, but it is that softness, if anything, that will open a way for her to return.
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Jun25
don’t tell a story
http://alittlenewsphoto.com/?p=3172
Sometime during the Mark Rashid Aikido and Horsemanship clinic, someone started to tell a long story about how difficult their horse was. He looked at them and said, “Don’t tell a story.” From then on, all week I noticed the stories. They were all tethered to the past, to stuff that was probably going to go wrong because it had gone wrong in the past.
Sometimes it is hard to remember to tell the story of what we want instead of what we don’t want. Focusing on what we want can feel counter-intuitive and require some heavy habit breaking. Aren’t our conversations usually grounded in our problems?
Today riding Amadeo, I focused on what I wanted, and on getting quiet and soft enough to let that come through. Instead of paying attention to all of his clatter (which after all is only mirroring my clatter), I kept coming back to breathing, offering softness, and being consistent about what I was doing. So every time he grabbed the bit (think every 5 seconds or so), I asked him to be soft. I took long breaths, and after a short time, so did he. New story, good ending.
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Jun23
more notes from the dojo
Here we are performing a part of the horseman’s kata. Our instructions are to focus on feel, timing, blending, balance and breath. The same principles apply to the riding. My whole week here in both the dojo and the saddle have been about cultivating continuous, soft attention to all five of those elements.
Today in the dojo I felt myself distracted, having a hard time paying attention. I think of that as either dropping the reins or worst case, slipping out of the saddle. It is a way of stopping riding – tuning out, going on a little mental hiatus. Mark talks about learning to pay attention to whatever is most important, which is the thing that we are doing – not giving everything that is happening around us equal importance. I could feel myself struggling with that. Maybe I was tired or full of the week’s experiences, but I didn’t like to feel lax or inattentive. I wanted to hold myself to a higher standard – to meet the sensei’s or the horse’s presence with my own fullest, most engaged self.