#ridinginthebubble

Building the Bubble #2. Just Converse

  One of us flaps our legs while standing still, banging our boots in the stirrups, twisting around in the saddle, then leaning down to throw our arms around his neck. We mean to be funny and child-like and show a certain sort of lazy bravado. We mean to act like there’s no special skill involved in riding. Then to get a dramatic response, we jerk the reins hard sideways and pop the gelding with…

Building the Bubble #1. Just Notice

Here’s last week’s Pretending to be a Horse scenario, from the equine point of view, abbreviated for sense-limited humans.

His thought balloon: (hard pavement. head pull, loose gravel. fast car. smell dog-coyotes. she’s distracted. breeze picking up. horses in the pasture on right. head pull. pavement. no dog-coyotes close. she’s distracted. she kicks. pulls and kicks. need a breath. pulls head,…

Pretending to Be a Horse

There was a time, while I was in junior high school, that I rode my horse on the road. Lots of us did, living on mostly small acreage, just past the city limit. I rode down to the grade school where we raced sometimes. Or over at the holly farm, up and down the rows. It was almost like a maze.

When I was younger I was fearless because nothing bad had happened. Yet.

There were pastures we’d walk…

Reframing Competition as Relationship

We were playing around after a lesson, laughing about the curse of being spokesmodels for my blog photos. She leans forward and “gets” his ear for the photo. Another laugh for the less-than-professional technique, but later we remember when she first got this horse. He was terribly head shy and worse. Things have changed.

Some of my clients compete and some do not, but when I ask each client…