Tag: Bridger

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Heading beyond good and bad

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I was thinking about horses today, which I guess goes without saying.  Yesterday my young horse Bridger was a turd during our ride and today he was charming.  That’s what I said to a friend, only it’s not true.  On both days he was himself, doing what he needed to do.  The rest is on me.

I called my trainer Kathleen to complain about his fractious behavior yesterday.  As always, she was consistent in using words like “lost” and “troubled,” while I was thinking “shit head” and “obnoxious.”  This, even though I love my horse to distraction and always fall into sentiment where he’s concerned.  Even still, Kathleen has to remind me over and over and over again to look at the world through his eyes instead of rushing to label him.  I know how to do this; I believe this is the right thing to do; I enjoy doing this; but I always forget to do it when things get tough.  I keep defaulting to blaming my horse.

Yesterday I took Bridger on what was supposed to be a short, easy, mindless ride on the road past our house.  It was late afternoon at the end of a long and tiring work week and I thought this little outing would be just the thing.  Instead, Bridger was tossing his head and surging forward, threatening to bolt out from under me.  When I picked up a rein to ask him to turn his head, he grabbed the bit with his mouth and pulled the other way.   At one point, he thought he might rear up on me, which he hasn’t tried for almost a year.  His body thrummed with energy.  We were on the edge of a blowup most of the time.  Using everything Kathleen taught me over the years, I kept a lid on things.  Instead of heading down the road, we spent 45 minutes circling and slaloming and backing and retracing our steps over 30 yards of road and shoulder.  When I finally got him to cooperate with me a bit, I jumped off and called it a frustrating day.

I managed to make the worst of it, as I often do.  Why was he such an ass?  I asked myself.  I’m really screwing this horse up, I told myself.  I’m allowing him to be a spoiled jerk, I complained, and we are both going to hell in a hand basket.  I called Kathleen.  Did I do the wrong things with him?  Should I have done this instead of that?  Maybe, she replied, but most importantly, she spoke for Bridger.

What I saw as an easy little outing was actually one of the tougher things I could have asked of him.  I took him away from his friends to ride alone, which is always challenging for an inexperienced horse.  But I didn’t take him far — he could hear and smell and see his buddies the whole time.  I set up a situation in which he was sure to be both worried about being alone and highly motivated to get back to the friends who were so tantalizingly near.  We reminisced that when we took Bridger away from home with no other horse in sight he usually did just fine.  He’s not awfully worried about simply being away from his friends, but I put him in a double bind and then expected him to focus and relax.  And let’s not forget that I was probably tired and strung out, which did nothing to ease his concerns.

Instead of seeing what he was going through, I called him a shit head.  Thank goodness I’m well-trained enough that I didn’t punish him or yell at him, but I labelled him bad and savaged myself for making him bad.

Isn’t this what we do?  You’d be amazed how many horses are stupid shit heads every day, running or bucking or otherwise trying to save themselves from things we don’t take the time to understand.  Things we create for them, as often as not, and then blame them for their reactions.

Today I took Bridger to the arena along with his buddy Jack.  I let him run and buck a little first and take a couple rolls in the hot sand.  Then we did some work while Jack stood nearby.  Bridger was an excellent student today, and a wonderful guy to be around.  If I were less educated, I might congratulate myself on having a perfect horse and being an especially skilled horsewoman.  That’s a more pleasant picture than yesterday’s, but it’s no more true.

On both days, my choices and the environment created circumstances.  I came to both situations with expectations and a background emotional state.  Bridger responded to the circumstances and to me as it all seemed to him.  Today his responses fit very nicely with my plans.  Yesterday, not so much.  End of story.

 

 

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“Stay with him and wait”

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Bridger was nervous in the arena.  He was worried about the trash cans outside the fence, where black cats once popped out right under his nose like Halloween Jack-in-the-boxes.  He was skeptical about the safety of the dais at one end where judges looked down on the proceedings.  And he was seriously concerned about the staffer hosing down the alleyway next to the arena.  The shadowy figure, the hiss of the water, the spray and fleeing dust were dreadful to the young horse.

I rode him through our lesson, round and round and across the arena, urging him closer and closer to the worrisome spots while trying not to push him to panic stage.

We were working on some small circling maneuvers near the hose man.  I was keeping Bridger’s attention focused on a minute task in the presence of something scary, trying to take his mind off the threat.  Someday, hopefully, Bridger will look to me in these cases and take my lead on whether there is danger, but we’re not there yet.  He complied with my directions, but stayed alert to the dangerous situation next to us.

Suddenly, Bridger tucked his enormous haunches under himself and launched forward and sideways.  He worked so hard at his instantaneous spook that he let out a huge fart as he went.

My brain lags at these moments — it took me a few milliseconds to realize what was happening.  By the time I processed it, we had jumped halfway across the arena and he was trotting out the end of his spook.  I was securely in the middle of the saddle, hardly a hair out of place.

Here’s what I loved about this.  I was not afraid.  I sat deeply in the saddle and held on to the gullet.  When he was back on four feet, I calmly gathered the reins to prepare to slow him down or simply go on to the next thing.

As he launched into the air with his gaseous assist, my brain spoke very clearly: “stay with him and wait.”  I wasn’t sure what he was doing but I had learned not to panic.  I knew I needed to keep my balance and stay on the horse and that the moment would pass. I learned this the hard way.

Last summer, when Bridger gave out a much less impressive quasi-buck, my brain told me something else: “holy shit! disaster! abandon ship!”  So I did.  I thought his minor upheaval was the beginning of mayhem without end, and I fled.  And got a broken bone and several lasting bruises for my choice.

After months and months of dedicated effort, including a volume of tears and sweat, my instinctive brain was finally able to say something reasonable and helpful.  And correct.  Stay with him and wait.  So I did and all was well.

And now I go forth, hoping to do the same in whatever life throws at me.  Which looks to be quite a bit in the near future.  I hope to ride the upheavals as they go and wait for the moment when I can right the ship.  And keep my bones intact.

 

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In Praise of Small Bites

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I’m a fan of the small-bites approach, to many things, but I suffer doubt whether it’s all that effective.  Our culture generally screams for the whole hog.  Go big or go home and that kind of thing.  Taking small, regular bites seems somehow weak, boring, un-American.  But now I’m convinced.

I used to go big most of the time.  Riding my bike up a steep section, I did it as fast as possible, both to conquer the challenge and to get the difficulty over with so I could rest on the downhill.  I cleaned the whole house in a flurry, and then did almost nothing for much too long.  I lived on an intensity-collapse cycle.  I got a lot of stuff done.

Then I started riding a young horse.  He freaked me out a couple of times with his power and independence.  When he was in a tough spot, going big was no longer an option.  Not for me.  If I bore down and pushed him through these things, he would likely have escalated further before we got through, and I was already past my limits.

On great advice, and with no other plan, I started on the small bite approach.  I worked with or rode him to the degree I could without going too far beyond my comfort zone.  That wasn’t very much at times.  Because it was emotionally so challenging, I couldn’t ride him for very long or do very much before I needed to regroup.  I noticed no change, my entire focus was getting out there and getting to that edge.

I was skeptical.  Small bites move slowly.  They are tedious.  Change is almost imperceptible.  Day after day, I still felt nervous, I still did small things.  The top of the hill stayed just out of sight.

The gradations of challenge with Bridger the colt go kind of like this: groundwork (unmounted) –> riding in the small round corral –> riding in the larger corral –> riding out on our 25-acre property –> riding out around the neighborhood.  At the start, I did 100% groundwork, and slowly started adding portions of the next steps.

Yesterday, I hardly did any groundwork, skipped the round pen, spent a few minutes riding in the corral and then spent most of the time on the road around the neighborhood.  I felt almost no nerves the entire time.  Suddenly, after all those tedious, tiny bites, change erupted.

I like small bites.  I clean my house a little bit every day (well, that’s the plan).  I tackle parts of chores and leave other parts for the next day.  I push quickly up the hill if I want my heart to beat faster, otherwise I stop and look around.  It really works.

 

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The Om in Horsemanship

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It’s pouring down rain, so there won’t be much horsing around today.  My goal of riding Bridger every day as a cure for our woes is on pause this day.  But there’s plenty of time for thinking about horses and life and stuff.

Horseman Peter Campbell says something like “the problem is not the problem, your attitude about the problem is the problem.”

My “problem” with Bridger is very simple — there are things he needs to understand better and ideas he has that I’d rather he didn’t.  This wouldn’t be a problem at all except that the process of teaching and redirecting him can be scary because I sit on his back and he is large and powerful.

But even so, it’s my attitude that creates the problem.  When Bridger gets fractious or lost, there are a couple options.  If I were Buck Brannaman, I’d ride him right through it without blinking because I would know I could.  Or, I could see the issue developing, mindfully dismount and address it from the ground.  Neither is a problem.

What do I do?  Fear grabs me, or maybe frustration, and right behind come self-doubt, self-criticism, dismay and a bunch of other complicated emotions.  My muscles tighten, my mind trips offline.  I’m lost in a feeling storm, useless for giving my horse the direction and confidence he needs.  If I’m not careful, I can start blaming Bridger for the whole mess.  And voila — a real problem.

FDR would have answered Peter Campbell nicely, adding, for example, that all we have to fear is fear itself.  Or anger or jealousy or despair.  My yoga teachers would nod sagely — notice where your mind goes when your body is challenged, they say, is it necessary?

How many times a day do we create problems with our emotions and reactions where, in fact, there is simply a circumstance?

Yoga and horsemanship point me in the same direction: stick with exactly what is for a while and let the rest go.  Next time I get on Bridger’s back, I’ll be really trying to do just that.

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Going Steady with Fear

I rode Bridger today.  You’ll understand something about that if you read this earlier post.  It means a lot.

Last summer, Bridger and I hit a big glitch in our progress.  I asked him for a little more than he was ready for, so he gave out a little buck, which was enough to unseat me, which was enough to crack my ulna.  Neither the buck nor the crack were such a big deal.  The killer was the fear that immediately colonized me.

Fear has not been a big thing with me.  Not on a conscious level, anyway.  I’ve had plenty of dicey moments on mountain bikes, on snow-covered slopes in the backcountry, with lightning on the alpine tundra, in class 4 river rapids after I fell out of the boat.  I’ve unexpectedly come much too close to male moose and grizzly bear cubs.  Each event had its adrenaline-soaked excitement and some hindsight shivers, but each easily became a great story to revisit over a beer.  Not so with my fall off Bridger.

I am inherently, helplessly scared of heights. I grow dizzy and watery too close to a precipitous fall.  I feel compelled to go over — if someone forced me to spend too long on a tiny ledge, I might have to plunge over.  So I do have that fear, but I handle it by simply avoiding the situation.  I tried rock climbing, which would have been a good match for my other mountain hobbies, but there wasn’t enough in it to overcome the visceral fear, so I left it behind.  I admire views from a safe distance.  I can’t leave Bridger behind or stay at a distance.

After my fall off Bridger, pictures of people riding horses made me queasy.  Being around my horses at feeding time gave me all-over prickles.  After my arm healed a little, I got on my older horse, Jack, who is as reliable, slow and calm as they come.  I felt sick and loose-limbed.  I shed tears.

I mostly got over it.  With the superb help of friends, a couple sports psychology books and patient Jack, it eased up and left me.  Meanwhile, Kathleen was busy helping Bridger get over his own problem.  Six months after the fall, I was riding Bridger in the backcountry on an unfamiliar trail, having a good time.

This year, we hit another glitch, but on a smaller scale.  You can learn more about that here.

Again, I backed up and brought Kathleen in.  Again, it got better after only a few weeks of focused effort.

So today, I went out by myself and rode Bridger.  I fought back butterflies before I got out to the corral.  I talked out loud to myself when he wiggled his head and slewed his ribs the wrong way and acted like there was a mountain lion in the bush.  It worked out pretty well, but I think I have begun a long-term relationship with fear.  For (maybe) the first time, I have a thing, and a family member, that cannot be denied or left behind and that evoke a new kind of fear.  I’m very happy I got myself out there and had a nice little ride today, but there is much more to understand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What I Could Get Done Today

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I woke up at 2:30 a.m. in a clammy sweat, wondering if I have what it takes.  I have a young horse, about half-broke, who needs many hours of careful, confident riding to get to a steady state.  Between here and there, he may need to test the limits, maybe bucking with me, or rearing, or bolting.  We’ve done everything to help prevent that, but I’m 52 years old and not much more than a novice rider.  His need to test could be my undoing.

But I can’t leave him as he is; he could be a danger to himself and others.  I need to see this through, but I don’t know if I can.

I’m not alone in this, I have an excellent teacher on board.  She’s sharing the riding job with me and coaching me throughout.  But there’s an interface between the horse and me where only the two of us can go.  That is where we have to forge this relationship, just us.

The stakes are high.  Every day, we are building the house we will live in together from here on out.  It needs to be right.  Every day, there is some risk that I could be hurt, and I have less leeway for that kind of thing than I used to.  If I push myself too hard, I could implode with reactive fear and aversion.  If I don’t push us both hard enough, we could solidify in a half-baked, uneasy mediocrity.

My teacher points out how much I will learn from working through this.  About horsemanship, about my own limits.  She suggests that, when we succeed (as she has no doubt we will), I will enjoy a relationship and a sense of confidence like no other.  Ten years ago, that would have been enough.  Today, in the early hours before dawn, I wonder if I can learn these things anymore.  If I want to.

The mountain is too high to take in the whole.  Today, after we all had breakfast, I took the horse out and worked with him from the ground.  As I walked and stood alongside him, we practiced paying attention even when he was nervous about rustling bushes.  We practiced responding lightly to subtle moves of the reins.  We practiced fancy footwork on challenging terrain.  I put a penny in the jar, saving toward a well-educated horse.  That’s about all I could do today, and about all I had to.

 

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Engage with the equines!

Horses and horsemanship pretty much dominate my life these days, even though I didn’t know one end of a horse from another when I began. I started with horses from scratch, at age 42. It’s been a process, to put it lightly.

Here is a very quick rundown of what happened to me, as introduction for stories of equestrian adventures you may soon be privy to.

2005: about the first thing I did when we arrived in our new country home was obtain a horse, the obliging yet deceiving Jack.

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I didn’t want Jack to be lonely on our place, so I sauntered down to a local horse rescue and adopted the cutest thing they had, almost without question. Game-changer. Life-changer. Too bad he didn’t have his real eyes showing at the rescue, I could have been saved. It’s Danny.

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After a few years of frolicking around with those two,

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I decided I needed a new horse, one that didn’t have a lot of baggage and bad habits. I wound up with Bridger, a really, really new horse.

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Without a broken bone yet, Bridger and I have progressed, as follows:

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There, 9 years of intense initiation, grindingly hard work, intermittent terror, cyclical discouragement and a hell of a lot of joy, all encapsulated in a comic strip.