You know, I've always been an animal person. Ever since before I can remember. I feel more comfortable around them than I do around people. This sounds a little hermit-ish, I'm not a complete loner. I just feel better when I'm with them.
The thing with animals is that they have no facade about them, no pretence. When they feel happiness or fear or anger they are quick to tell you, or more, show you. Animals always find a way of speaking to you and letting you know everything they have to say, without speaking a word. All you need to do is learn how to read them.
Take my horse. I've been with her long enough to understand her body language without thinking about it. The key to understanding her, horse for that matter, lies in the ears and in the eyes. I have a slight obsession with eyes, if my profile picture gives it away. They are traditionally the 'windows into the soul'. Cheesy as this sounds it really is the truth. People have developed the skills to shut off their eyes so that they are no longer readable. But with my horse, her eyes tell all.
The less likely way to read an animal, the ears, are probably one of the most important tools for a person to have. Take any emotion, fear, anger, curiosity, contentment... it's all in the ears. One of my favorite things about horses, in fact, is that when you talk to them, they use those ears and listen. I can come and just prattle on and on about my day and the people I meet and the things I do, and my horse's ear will be cocked in my direction the whole time. I'm the kind of person that lets the other person talk in the conversation. People like to talk about themselves and I like to say that I'm a pretty good listener, so I just let them talk. I learn it from my horse. Talking to my horse is really the only time that I talk about me and nothing else. And having someone listen to everything you say, even if it's stupid or boring, is addicting. She's like my own personal psychiatrist.
More on horses... One of my favorite things about riding, is that when you're on the horse, you are creating a connection that goes beyond words into this whole new language where you speak using your body: A shift in my seat, a twitch of my pinky finger, a slight flex of my calf... all of these things trigger some response in my horse. To have a whole conversation, asking and receiving, rewarding with a scratch to the neck, is to have trust on both sides of the bargain. The downside to this, however, is if you are afraid of something, your horse will feel that in your body, and be afraid of the thing as well. Say I'm really nervous about a jump and so my body tenses up and I begin to shake. There is no way in hell that my horse is going to jump that jump if she think that her rider is scared of it. As a rider, I learned to keep any fear or doubt locked tightly above the neck so that my body betrays nothing and therefore keeping my horse as calm as possible.
It's ludicrous to me that people still believe the misconception that horseback riding is merely sitting on a horse and pointing it in in the right direction and bouncing up and down as it obeys you.
That assumption is almost disgusting to me. Let me tell you right now, I do not own a sweet horse. She does not fawn over every person she sees, she does not let her opinion go unnoticed. To think that she is an obedient mare that does anything for anybody when they sit on her back is laughable. She cares for me and listens to me because I have worked four years to establish that kind of relationship with her. And let me tell you it wasn't easy. In fact, in the beginning, we didn't even like each other. I would almost dread riding her. She would go to kick me when I put on the saddle and bit me whenever my back was turned. But, what with me being crazily stubborn and her being just as opinionated, we gradually and grudgingly began to respect each other.
Then came the trust. True, it started out as me trusting her to try to bite me as I went to pick out her hoofs just as she trusted me to answer with a whack of my own. But eventually, I would trust that she would jump whatever I asked her to, because she would trust that I would not make her do anything that would get her in trouble. She doesn't do the things I ask her to because she fears me, or because she is a mindless drone, she does it because she trusts me, and we are a team.
That's another thing that I really hate. I hate it when people use the term "break" when they speak of teaching a new horse how to ride. "I've always wanted to break a horse and raise it myself". As if sitting on a bucking foal and whacking the crap out of him is how to train a young horse. My preferred term is to "start" a horse. Because that is really what is happening. You are starting a relationship, starting to form a team between you and your horse. A good horse does not have it's spirit broken, but instead has all that power and will flowing through the positive outlet of a common goal for you and your horse.
Horseback riding is not easy. Sitting on a horse is easy. Squeezing your legs to ask them to go faster is easy. Pulling on the rains to make them turn is easy. But riding - really riding - is something that is not easy to achieve. And unlike other sports it isn't just accomplished by practicing something over and over and over. Unlike a ball, a horse can kick back, a horse is 1000 pounds heavier than you, and it has it's own brain and opinions. Horseback riding is a constant giving and receiving of information, it is to be a leader who listens to the other side of the story.
To ride is to speak without saying a word.
