"And From Dust You Shall Return."

This portion of verse 3:19 from Genesis brought me back around to what we must do with our program as we come out of the virus. The concept of sankofa, a word  from the Akan people of Ghana, teaches that wisdom requires us to reach back and bring forward the things that are at risk of being left behind.

The things at risk of being left behind are the traditions and cross cultural practices that unify us as humans.  It is teaches  kids that by learning what we have in common with our ancestors a few hundred years ago, we are learning things that we have in common with those from different races and culture today.

And it is the dust, the soil and its care and nurturance of that soil to bring forth food that was a practice of the ancestors of all of us. Sankofa will mean bringing kids together to learn about soil and water conservation, environmental protection, and wildlife habitat enhancement, animal husbandry, and sowing, and reaping and shearing sheep and using who we were to make better the people that we will become. These are the principles that must become the focus of our program. 

And yes such small steps matter. When tired, sweaty white kids and tired, sweaty black kids sit down to cool off and admire the fence that they  built together this nation becomes a better and stronger country

Becoming A More Confident Rider

The bad news is that only you can make yourself a more confident rider. The good news is that you can make yourself into a more confident rider.

The catch is that as soon as I start setting out what one needs to become a more confident rider I know that the overwhelming majority of riders reading this will stop reading by the end of the next paragraph.

For those who are confident in their ability to learn and perform all it will take to become more confident is to gain experience in the saddle. That is what we mean when we say that for most people the best way to learn to ride is to ride, and ride, and ride.

For others, even those who love horses and want to feel confident in the saddle, experience dampens, but does not extinguish, riding anxiety.

And here is the simple truth, in order to become a more confident rider such people must become more confident in all aspects of their lives. Many live with full blown anxiety disorder. For others, life  is filled with  chronic fear and stress, without showing overt signs  of what are often referred to as panic attacks.

Adverse childhood experiences (If you do not know what this term means please see https://acestoohigh.com/    It could lead to tremendous insight into one's own behavior and the behavior of loved ones) can make gaining confidence harder, but even high ACE scores do not insure a lifetime of fear and anxiety. Confidence can be gained one step at a time.

However, that first step must be followed by a second step. And a third..and eventually a journey of many miles. One must be willing to break down barriers and recognize that the wall of security that you have created by all of the "rules" that you have that define all of the things that you do not do are more of a confining cell than a protective wall. 

These rules do not show one's independence. Instead they simply codify the avoidance behaviors that give short term relief by creating a world of shrunken challenges, shrunken opportunities, and extraordinarily shrunken happiness.

In order to become a more confident rider  one must break the chains that continue to restrict life opportunities. Every time one succeeds outside of one's comfort zone that comfort zone grows in size. So the first step is to break one's self imposed rules. 

Simply put, each and every day do something that you do not "want" to do. Start with something truly simple. The instant you wake up jump out of bed and get moving. Every day eat a bit of a food that you never eat, because you have "always hated ..." You don't have to eat a case of sardines for breakfast, but you can eat one. If you have not changed your hairstyle in years--change it now. Pleasantly greet the most unpleasant person you know when you see him each day. Begin to exercise and exercise until you simply cannot do another rep..and then do that rep. Challenge your phobias. If one fears height then climb--does not matter how far one climbs as long as one climbs high enough so that it is extremely difficult to tolerate--then climb one more inch.  Allow yourself to be hungry but postpone eating for a few hours. Take very cold showers. 

Ignore personal comfort and you will find yourself much more comfortable. Recognize every success. Think it over. Understand that you did things that you did not think you could do. Understand what that means. It means that you are crawling out of that jail cell that you spent so many years building. 

If it sounds like I am suggesting that eating octopus and hog chittlins, going rock climbing and wrapping up the week by expressing sincere but unpopular suggestions at a staff meeting at work will make you a better rider....

...that is exactly what I am saying--provided that you build on those challenges, and look for opportunities to prove yourself to yourself on a daily basis.

Of course, the ultimate practice that will reduce riding anxiety is to deeply study Greco-Roman Stoicism, but I know that you would rather eat hog chittlins than do that.

Dealing With The Heat Of Summer

How much heat and humidity can a horse safely handle on summer rides? If the horse is kept in a stable and is 200 pounds over weight don't expect him to be able to safely perform in elevated temperatures. If the horse lives outside 24/7 and is not forced to live with the consequences of obesity, chances are that he can handle the weather better then his rider can. 

As I have aged one of the biggest changes that I saw in my health was a growing inability to tolerate heat.  It was impacting the number of hours that I was spending in the saddle and it brought the amount of work that I could do outside nearly to a halt. 

But all of that has changed and it changed within a week of implementing some important lifestyle changes. I began with cold showers and progressed to taking baths in ice water with large, frozen ice packs on my body. 

We recently purchased a sauna and it is the best purchase that we have made in very many years. Unlike just about everything that one does to improve one's health, the results of sauna use and ice baths come nearly immediately.

The science is too detailed to explain here. Do the research. Learn what heat stress proteins can do for your health. Learn about the creation of brown fat. 

While you are researching keep this point in mind. Very few animals evolved  to sweat. Humans are capable of producing tremendous amounts of sweat daily. In the past 75 years air conditioning and central heat have allowed many Americans to live an entire year with out experiencing true cold or heat for any period of time.

 We evolved to be mobile. Few things are more unhealthy than living a sedentary life. We evolved to sweat. I suspect that one day we will find out that a sweat free lifestyle is as unhealthy as sentencing one's body to lifetime confinement in a lounge chair. 

Horse Training: Taking "No" Off Of The Table

I watched Abigail as she sat on top of Taney Town at the conclusion of a morning ride. There was a bit of time available and instead of wasting that time, she used it teach the horse. The mare did not want to put her foot on a plastic surface in front of the feed shed.

Abigail never got frustrated or angry. She simply continued to ride the horse closer and closer to the plastic, anticipated each time the horse would turn away and then brought her head back around toward the target. She maintained focus on where she wanted the horse to go. 

Most importantly, she gave the horse only two options--touch the plastic now, or continue working to touch the plastic in a moment. Turning and leaving the plastic was never presented as an option for the horse. 

She gave the horse a multiple choice test and "no" was not one of the choices.

When we teach that mastering natural horsemanship requires one to master the concepts behind the workings of a horse's mind  instead of trying to memorize a series of techniques of training, this is what we mean.

Here is a picture from several years ago of Emily and Looking Glass. Emily was the first person to work with Legacy. In order to halter him for the first time she entered the round pen alone and continued to patiently work , applying principles of advance and retreat, until the colt stood calmly to take the halter.

She worked with him for five and a half hours to accomplish the task. Her success was a tribute to her patience, but it was even more so an example of taking "No" off of the table.

Taking "No" off of the table is one of the most important life concepts that one can learn from the round pen. When setting out to do a task such as training a horse one of the most important steps that the trainer can take is to remove "No" as an option for one's self. Determine to do the thing and then do that thing. 

It is not too hot or too cold to train. It might be too hot or too cold to train for hours but the weather allows for some time with the horse. Procrastination never helped train a horse. 

President Grant wrote that, like everyone else, he had certain habits and superstitions. He said that one of his peculiarities was that, as long as he could remember, when ever he set out on a trip he never allowed himself to take a step backwards from the destination that he had chosen. 

Persistence breeds resilience and resilience breeds success--in the round pen and in life.

Riding In A Different Direction

Theodore Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother on the same day. The remainder of his life was an extension of that shock and grief. He viewed the darkness that fell upon him as what he termed "black care." He was succinct in how he dealt with the pain.

 “Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough,” as he later phrased it. 

 I have always found that to be the soundest of advice. I viewed the hardest and longest ride as the best ride. In fact, at times, I felt it to be the only ride worth saddling up for.

But life changes and we change with it--at times we even change for the better. I am learning things in my sixties that I wish I could have understood in my forties. One of the things that I am learning is that riding to things can be as important as riding from things. 

After Abigail finished getting Sparrow Hawk safe enough for Terry to ride she put in many hours getting Taney Town safe for me to ride. I plan to put the next two months into getting the Marsh Tacky mare used to me.

I am in better shape than I have been in twenty years. I will keep getting stronger on the ground and in the saddle. I am not yet who I will be and I am not who I was. Each morning it seems that I am introduced to a newer person wearing my shoes and lately every time I mount up a newer person sits on that saddle.