Focus On the Emotional

We continue to have warm temperatures here, but they are accompanied by thick fog. The photo above was from yesterday, after it cleared. 

I saw this today on FB from a trainer I follow. She summed up what I have been doing all week with Tumbleweed. I took a step back and concentrated on the emotional, rather than the physical.

It seemed to me a better use of my time to help him settle into a relaxed mind and energy, rather than having emotional conversations about leaving the herd.

For example, here he is upon leaving the herd. Head high, hyper-vigilant. My first trainer, the one who starts them, allows her horses to work it out standing tied waiting for their turn. They stand tied for a good part of the day and find relaxation on their own  

That’s not really possible for me, so I use TTouch to get him there faster. A session takes around 45 minutes. I work on face, ears, mouth, neck, back, legs, and tail.

I continue to try bladder meridian, too, which has helped many of my other horses, but it doesn’t do much for Tweed. I’ve been able to get a couple of releases, and when I do, I stand back and let him have a moment. But he’s mostly kind of bored with it.

When he’s fully relaxed, we go exploring, walking wherever the wind blows us. 

The bodywork has made all the difference in his herd bound stuff. It’s nonexistent when we take the time to connect, or as in Sacred Spaces, find “communion.”  

I want him to know I have his best interest at heart. A good leader should inspire that level of trust. By listening to his energy, and addressing the underlying causes, I am saying, “you’re safe with me.”  If we can come out of winter with just that, it will change everything about our partnership.

The Fog Always Lifts

2/1/26

2/2/26
 

Thoughts On TTouch & Working from the Parasympathetic

After Back to Work Day 7, where Tumbleweed was so chill after TTouch and basic bladder meridian releases, we hit day 8 and some real emotion about being away from the herd. 

Susan Fay talks a lot about identifying your emotions during these moments, but I’m not sure what mine were. Is resolve an emotion? When I see his energy / emotion get up like that, I tend to push mine down and continue to direct his feet. I’ve seen this show enough to know how quickly they can change once they get their naughtiness out.

Soon enough, he’s tuned in and respectful, but as we did work closer up, I could feel his energy rising again when he looked over at his buddies gathered at the round bale. We had more work to do, and we did it. 

Working at home has always been the hardest for us. My arena has a clear shot to the main turnout where he can see his buddies having fun and eating. On one hand, it is a worthy cause to push those herd bound buttons, as it will payoff on the trail someday. But on the other hand, it seems like 2 steps forward, 1 step back. 

I did some research into TTouch versus Masterson Method and found out why TTouch might be better for us at this juncture for pre-arena work:

TTouch and the Masterson Method are both gentle, non-invasive equine therapies that improve horse wellness, but differ in focus: TTouch uses circular touches and groundwork to activate the nervous system and build body awareness, while the Masterson Method uses light-touch, interactive techniques to release tension in key joints.

In other words, TTouch is good at getting them to operate in the parasympathetic nervous system. 

While I don’t mind Tweed working his emotions out on the line, I would like to see if I can help him deal with those in other ways first. 

Today, I’m going to combine day 7 TTouch bodywork with Day 8 long line work, and see if getting him, first, into the parasympathetic nervous system doesn’t shave off some of the emotional, herd bound stuff in the arena. 

To be continued. 

Update. 

Started the day with TTouch, and when we went to the arena he did not offer one bit of resistance on the long line at any of the three gaits or transitions. Completely enjoined to my energy and me to his.

Podcast: Communion With Horses

A friend of mine recently had to have her horse’s eye removed. It is an older, gentle mare, and she is doing well so far. The one-eyed horses I’ve known in the past compensated and went on to live normal lives, one, even as an active (and winning) 4-H game horse. That suggests, to me, that horses rely a lot on all their senses.

I recently read an article in the NY Times about evaluating your health based upon some tests you can do at home, Are You Aging Well? One of the tests is standing on one leg for ten seconds. It reminds me of a pose in my yoga routine, The Dancer. But they threw in a caveat: it’s even better if you can do it with your eyes closed. Yikes.  I tried it, and began to fall over. Taking away my sense of sight threw everything off. 

I was listening to the author of Sacred Spaces, Susan Fay, interviewed on the podcast, Mulemanship. (Here’s the link to the show on YouTube Mulemanship.) It is an excellent, and long, interview about her philosophy and book. GREAT conversation. In fact, one of the best horsey podcasts I’ve ever heard.

In it, and probably the book, too, she recommends closing your eyes to help feel your horse’s energy. Take one sense away so that your other’s are heightened.

I got to thinking about ways I could practice closing my eyes and trying to sense Tumbleweed’s energy, and a lightbulb went off—Masterson Method work and TTouch! (I should have done this on DAY ONE.)

I started with the MM, and closed my eyes a lot while waiting for his releases. I could feel his energy way up, it wasn’t difficult!, and he kept chewing on the rope and shuffling around. 

I took a little break, and then switched to TTouch, which he seemed to enjoy more. I felt his energy come way down. 

I wonder if it’s because he associates human touch with relaxation. He has been handled a lot since he was born. Cowboy sure enjoyed it, too. Surprise, surprise, he was an orphan foal, bottle fed and hand-raised by humans.  All my memories of doing TTouch with Cowboy came flooding back. Sweet moments.

When I wonder how I got Cowboy to the point of being a heart horse, the TTouch method deserves some of the credit. The practitioner I learned from was very good and would come to the house every week. She got us going independently, and he absolutely loved it.

By the time I got to Tweed’s legwork I was able to drop the rope. He had switched over to the parasympathetic state. (In the podcast, Susan Fay said domestic horses spend most of their time in the sympathetic state.)

When we were done, I let him roll in the round pen, but tried to keep him in his relaxed state. I closed my eyes and listened for his energy as he approached, then explored the pen, then approached again. 

The energy was easy to feel when my eyes were closed. The nervous energy in the barn was bristling, while the relaxed energy in the round pen was more like gentle waves that even calmed my own mind. We were getting on the same wavelength. 

If you listen to the podcast, they will briefly touch on these concepts which are mostly, but not all, from the book:

Communion

Congruency

Make-believe

Productive Contemplation 

Energy (Alpha/Beta)

Visualization 

Breathing

Everday is a new day  

Do not focus on the past or even dwell on past stories

Positive aspects to fear: you do what it needs to take to overcome what you’re afraid of, both with your horse and yourself. Getting beyond your skill set, exceeding your skill set can cause you to step back. Fear can keep you alive and inspire you to do something about it.

They tried to deliver our second load of sand yesterday, but got stuck in the mud and couldn’t make it to the arena. (Cry cry cry). My arena is uneven now, and we have to wait until it freezes again to get a truck up there.

We’ll spread out what we have today and try to make the best of it.

High Prices & Putting in the Time

Tweed says, “Howdy.”

Day 6, and we’re checking out the new sand in the horsey sandbox. It was $460 + tax for 12 yards. (Up from $350 + tax in 2023.)  Kind of scary jump, and we need another load.

I comfort myself by saying, “Hey, at least we didn’t build an indoor arena.” We got our bids back for that last November and they were 450k and 480k. No, thank you. We will brave the elements. 

With the arena open for the sand, I decided to work with Tweed at liberty in the round pen. He was sliding in a couple of spots and started kicking out every time he passed those spots, as if there was a gremlin there who had tripped him up. We worked through that, got some good connection, and then did some work going through deep mud and water.

I came across this snapshot I took last year from the Carson James page. 

I looked through my photos (and posts) and saw that I didn’t start Tweed back up last year until late March. My first lesson with Regina was April 3rd. 

I’ve had various philosophies through the years that vary from leave them alone in winter and they’ll pick right back up from where they left off, to work with them everyday, as much as you can, 365 days per year. In the end, it comes down to results. Am I getting the results I want with this philosophy? My answer last year was no, thus, why I am getting an earlier start this year. Plus, the weather has been mild and conducive to it. If it was cold with ice, it would be different. 

I think the “365 days a year” philosophy is more for me than Tweed. It’s “me” training. 

Aurora is going to be on Chapter 4 of Sacred Spaces next, and it was my favorite chapter. It’s about how the neural pathways in our brain change with what we think. If we obsess about something, and think about it all the time (like I did with Cowboy) it changes the way we behave. We wire ourselves to what (and how) we think. I want to wire myself to Tumbleweed.

I have to get control of my story and direct it the way I want it to go, and there are several ways to do it. I’ll be doing all of them, but one of them is this:

“You can strengthen the neural connections for the skill you want by watching someone who is an expert and does the task correctly. When you watch another person, your brain will fire the same neurons as if you were doing it.”

For me, that is where Katie comes in. I can watch her ride Tweed (once a week) the way I want to ride Tweed. I’m reshaping the narrative, the visual, the “make believe” story, and the connections in my brain. And, just like with my musical instruments, it takes daily practice. 

The benefit for Tweed is that it gets him more often into my human (rather than the herd) world, and it gets him using his body and getting in better shape. I imagine his brain is being rewired, too. 

Katie said he was 80-90% back already, and it reminded me of a few posts I did last summer on getting that last 10%, the hardest part to reach, yet essential. 

It is that part that I’m after this year.