07/06/2025
En zoals zo vaak heeft Amy de moes in mijn hoofd woorden gegeven. Alles valt of staat met veiligheid. Hoe kun je je paard veiligheid en daarna comfort bieden? De split waar ik soms inzit is dat je ook voor het kind een veilige leeromgeving moet creëeren en die 2 blijken vaker en vaker moeilijk samen te gaan; zeker als het over rijden gaat. En dus doen we voorlopig meer grondwerk en gaan we terug naar het vullen van (essentiële!) gaatjes in de basis. Want uiteindelijk zegt Pat toch zo veel dingen zo doeltreffend; masterful horsemanship is nothing more than simple things done with excellence. ❤️🦄
One of the problems I think we have with boundaries, safety, emotional regulation etc, is we can’t help ourselves from thinking about it all in human terms.
Of course horses and humans share quite a bit in common. A horse is not a machine, they do have emotions, and our empathy toward them makes all the difference in good training
BUT
Most of us misunderstand those ideas and tangle them up based on our life experiences and biases anyway! It gets very tangled, and messy fast.
I like to come in to the topic as simply as I can.
Boundaries are what creates a straight, calm horse. That’s it.
If the horse is fractious, pushing, crooked, etc, the correction is the same - it’s not a punishment; it’s a support. You are having a hard time, let me balance you so you feel better. Putting the horse into better alignment corrects behavior that is undesirable without having to “go after them.” The correction for physical and behavior issues to me are the same - the horse is having a hard time, and needs more support.
Emotional regulation comes with this - the horse is out of balance. The human has to be able to read the situation and guide step for step without tangling up their own emotions (example: I’m scared of your movement so I’m going to yank on you to stop your movement). An emotionally disregulated horse needs parameters that are fair (if they’re spooking and running off, it is unfair to say NO movement or slow movement. But it is fair to say let me guide this erratic movement to something smoother, as a starting point).
Safety is something the horse realizes they have when a person consistently meets their needs. This is often not what the human thinks it should be: lots of cuddles, standing around quietly (it CAN be this, but it often is not, and so we have to adapt to the HORSE not our desires) - sometimes developing safety is letting a horse MOVE, reading where he is afraid of going and directing him to calm without mashing him into those corners until those fears melt away.
It’s really not super complicated but it requires a lot of our own personal discipline.
It’s about meeting the HORSE, not making the horse meet us where we are comfortable- and it’s especially not about making the horse soothe our life’s wounds and using them to shield ourselves from dealing with our own personal issues.
