Friday, May 7, 2010

Moving Energy

The manipulation of energy is at the heart of good riding and exceptional dance with the horse. But before you can understand how to move energy you need to realize the power of 'intent'. 'Intent' is a key concept in the martial arts, of which Tai Chi is a gentler form. Although the latter is not likely to directly affect your riding, it can indirectly help train the mind to focus on 'intent'. Before the power of intent can be realized, the substance of the intent must be well considered.
Have you ever met someone who seems to put their mind to something and stay hellbent on doing it? This is the nature of intent. Every fiber of your being is awakened and on task and nothing is allowed to get in the way. It is not based on force but holds its secret in steadiness on quiet, clear, controlled thought. It is a humble fervency of purpose which is directed on a course.
One of the interesting lessons we learn from Tai Chi is that a poignant assault is only one asset in fighting--there are many other ways to deal with an opponent. These might involve drawing and extinguishing(or neutralizing) energy, deflecting energy, or re-directing energy. Like martial arts, similarly in riding, although we do not view the horse as our opponent, we experience energies of another living being and try to work with or match those energies. In Tai Chi there is no fighting, but the postures and the motions that take us from one posture to another explore a full range of human physical movement. This range of motion is mainly to experience the parameters within which our individual bodies should operate to maximize our personal balance and effectiveness of energy exchange. Examples are: the placement of the arms and feet. Arms too far away from the body in certain positions, channel our energy in the wrong direction, destabilizing us.....disturbing the clarity of intent. Feet not pointed in a certain direction would also send energy where it was not intended to go. Thus it is not exactly that the posture of the rider needs to be this or that, but that the posture needs to be directed by intent and congruent with the shape of that intent. I see so many dressage riders that sit like a doll! This has nothing to do with dressage riding! The seat has a purpose....the seat is alive and waiting with poise to follow the orders given from the mind regarding its intent. The 'alive' seat must be calm and open to whatever the mind tells it to do.
So body positioning has much to do with 'intent'. A rider holding one or both shoulders up is not in control of his 'intent'. Hands held too high or hands turned down, wrists curled, elbows too far from the hips----all these details are important examples of how 'intent' might be shaped incorrectly.
A very basic example of moving energy is to take a thought in the mind that says "move my horse forward". So the first thing we do is touch with the legs or tap with the whip. But if we are also holding back with the rein we are cancelling our intent! How might we gain a horse's confidence in rein connection while asking him to move forward without cancelling intent? There are many options. I will give you an example. A horse that feels rigid in the jaw is holding himself in a resistance. All aspects of health must be considered before assessing this problem intelligently. But by sitting quietly and focusing ONLY(a SINGULAR INTENT!) on asking the horse to savor the bit one rein at a time with gentle vibration with soft pliable fingers, the energy of this intent helps the horse to understand the role of the hand in the sense of friendship with it. Most people get no response or the wrong response because they are completely unaware of the tension they have in other parts of their body while they do this! That tension is not only confusing the horse but is undermining energy flow. So one can appreciate the great need for supreme self-control.
Now change the 'intent', relax both hands and touch with leg. A non-response or wrong response? You are either using too much leg(moving too much energy) or you held the leg on too long and tensed the ribcage of the horse or you asked with the leg while holding body tension somewhere else that says, "don't go forward!" These other energies are very real! You are affecting them ALL the time! Essentially, everyone who is alive is moving energy! We only THINK we are not doing this and are making the concept of 'moving energy' seem hard to learn because we are not in control of ourselves! We are so very much concerned about controlling the world around us that we have lost sense of the 'out of control' world within us!
Last night during a lesson, while a new student was walking her horse, I asked that she step in time with his footfalls. I complicated the exercise by asking her to match the footfalls of her leg nearest the horse with the horse's foreleg nearest to her. Her comment later was how much lighter and easier her horse felt! That comment tells me that the singular isolation of her intent to match those specific footfalls was actually a relief to her horse. He could feel her mind less worried about him overall, essentially trusting the rest of him, thinking only about the feet. The matching of the footfalls had an additional effect of combining efforts(or energies) as if producing one footfall.....a horse/rider step AS ONE!
This very simple example points to the reality of moving energy and the need to focus the mind on an intent so clearly that the energy of the intent directs the body precisely, thus eliminating clutter, opening pathways in the joints....both horse and rider....for energy to flow freely and easily. The steps then become easy, balance is adjusted, gravity is worked WITH and not AGAINST.
When the student turned to face her horse he halted as though the thought came from himself and he sat back in a self-carriage that was as easy and lightweight as a bird landing.
We struggle daily with unknown, unfamiliar energies. Take the time to walk and work with your horse quietly and through clear intent, discover how to unravel struggle gently through this kind of understanding. It is not that horses resist us, they resist the discomfort of their own bodies and they resist the energies in ourselves that we fail to take charge of.