The Magic Circle of Details...
/The Magic Circle of Detail
Have you ever noticed most Horseman (or Horsewoman) have a lot of quirks in regard to small details? Such as hanging bridles a certain way, sweeping a barn aisle just so…it can be annoying to some and overwhelming to non-horse people (the annoyed looks parents give me when I tell them not to reach at a horse’s face during lessons is great example). Have you ever wondered where it comes from, this almost intense need to attend to the smallest details around horses for the health and welfare of everyone?
I believe it’s a mental muscle, a skill that is extremely important in developing no matter what level of horse sport you aspire to. A trail rider who goes out for an hour needs to pay attention to details just the same as a high-profile competitive rider. The details may be different, but ultimately this mental cycle is the same. The magic circle can also turn into a way to get stuck, which makes this a difficult skill for many to master, especially the more our current world relies on digital tap and click technology with less subtlety then horses.
This magic mental skill, of paying attention to details and acting on them, is honed to a reflex in experienced Horsemen and Horsewomen and enhances everything we do with our horses. From the slight adjustment of your riding posture, to checking the set of the bit in your horse’s mouth is level at rest, to the feel of a normal tight tendon under your hand while brushing legs, the details are the magic clearing of the differences between us and them to take us closer to understanding, harmony and unity in action. Even if the action is as simple as walking your horse down the barn aisle, or as challenging as riding 50 miles. And it’s the details we miss that usually invite the disharmony that often challenges our partnerships.
At our last endurance ride, after Glory and I completed, I came into this magic circle of detail in a recognizable way that let me slow it down just a bit. I was picking up after the flotsam of a good ride and then just stopped and watched my horse Glory in his pen.
The slow blink of his eye after a long day on a rough trail. The particular angle and speed of a swished tail, a stomp and itch at the belly with no flies around. Those were all the details that let me know Glory was thinking about having a bellyache (colic). All of this happened in the space of a few minutes, about 2.5 hours after our finish and final vet check. What turned out to be a mild gas bubble could have been something greater (colic is a big fear after any intense athletic competition where the horses can get behind on water intake and become dehydrated). After coping with that sinking feeling,(oh $#@!), I immediately took action by walking him, I watched him poop with a fanatical stare, found the ride vet, and got another vet check. After which he promptly went to eating grass like normal. Crisis averted.
This whole event left an impression on how the smallest details build into something so much bigger. Not just in horse care, but every interaction (especially when training) we have with our horses is both positive and negative, from communication to healthcare, and it builds and buoys us up towards that unity point that keeps us riding and sharing our lives with these swift, powerful, fragile creatures of the earth.
How do we hone this skill, turn it into a reflex that brings that much more joy to horse and human both? Through the circle of Observation, Adjustment/Action, Wholeness, Acceptance.
Step 1. Observe the details. Not just with your eyes, but with all senses. Feel the exact and least amount to pressure you need to fasten a buckle, move around a horse’s body, listen to the gait pattern on pavement, get a sense of your horse’s distress. Study it. Take it in. Slow down if this is hard at first, or overwhelming. Take a little longer to tack up, to cool down. Take a breath and see how the tail swishes and feel your horse’s emotion.
Step 2. Adjust to the observation and take action. This happens pretty quickly. Take the horse out to eat grass, pull the buckle slower, speed up the gait a little if your horse needs to let more steam off the top of their fit energies. Any change is an action, an adjustment. Inaction is still an action; the word wait is a verb. Lateness due to inaction is still an action to the horse as well, this timing is an art that no one gets right 100 percent of the time, we just keep trying and learning…
Step 3. Immediately observe the whole horse and result of the adjustment in a holistic manner. Is the horse happier, calmer, tenser? Don’t just observe the small area of concentration, like the legs, but the whole horse. Don’t forget to sense any reciprocal changes in yourself as well. As soon as I saw Glory eating grass my intuition warning bells calmed down by half. Not all the way though, hence the additional vet check. Notice if tightening the buckle slower reduced tension in the horse’s whole body. Notice what your adjustment did to your body, a feeling of rightness, of a matching of your energetic frequency and your horse’s frequency. Or maybe the opposite happened, and you got a brace, a block, a separation of the harmony, a moving away from partnership. It’s all information.
Step 4. Accept the outcome. Often the hardest part for us humans is to get out of the actual detail and into the acceptance phase. Trust your senses. Relinquish control of the detail. (Control is an illusion; horses can especially hammer this home!) By finding acceptance, you can be closer to reaching unity and harmony. Me and him become us. Stay present with your horse in the saddle, while holding the lead rope. Breath. Glory and I chilled and he ate grass on the lead for 30 minutes and at the vet’s advice I gave a small dose of pain reliever. It clicked, I accepted it, he was fine. I set my alarm for 3 hours and checked on him once in the night anyway, but I knew in my heart he was fine. This requires a good degree of faith, you must trust in the unknown and give up the idea that you can control every outcome. I slept knowing I would accept anything that arose (a colicy horse tends to generate a substantial amount of fear in most horse folk for good reason).
Circle Back. Observe. Adjust. Wholeness. Accept. Congratulate yourself on gaining insight whatever form it takes. Wonder at it, be humble in harmony. Marvel at the journey and go again. Read this again and again.
Does this sound like an overwhelming skill to develop? Give it time. When I first teach students how to tack up a horse, I try and add only one or two details each session. It may slow down the lesson a bit, but the mental skills gained are profound, and when someone remembers to pull up the pad in the gullet, to tighten the buckles slowly, to brush the legs just so…I know they are that much closer to being Horseman or Horsewoman with a capital H!
