Forced relaxation

It's an important lesson to learn, and invaluable when riding or training horses. How to force your body to relax, particularly when it doesn't want to.

It's a truth of riding that if you are tense, your horse will be tense, but it is also true, that if your horse gets tense, and you tense up with them, they will think they are fully justified in being tense, cue panicked horse!

This is especially true with young green horses.

I had a very good refresher course in forced relaxation this weekend with Fritha. Normally Fritha is a very sweet and willing horse. She is a bit of a worry wort, and likes to take her dear sweet time with things, but she normally doesn't have an ornery bone in her body. However this weekend I was riding Miss Grumpy Horse. Due to many events conspiring against me, I haven't been able to ride her much lately, and she has been feeling the lack.

She started out our ride with a little jiggle in her step, and the occasional hunching of her back that indicated she was thinking of a nice buck.

It was very muddy and slick, so we had to keep our pace to a walk, and it was clear she thought we should at least be trotting. I admit, that in a way I enjoyed her antics. She was striding out beautifully, and had so much GO! However, I knew that the explosion was coming. Cue time to force my back to relax. There's nothing quite like knowing that your very strong and green horse is going to explode soon, for making your body tense up. It's very hard to fight instinct on this.

Several very interesting trips around the back field, including an attempted buck while sliding down a wet muddy hill later, and we were ready to head out on our ride.

Fritha settled down for a while, and I started to really relax. Then we hit a certain corner on our ride, and she was suddenly full of it again. Not sure what it was about that corner that decided her, we hadn't turned towards home or anything, but suddenly she was hunching her back again, and trying to break into a trot every few strides.

I had just moved her away from some gopher holes in the trail, when I felt her hunch her back again. I'm not sure if she was just thinking about it again, or if she was actually going to let one fly, but regardless, something made her trip a little. Her knees buckled a little in front, and then she sat down. So there I am, suddenly much closer to the ground, perched and balanced precariously, trying to keep us both upright, and trying to figure out how to get off so she can get up, without knocking her over. My friend who was riding with us said it was the most amazing looking thing. Fritha was sitting on the ground, with her front legs slightly buckled in front of her, and my friend who had seen the whole thing said she had no idea how it happened.

As I was trying to figure out my dismounting strategy I felt Fritha gather herself, and just stand back up. Cue astonished expressions for my friend and I. That mare really does the most astounding things some times.

So after a quick lameness check we continued on with our ride. Fritha was behaving much better, perhaps because she now believed I had the magic ability to make the ground swallow her half up. Fritha had settled down, but I hadn't. I was tense as a harp string. Cue time for more forced relaxation. Big deep breath, let it out, relax my lower back. All of four strides later, I had to repeat the process.

If there is one thing I hate as a horse rider, it is having my horse go down with me. Now that Fritha was back up and walking, and I should have been able to relax, of course I couldn't. Reaction hit, and my body was pumped full of adrenaline. This is of course all completely normal human reaction. It is also of course completely wrong for what I needed. It took me 8 times to convince my body to stay relaxed.

Once I convinced myself that the danger was over and managed to relax, the difference was immediately apparent in Fritha. She relaxed and went out confidently, listening well. She had gotten her piss and vinegar out of her system, I was relaxed, and she went back to being the dream to ride that she normally is.

We even had our first water crossing. She did wonderfully, despite trying to stop in the middle and roll.

We had a great ride.

Relax.........

Breathe deep..............

and RIDE!