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“One day the absurdity of the almost universal belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and became worthier of sharing this planet with them.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)

We had our morning coffee as usual, which means coffee for him and carrots for me. I am the one who apparently does the talking as I move my lips to let him know that I want more carrots and he obliges. He had in mind Martin Luther King’s beautiful quote as we walked back toward his office, I started philosophizing on Martin Luther King’s thought.

As humans, you were aiming in the right direction, gaining respect for animals and the planet that we share, but all your progresses are now destroyed by incompetent leadership. You are back to dumb supremacy and the destruction of the planet for profit. It is no wonder that all the dishes and telescopes searching for intelligent life are pointed away from earth. Dumb brains are in charge worrying superior brains such as Stephen Haking who don’t think that earth will sustain life much longer than hundred more years.

I remember Albert Einstein quote, “The world will not be destroyed by the ones who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” I wondered what could be done about it. I live in a farm where humans are sharing this planet with us. They respect us for who we are and not just what we can do for them. They feel that they learn the meaning of life through us, as much as we learn life through them. We are not dumbed down in a round pen or between the inside leg or the outside rein. We are “lifted up” through partnership with our intelligence. He talks about our intelligent willingness, which prompted Caesar to comment, “I never heard that before. This is true; this is the way we initially react, but we are shut off by a psychology based on domination. Carl Jung wrote,’Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.’ They judge our reactions based on principles that are unrelated to our actual physique and physics. Their equitation and psychology were created when the knowledge of our physiology and mental processing was in its infancy. Furthering your analogy between politicians and equestrians, Plato wrote, ‘Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.’ We are punished because they are incapable to understand our intelligence.”

He suggests the move and I explore sophisticated coordination of my physique to better manage forces. We work together toward efficiency as for me efficiency is ease, effortlessness and soundness. Like Caesar, my dear friend Manchester and every horse coming in the farm, I came from the word of slavery. We were forced into survival mode by an equitation based on obedience and a psychology of domination. Manchester quote many times Marcus Tulius Cicero, “They condemn what they do not understand.” Average humans don’t understand how our body effectively works. They condemn our reactions based on antiquated and heretical beliefs such as swinging our back or stretching our neck. We are forced into defense by riding and training techniques aggressing our sensitivity and sophistication.

Instead, when the subtlety and intelligence of the dialogue is within our comfort zone, we willingly participate to the work. We explore coordination of our physique far beyond the limits of our natural reflexes. We have the intellectual capacity to learn sophisticated coordination, and when the dialogue is about efficiency and therefore effortlessness, we can go further orchestrating deeper systems. Instinctively, we protect our muscle imbalance or other issue. We don’t have the capacity of analysis and this is where we gladly participate to a dialogue analyzing our errors instead of judging our errors. We respond to a suggestion balanced between the “habits” stored in our central pattern generators and the thinking and exploration stimulated by our brain. Our entire muscular and neurological system are strongly influenced by concerns for stability. We explore but protect and there is the essence of our errors. Our errors are our questions. If you are dumb enough to “govern” us, you judge our questions as unwillingness. Instead, if you are smart enough to listen, our errors are descriptions or our actual body state, that we submit to you for analysis.

If you know your subject, which is how our physique effectively functions, how our body needs to be coordinated for the athletic demand of the move, you help us guiding our brain through adequate insights, toward a better body coordination that still can be an “error” in respect to the final picture. When we realize that you are guiding us toward effortlessness and soundness, we willingly participate to our education. Instead, when your ignorance and your arrogance keep you in the absurdity of animal slavery, we have to survive and resist and protect. We do not evolve because you don’t evolve. You brandish the umbrella of classical because you remain empirical.  

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.” (Deepak Chopra) Prisoners of the past believe that our whole thoracolumbar spine bends evenly on a circle. Pioneers of the future know that latera bending occurs mostly between our 16th and 9th thoracic vertebrae, that we have a small capacity of lateral bending in our lumbar vertebrae and that lateroflexion of our thoracic vertebrae is always coupled with a movement of transversal rotation. Of course, the way lateral bending is suggested evolves with knowledge. Prisoner of the past bend our neck hoping that by the operation of the holy spirit, we might also bend our thoracic vertebrae. Pioneer of the future, which is in fact the present, realize that our thoracic vertebrae are between their upper thighs and teach us proper coordination between lateroflexion and transversal rotation using their back, abdominal muscles, pelvis and upper thighs. Prisoners of the past believe that muscles move bones and that greater amplitude of movement can be created elongating muscles. Pioneers of the present know that movements are mostly created by storage and reuse of an elastic strain energy produced and stored in tendons, aponeurosis and even muscles as muscles can store elastic strain energy even in the absence of tendons. Prisoners of the past rush us forward and try elongating our strides through stretching and relaxation. Pioneers of the present maximize our efficiency respecting our natural cadence and reducing the load on our forelegs. “In horses, and most other mammalian quadrupeds, 57% of the vertical impulse is applied through the thoracic limbs, and only 43% through the hind limbs.” (H. W. Merkens, H. C. Schamhardt,G. J. van Osch, A. J. van den Bogert, 1993).

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”. (M. Gandhi) You can teach us a better life and we can teach you, life. Learn to respect us and you will learn to respect yourself. Understand how we think and you will learn to think, not the way the system wants you to think but the way real humans need to think. The leadership does not come from your leaders. Benjamin Franklin wrote, "We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid." Since politicians don’t work hard, they must have a genetic predisposition as they remain stupid effortlessly. Learn from us and you will become worthier of sharing this planet with us.

Chazot