Chazot Thoughts 91

Good will feel good.

“If you ask to a politician, “How stupid can you be?” He will take it as a challenge. At time, us horses, wonder if your insistence as a rider to repeat the same aids is a challenge aiming at testing the limits of your non-thinking ability. We tell you that as is, we cannot execute the move and you persist at repeating the same aids and expecting a different result. Sometime you apply the same aids louder. Other times you “give us the time to go out of our clumsiness and understand the aids.” The origin of our resistances eludes you because you don’t think beyond obedience. You could analyze our difficulties and identify the source. You could suggest the first step of a solution and we would process a better use of our physique. Instead, you became more assertive and we become more protective.  

I just come back from a fascinating training session where him and I had a friendly conversation about an even better use of my physique for half pass. At one moment, I was able to channel effortlessly all the forces toward the direction of the movement, the bending of my thoracic spine and the associated rotation. I spring my trot higher without producing greater muscle work. He felt it, as he congratulated me touching my neck with his fingers and we went back to the walk. Now I have a warm shower and as I nip his arm asking for a carrot and getting a carrot, I meet then the eye of the new horse who is here for a lameness issue. He is intrigued. He does not understand how I can come back from a training session sweating and happy. He is the one who inspired my first paragraph.

I told him about the subtle interaction of forces, which is the essence of our conversation. The new horse asked, “what do you mean by conversation. He let you talk? I told him he encourages me to talk. Indeed, I talk a lot. The new horse asked, “and he listens?” Of course, he listens. Based on what I told him about my physique he suggests a nuance and I try and I tell him how I feel about it, and he suggests another nuance and I process it, and so on until I find effortlessness and ease in the execution of the movement. The eyes of the new horse opened wider and he asked, “and you love it?” I adore it. I feel ease and effortlessness I master my balance and can challenge myself without pain or discomfort. I was a guy in total revolt. I was angry, frustrated, I hated life, I hated peoples, and I hated myself. Instead of responding to my violence, he challenged my intelligence and he still does today at a higher level. Through the questions, I find ease and effortless and I can do more and more with my athleticism.

The new horse asked abruptly, “He never tells you, ‘you are going to do it now, and you are going to do it my way.” I took the measure of the situation. I told him, it looks like you have been trained by one of those, and now you are lame. The new horse says, “they think that my lameness is not related to the training.” Of course, it is related to the training. you have been submitted to performances that you have executed at the best of your talent but with a dysfunctional physique. He will restore your soundness by teaching you how the functionally coordinate your physique for the same movements. The moves which crippled you when executed with a dysfunctional physique, are going the be the moves that will restore your soundness as you will learn to coordinate efficiently your physique for the athletic demand. By forcing you to do the move “now and my way,” your egotistical trainer has crippled you. You should have kicked him out of your stall. The new horse says, “I did; this is why I am here. I must have hit a sensitive part; I did not know that he could reach such high notes.” I liked him immediately.

Every time we receive a new comer, we face the difficult challenge of explaining the difference between traditional approaches and the Science of Motion® approach. The difficulty is that we use the same words, but they have a totally different meaning. I told him, that he is not going the feel the aids, the way he is used to. There will not be legs kicking, hands pulling, or shifts of the rider’s weight. He is going to feel an integrity of the rider’s body conversing with him through subtle nuances in muscle tone. The new horse wondered, “I might not have this level of finesse.” At the contrary. We are naturally comfortable at this level of subtlety. This sophistication is our comfort zone. All along, humans have been impressed by our size and power and they have reacted through their dominative nature. They are not kind with each other; they have an ego problem which does not allow them to realize that we are inherently willing. They interpret us through the way they are with each other, dominate or been dominated. They don’t realize that their principles of education are ill adapted to our actual sophistication and willingness and when science exposes the archaism of their educative techniques, they dismiss actual knowledge. Instead, he applies actual knowledge. He understands our willingness. When science explained that like humans, we were constructed of systems within systems, he realized that we, and not he, could coordinate the deeper systems.

Without going as deep as molecular level, he understood that he could create the conditions, balance, frequency, body alignment, allowing us to process greater efficiency, but without our mental participation efficiency cannot be achieved. He took conscience of our willingness. He realized that the literature of submission took credit for achievements that we completed in spite of the approximations of conventional equitation. You will not have to protect yourself from gestures and shifts of the rider weight. The interaction of forces between you and him is not going to be distorted by one of these enormous saddles placing the rider six feet above your back. You will like the stability, precision and lightness of the close contact saddle. Very soon you will ease all the protective contractions that you had to build in order to survive. You will realize then that you can feel subtle nuances in muscle tone of his body. Good, will not be a painful contortion for which you are rewarded without understanding why it is good. Good will feel good,easy, effortless. You will be attracted by this effortlessness and you will further refine orchestration of your physique. You will realize that obedience is not included in your conversation. He will analyze your difficulty, identify the source and guide your mental processing toward the appropriated coordination. Your natural willingness and attraction for ease and effortlessness will lead you to processing beyond what you think is your limit.

Yes I love this work, and you will, and even more when you will be sound.

Chazot.