Dreams of Horses
An integral approach to teaching children to ride
“Yaaaay!” Julia lets loose a cry of triumph. She’s radiant. She’s sitting securely on her horse’s warm back, rocking back and forth, as we return to the farm from our ride. Today, one of Julia’s biggest dreams became a reality: she went riding on her horse in the forest.
Her mother is waiting for us at the farm. She watches in amazement as Julia dismounts unaided, ties up the horse and runs into the stables to get food. “It wasn’t so long ago that I couldn’t even get her to tie her own shoelaces,” she says, shaking her head.
Julia is seven. She’s had a lot of difficulty with all her movements, and also with speaking, since undergoing an operation to remove a brain tumour last year. And yet right she’s not having any trouble standing on the tips of her toes and cleaning her horse with absolute concentration.
What’s the source of this steadfast power, this ability to triumph over one’s limitations, which enables Julia to perform all these tasks with her horse? And how are we, as trainers or parents, those who play a supportive role in processes of development, to awaken this power in a child?
In answer to these questions, I would like to present some conclusions and considerations resulting from the experience gained through my work with many very special children and horses over the past few years:
1. The most powerful direction lies in acknowledging the wealth of possibilities
Although Julia is unable to walk unaided and can only communicate in a basic way, she has an exceptional mental capacity. She visualizes down to the smallest detail what it would be like to trot with her pony through the forest or to gallop across sunny meadows. She imagines how she would nuzzle against her horse’s mane and whisper in his ear. This dream gives her strength; it urges her on and motivates her to attempt things that she would previously have believed she wasn’t able to do (e.g. climbing alone onto the horse, supported just by a small step).
Orienting ourselves around the child’s potential, rather than its weaknesses, means that first and foremost we have to redirect our own perceptive abilities: fantasy, mobility, sensitivity, cleverness, wit… these are treasures, many of which lie concealed in every child even if, at first glance, the child appears to be very impaired.
If, as adults, we recognize these treasures in the child and focus our attention on them, then we support the child in turning its capabilities into a source of power and change.
2. “Change doesn’t take place through us becoming something different, but through us removing the things that obstruct our view of the completeness of being.” (Ramtha)
“Don’t do that, it’s better if I help you.”
“Be careful, you don’t know how that works.”
“Watch out, if you do it like that it’s never going to work.”
With sentences like this, we can have a lasting, damaging effect on the self-image of our children. They communicate to the child: “You don’t have it yet, or you don’t know it yet, or you’re not okay just being as you are.”
Yet if we assume that the capability (in the form of a possibility) is already present in the child, that leads us to view the child in an entirely different way. Then we are more likely to ask ourselves, for example: What can I do to help the child to do this itself? What experiences does it need to open up a new path that it can then walk on its own? At which points does it need support, protection, security and what is it already able to accomplish under its own steam? This allows the child to establish an image of itself that is imprinted with its own experiences: I can find the way, I have an idea, a dream, I need patience, I have the possibility of doing it, but I can also decide to wait…
Thus in Julia’s case it was not possible for her to go riding alone at the beginning. However, we used the time until she was ready for this step to ‘collect paths’, for example. Paths that she would, at some stage, be able to ride with her horse. We investigated how it was best to move along these paths, what one should pay attention to if one planned to traverse these paths with a horse: quickly, slowly, uphill, downhill. In this way, I can communicate to Julia that I’ve understood her desire-dream and that I take it seriously. And this also makes it easier to identify what may still be required to reach the goal. I show her things that assist her in making her dream a reality, and through doing this I also share with her the responsibility for the path she has chosen.
3. The horse helps us as people to remain in the NOW, where the power to find the solution lies.
The most powerful impulse to learn something (e.g. riding) is the experience of DOING it! Julia, who previously had no idea of her mental capability, experienced this capability precisely in that moment in which she climbed onto her horse for the first time without anyone helping her and saw: “I CAN climb onto the horse alone.”
There can be magical moments in the interaction with horses when, in the process of taking action, there is the sudden recognition: ‘That’s who I am. That’s what I’m doing, and I can do it.’ Through this, the child can experience how, as a result of its abilities and the action it takes, it becomes a part of the community (person/horse, part of nature, part of a riding group).
Even deeply traumatic experiences, fears or wounds can be transformed by a powerful new experience in the here and now. Situations experienced with the senses create new connections in the brain and thus expand the range of potential movements and actions on the physiological level. In contrast to a situation that is debilitating or perceived as hopeless, in which no further opportunities for action can be recognised, this new experience can be the first step in the direction of healing.
In this kind of integral learning, our task as trainers is as follows: to create environments in which the child is able to have invigorating experiences with the horse, but in which a non-achievement can also be processed. Because daring to have the experience also contains the risk of failure. But precisely in such a situation, the child is able to discover the strength that comes to anyone who has the courage to experience something for himself.
The big gift that horses have for us humans is: they don’t ask about the past and they are not interested in so-called deficiencies. A horse is entirely present in the now, present in its body, its senses and its perception. It challenges the child, an equally us as adults, to do the same: to register what is happening in each moment, to be present, to get in touch with ourselves and at the same time to be ready to act. And if we respect the horse’s free will, then it’s also possible that we can receive the wonderful gift contained in its care and attention – a gift it gives us of its own free will.
One of my seminar participants described her experiences like this: “Suddenly I sensed that it isn’t a special technique, but rather that it is me myself, just simply my particular way of moving, of looking, and of speaking that the horse reacts to. Suddenly there was an unbelievable lightness between us. I had recognised the essential nature of the horse – and my own as well!”
Armgard Schörle
Trainer in communication with horses