The Mounting Block

At 14.00 minutes you can revisit working with Vie’s hip releases. The first release takes a while. We also helped her with these body tension releases at 24.00 minutes and 33 minutes. From 28 to 33.24 you can almost feel what is happening by watching it. Vie yawns a couple of times and then her body starts to move and release. It is as though her head remembers her body, and then she moves the tension through and out.

At about 17.00 minutes there is a good example of what happens when Vie is not engaged with first before doing something. This was a desire to put the saddle pad back in the right position as she had moved it with fly twitches. Getting Vie to engage in what is happening is not always easy. It is always nicer to be relaxed and content than thinking about doing something.

At 35 minutes there is a conversation between us about how long we should ask Vie to stand at the mounting block, and why. This enabled me, and Vie, to understand the intent regarding the mounting block which is always important. If you are getting a lot of reaction to something it can always be good to ask yourself what your intent is. Why are you wanting to do something and how does it feel to ask the horse to do it?

43 minutes you are working with Vie at her side, asking her to trust that she can release her tension through her body while having a human standing at her mid section (saddle area).

(There is a break in the video at 44.40 due to changing the battery).

You then start with the mounting block by asking Vie to join you in the Present Moment while sitting on the block. This asks her if she can be peaceful there which she is okay with.

At 46.14 you are working with her going up and down the mounting block and touching her neck from a height. She is quite reactive at first but then relaxes. There are releases at each step, and interestingly Fina and Lucie are also engaged at this stage, supporting the releases and the feelings being shared by licking and chewing.

At 1hour 6 minutes you start to ask Vie to come in sideways to the mounting block. There is a lot of intention at this point. For Vie it was too much intention and she was struggling with understanding what was wanted. (Note: I had a little thought that it might be worth doing a lot more sideways work with her over obstacles and up to obstacles, before asking the sideways from on top of the mounting block.).

Then we had a spiral of feelings moment. Frustration was the main feeling I think. This was met with suddenly a lot of ‘doing’. This is all okay. It is a good example of how something can bring thinking levels right up and the reaction is seen in Vie’s eyes, and your need to move her. The key is to acknowledge everything and know it is okay to feel these feelings. Then we also need to make sure we let those feelings go through and away and come back to presence. Frustration is a reaction to a need for the right response. If you can work with no expectations there is nothing to get frustrated with.

At 1.11.00 we start to challenge whether we can do things differently. At 1.32 we move the mounting block to Vie. That is okay and you said that the previous owner had done this. The thing is that this doesn’t work if you are out on a hack and there is only a stone wall to mount from. So we need to change the way Vie reacts to mounting blocks and eventually being mounted from different obstacles. We then just try a few different things, putting more defined intent into coming into the block, then the position required of her, and standing while waiting for a human to get up the mounting block.

It was a long session, so when you work with Vie, keep teaching sessions smaller. The saddling is good now so you can work with the mounting block without saddling. Then bring the two together.