Note:  This is a post from the horse arena though any arena is all arenas.

I’ve been at a 3 day horse clinic in Healdsburg with a dozen or so other riders.  Women riders for the most part.  We’re a supportive group that acknowledges and creates a horse riding relationship based on giving, trusting and listening.  Strike the word HORSE and you’ve got the recipe for any kind of relationship.

Love or Fear?

Mestre Barbier puts it this way.  “You can train your horse any way you want.  You can train it out of love or out of fear”.  Bingo.  That’s an easy choice though I realize how easy it is to fall into the fear method.  Fear might get faster results but they are not lasting and it builds tension.  Love takes patience and consistency.  I learned this from teaching in the public schools.  The long game.

These clinics are filled with many mini lessons.

Bubble of Silence

I was astonished when the Mestre brought up the bubble we’re trying to create when we ride.  I know this bubble from my teaching days.  I used to call it the Bubble of Silence.  It was a precious time and my students loved it because they knew they would not be disturbed and were safe to create free from the pressure of Outside.  It was a protective space each child entered as we worked on our reading or writing.  During a Bubble of Silence you were not to disturb any other person.  Period.  To have 28 children in a Bubble of Silence was something mighty powerful.  You could feel the communal exhalation.

Twenty years later I’m creating a Bubble of Silence on my horse in front of an audience.  Crazy.

In three days I’ll be back in the studio starting a new series in my Bubble of Silence.  My old new Superpower.

What’s your Superpower?

XOXO,

Francesca

PS:  I forgot.  You have to smile when you’re in your Bubble.