Confidence and Decisiveness

We cannot believe that we are at the end of our first week at horsemanship! All of our campers have grown so much this week and have showed us so much potential.

As we mentioned in our last blog post, campers are working on using clear and direct communication with our horses. Making sure that we are giving clear, and direct instructions to our horses is a lot harder than it sounds. Another important aspect of decision making is following through with those decisions. We also have to ensure that we can follow through with that decision. When the horse does not listen, it’s likely that our command has not been clearly communicated. This is, of course, frustrating. In these cases, it is important for us to quiet our hands, stop the horse, re-centre ourselves and try again. Whether it be at school or at home, this process is also something we can integrate into our everyday lives when we get frustrated.

An important aspect of clear communication is being confident in the directions we are giving the horses. One of the wonderful things about working with horses is that they are very attuned to how we are feeling. For instance, if we aren’t sure of what we want to do, then they aren’t sure of what to do as we are the one’s providing them with direction. To this end, when we are not confident in the directions we are choosing, the horses feel this uncertainty.

That’s all for now, but we hope you all have a wonderful and safe long weekend!