My Horse is a parcelmouth!

"How many languages do you speak?"

I first asked the question 'How do horses know what we want and mean them to do?' when I was 14 and taking riding lessons.  It amazed me then, and still today, how a horse understood that when I slightly moved one of my legs back a bit the horse knew it meant to canter. It blew my mind away.

The awe I felt then (and still remember feeling 35 years on) hasn't died with age, years or experience.  Thank goodness!

This weekend a friend and I spent time lunging our respective horses and coaching ourselves through it. I was explaining how Grace understands two different "languages on the lunge".  First is the more 'traditional BHS language of whip, triangle position and tone of voice'.  The second language is the Parelli language of 'chi, no voice, levels of asking and lots of hind quarter yields', (as examples). 

A 'parcelmouth' speaks snake!

Having decided to use the BHS approach with Grace on Sunday, the significance of having a choice of which language to use when working with her, and what I was therefore saying, was clear: Grace is multi-lingual! 

To me it is pretty impressive that horses can retain and recognise two different languages, when used separately or in combination,  and not appear to get confused.  As a contrast I used to speak fluent French and Spanish in my teens and twenties.  Nowadays, I get my tongue tied and end up saying things that I don't even think are legitimate words, and can't remember if they're French or Spanish!  (To think my mum had her heart set on my being a tri-lingual interpreter in Brussels for a living)! 

What's even more great about the language of lunging is that you are only limited by your imagination.

I shared with my friend how my horses and I have been developing our fluency levels in both languages:

Step 1 : Was to find the voice commands and tone of voice I would use consistently, for signalling faster, slower etc

Step 2: Was to coordinate voice and whip so that the horses will respond off either

Step 3: Was to rely less on voice and whip and to substitute both with my body language and how to use both it and the space between me and the horse with differing effects

Step 4: Was to introduce breath based commands - taking a few lessons from Jenny Rolfe and others who connect with their horse through breath control - inhalations and exhalations

This is the Step where Grace and I have currently reached.

 Step 5:  Will be to move from breath commands to intention.  Meaning I want to start changing my horses gait by thinking it - nothing more! No voice, body, whip, back up!  To just send out the intention of walk, trot, halt etc.

Step 6:  Will be..... I don't know yet!  When we get to step 5 maybe step 6 will emerge..... that's what I mean by we are limited only by our imagination.

As most of us Harry Potter fans will know - being able to speak parseltongue makes you a parcelmouth which although normally entails lots of hissing like sounds, absent from my horses most of the time thank goodness, working with them does feel a kin to magic and wizardry!

I'm not sure if my carrot stick or lunge whip is quite as potent as Hermione's wand but I am convinced that horses are bright, quick to learn and fluent translators.  All we have to do is communicate clearly, be it in one or two tongues and our horse will compute and conform. 

It has me spell bound every time!

 

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

 

- Albert Einstein

Do Horses Understand Us?

"IF ONLY HE COULD TALK..." 

 

"I WISH I KNEW HOW HE FELT"

 

"IF ONLY HE UNDERSTOOD ME!"

If only I had a pound (£) for every time I've heard these words said, or have uttered them myself - I'd be a wash with the lovely little coins!

Yet the truth is that horses do talk; loud and clear.  They do try to tell us how they feel and they seem to understand us in more ways than imaginable.

Think about it... our horses don't communicate using words in the same we that we do, yet they sense our intention, and they definitely know when they have pleased or displeased us, and when our reprimand of them is fair or unfair!  To consider how this works, lets remember how we communicate human to human?  

Studies carried out in the 70's show that using words forms only 7% of how we effectively get our message across to other humans.  This must be good news for the horse-human relationship suggesting the words we use aren't important so no need to pack your horse off to English classes!  But Lets not use 'they don't speak English' as an excuse to think they don't understand us!

The research concluded that 'tone of voice' accounts for nearly 40% of how we exchange information (we have plenty of evidence of its effectiveness when we lunge our horses),  and then the final component; body language, makes up over half of how we get our message across, human to human.

So if the bulk of communication and understanding between humans is not achieved through speech or words it opens up the possibility that other tools of communication COULD well be effective with other species just as it is with us. Meaning we are getting our message across to our horse whether we realise it or not!

Horses in particular, being such 'feel' responsive animals must be able to "get us" when so much of our thoughts are expressed through our tone of voice, gestures and facial expressions.  Many of us walk around like an open book!

In summary it seems that the foundation of horse and human communication is the same: feeling (emotions, sensing, touch) and body language.

In the 6 months since Margrit visited Essy I now believe horses understand us in more ways than even the obvious ones.  I have come to think that they can read our minds and even sense strong imagery that we hold in our heads.  I have reason to believe they listen to something beyond our words and pick up on our spirit; be it grounded, insecure, restless, happy or at a loss.

I have many unanswered questions that have lead me to believe this as a result of Essy's talk with Margrit.  For example, how did Essy know what my day job is in specific detail, he doesn't follow me to work.  I didn't discuss it with Margrit either.  How did he know I do public speaking?  How did he know one of my aspirations (only my best friend who lives in America knows it)?  How did Margrit know I had been eating cup cakes at the yard before her visit (which Essy mentioned to her)?  How is it when he had a hole in his forehead, each time I asked him not to move so I could clean it or pick out hairs he stood like a statue - without a head collar, lead, not even tied up?  How did he know to stand still for those few moments?

I could write an essay on the examples I have that tell me that Essy notices EVERYTHING I do and somehow knows what is in my head, heart, or both.

When Essy digs his feet in and won't go into his stable I no longer pull, push, urge, encourage or scold.  I stand quietly and visualise a big carrot in his stable.  I hold that image and stay still.  Next thing you know he walks voluntarily in - then I dash off to quickly find a carrot!  I've also done this bringing him in from the field.  

I hesitantly shared my new found point of view with a friend who in turn told me that when she tried to catch her horse in the field, and he walked off the other way, she changed her thoughts away from catching him, to "let me help you with those flies on your face" and suddenly he walked up to her.

Essy is so verbose some days that he nods and shakes his head when you ask him a question or make an observation out loud.  He backs off when he doesn't want touching.  He leans in to you when he does.  He shakes his head as if saying "no, no, no" when he wants to stand still.  When I graze him and record my blog thoughts and ideas into my I-phone recorder, I hear him snorting at key points when I play it back later that day.   Just as he did when Margrit met him and they had their mind melt kind of thing (see the video of their meeting)!

If you want to test out horse human communication for yourself, I recommend when you next spend 'non riding' time with your horse - notice the moments when he snorts, exhales, shakes his head, nods or gets your attention in some way,  and then ask yourself 'what you were thinking or saying' aloud or to yourself,  exactly at that moment!

My dear old mum spent August sitting with Essy for 4 hours at a time while he was on box rest.  The yard staff and myself have been amazed that for 4 hours she simply sat there chatting to him. He in turn stood by her, seemingly listening, head over her shoulder. When he moved off to snack on hay, he didn't take his eyes of her.  When she got up to brew a cuppa he was at his stable door watching her. The bond they have developed through this quality time together (without agenda) - just spending time together doing nothing, has created a bond tighter than air fix glue! (I do worry what stories mother has told him in their long chats .... no doubt if Margrit re-visits I'll find out)!

There is no doubt he changed after Margrit visited.  Its as if he has had a huge 'weight lifted off his shoulders' by talking to her.  It is as if he has a new sense of self confidence and his level of trust in life, myself, and others, has grown beyond explanation.

As a result of my observations I have some new rules I follow:-

1.  Tell Essy (Solar and Grace) every day how much I love and admire them

2.  Tell them that I want the best for them and ask if they need anything at the moment - and see what if anything, comes to me as a thought, sense or image.

3.  Be very careful what I say in-front of / around them.  Especially avoiding saying anything negative, critical or scary.

4. Apologise for anything I know I should do so for.

5. Thank them!  For anything and everything. Especially for trying their best for me.

In Margrit's books she offers many additional ideas for communicating with your horse.  When I am away from home for a day or more I send my love to my horses visualising it passing down a silver thread to the chest of each of them, coming out of my own chest.  I send love to them.  I asked Margrit to send her healing love to Essy when he was recently on box rest.

I am no longer afraid to feel (rather than think all the time)

I am no longer worried about if 'this stuff' works or not or if  I'm going a bit 'daft'

I don't believe I have any special skills like telepathy etc. The truth is I don't think we need to.  We just need to feel, to want to be all that we can be for our horses (our personal best), to trust ourselves, and to deliberately take moments each day to just revel in our horse's spirit.  To soak them up and love every cell of their being.  

It is also time to quit saying we don't understand our horses or wish they understood us! 

They do!

Observation feeds intuition and instinct.  Trust builds the more we are in tune with our instinct and intuition.  We notice more, witness more of what life and horses have to offer, which in turn fuels a deeper level of understanding.  Once we are on this path, there's no turning back!

Overall, it's very cool!