This video talks about a book called The Alchemy of Lightness and describes the Front Mind and the Back Mind and how horses are able to perceive both.
Go ahead and keep doing whatever you’ve been doing with your horse today.
A reminder of how to use this course: click on Mark Complete below and tomorrow you will move on to Day 4.
Love this! My daughter does reined cowhorse and I can totally see this being an issue. She also runs barrels and I can see this being the reason he drops his shoulder before getting to the barrel… she’s thinking in her front mind about getting around the barrel!!
I have a 20 yr old mare I obtained as a two year old. VERY sensitive mare, and I’ve always believed she was an ‘anticipatory’ mare. Perhaps, instead, she has been keenly aware of my ‘front brain’.
Now (and the reason I’m taking this coursee) is that I’ve suddenly got a 6 yr old molly mule, broke at some point to ride and reportedly to drive… but has not been handled much for the past 2 years. Her previous owner got her at three, and chose to let her just be a mule for a year as she was underweight and a bit shut down. His life kind of blew up, so she sat…
SO… currently we are working on her being ok with being touched, groomed, approached, etc, from anywhere ‘south’ of her shoulder. She behaves as though she’s been struck, unfairly, and is simply trying to avoid a bad situation.
This video gave me AN EPIPHANY! It is very likely that my anticipation of her shifting her hindquarters away from me is contributing to behavior I am trying to address.
This afternoon, I resolve to keep that ‘hindquarter shifting’ out of my brain entirely
Oh yes, this makes sense to me. Great description and easy to understand. Will have to try this out today when I’m working with the horses!
Lightbulb moment for me … I’m aware it will take some practice to apply
I suspect the horse reads the subtle electrical signals of neurons firing in muscle activation’s preparation for movement. 🤔
Deep stuff here! And another great thing to keep in mind. Over 30 yrs ago, one of my riding instructors/mentors would always remind us to ride in the present and see it in our mind as if we were watching it on TV as we were doing it. I never really understood why she had us do that and I never questioned her methods, and, we always had much better rides using this kind of principle. I still practice this and teach my little riders that I’m bringing along the same thing!
I watched this section yesterday. Today, on our morning ride, I realized my front mind was concerned that the horses were going to rush home to be with their pasture buddies. And indeed, they began speeding up their walk. I changed the channel on my front mind to paying attention to how my seat bones could set the tempo for the walk, then began singing a song that matched the tempo I wanted. My horse began matching my tempo and we had a lovely ride home.
Great work.