04/11/2025
DOING NOTHING IS AN ACTION
Yesterday I published a post on something I termed "Inappropriate Touching" that went a little viral, being shared 3,000 times in 24 hours (you can read that post here https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1274647950690356&set=a.269604291194732).
It was about missing what the horse was offering, and instead trying to touch a part of the horse that they weren't offering. The picture I used was taken at the Horse World Expo in Pennsylvania recently.
Today I want to share a picture of a different demo horse from that expo.
This is a 10 year old Warmblood mare who was a broodmare, and has recently been started under saddle. The owner says she drags everyone around, has severe attention issues, and always has her head up looking around.
That's at home on familiar turf, so you can imagine what she was like at the horse expo. When the mare and her handler came in, the mare couldn't stand still, and her head was straight up in the air looking around. As I usually do at horse expos, if I have an hour session, I usually let the handler lead the horse around (or try and stand still) for the first half an hour, so the audience can really see that the horse is not settled , and isn't going to.
Then I take over.
With this mare, when I took a hold of the lead rope, she immediately greeted me with her nose, which I reciprocated with my hand (Action #1). She then walked off away from me and as she tightened the lead rope, I used my flag to draw her thoughts back to where her body was, so getting her to be present (Action #2). These 2 actions are part of a flow chart I have on my website, which is basically a flow chart for appropriate responses to things your horse does.
These 2 things happened twice more in the first 5 minutes of me handling her, so I did a total of 4 quite subtle things.
And then I waited.
The photo of the mare shows the result after about 20 minutes or so.
The next day I posted the photo on Facebook and said a little about it, and someone asked if I'd videod the session. I replied that I hadn't, and didn't really need to, as I didn't do anything I hadn't captured many times on video and put in my video library on my website.
They said they were in the audience, and that they didn't really see me do much, so must have missed something. I had to point out I only did 4 things (which was actually 2 little things, twice each).
It's more about what I didn't do, that the handler had been doing.
I didn't hold the lead rope short or try to control her (the handler had been doing quite a bit of this).
When she stood there and pawed the ground (which she did quite a bit) I didn't do anything (the handler had been trying to correct that).
When she stood with her head high looking around, I didn't do anything (the handler had been trying to get her attention). Actually I looked at what she was looking at, so I suppose there I did do something.
When she chewed on the lead rope, I didn't do anything (The handler had tried to get it out of her mouth).
When she sidepassed up really close to me, I didn't do anything (the handler had stepped away from her when she did this).
And in relation to yesterdays viral post, I didn't touch her, I didn't pet her, I didn't rub her, and I didn't console her (the handler had been doing quite a bit of this), except for the 2 brief times she touched me with he nose.
In the half an hour I was handling her, those 4 little things I did happened in the first 5 minutes.
The rest of the time I did nothing.
After a while she started having the big yawning releases one often sees with the Masterson Method work. She yawned. And yawned. And yawned.
Then her head started to drop into the posture you see in the picture.
And I said to the audience "Doing nothing IS an action", and it's a very powerful one at that. Then I sat down and crossed my legs, for no other reason than to prove to the audience that I wasn't doing anything to her to get her to stand there.
Many people struggle to be in the presence of their horse without doing something. If there's a problem, they want to fix it. if there's not one, they want to fiddle and groom and touch (remember yesterdays post). Many times these well meaning owners (and the handler of this horse was lovely and well meaning) are doing a lot of work to try to resolve their horses anxiety issues, and many times the incessant fiddling and grooming and touching is part of the problem.
Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is be a human being, instead of a human doing.
If you are interested in my work, everything I do is available on video and in courses at videos.warwickschiller.com
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