~Experiencing the seeds creates a literal self-map of your body, mind, soul/spirit, so you can reference them and develop a library to support your ground and riding work. The origin of the seeds comes from the six senses (taste, smell, hear, feel, see, and sense) and are manifested in 11 micro-moments that give us insight to our mind, body, and soul.  

~Each of the 11 selfseeds can act as a spark or insight moment alone or in combination with another seed to create yet another point of transformation.

When we hit a plateau it can be a period of integration, rest, and readiness to progress. How do we move beyond the plateau and into the unknown, refine what is familiar, or find clarity to take action at all?

~Why do we start with the rider experiencing Awakened Horsemanship? Riding is a feeling relationship, so we are working to open up our senses to new aspects or to view the familiar from a new perspective. 

~How does this work?  Let’s run through the seeds together and start working with an example of the self and how to relate them to riding/handling. 

Nutrition is obvious as an aspect of living in harmony with our own bodies. Hydration is included in nutrition, since we are looking at what fuels and supports the body for its survival. We can say the same for the horse. When the horse is hungry or thirsty he/she becomes distracted and survival sets in for grazing or searching for water. We are the same, but we have often lost the sense of the amount, type, or frequency of it by eating/drinking on a schedule instead of by feel. The body has a lot to say about what we eat and drink if we listen. 

Fitness is key for core stability, independence of the hands/legs from the seat, centered positioning, respiratory capacity, how to breath while riding, and more. The horse carries us, but do we carry ourselves while we ride? Understanding the alignment of one’s self and having the strength, flexibility, and awareness to manage one’s body is a game changer in riding and riding safety. There is an aliveness that can support the body when it is fit. Very true for the horse too.

A horse cantering around a course of jumps needs to be fit and ideally have extra gas in the tank, so fatigue isn’t a distraction. Not having fitness can lead to injuries and setbacks. When horses are out grazing in a large field with their buddies, they are moving, stretching down, rolling, and more to support their well being. When we take that away from them, we need to fill in the gap with training and cross-training. Riding is an athletic sport for both the rider and the horse. Even horses carrying a pack require fitness. 

Stillness is remarkably overlooked, but the trend for meditation, silence, and contemplation are taking a hold. For the rider what is stillness? It isn’t being frozen, it is being a dynamic, quiet zone that has a very quiet resonance. A person can be moving and riding with inner stillness, but it is easier to discover it while on your own.

Horses practice it all of the time, when they are standing quietly as a group, they are living in stillness. This is one of the key points to focus on when there is trouble in your relationship with the horse. When we can stay in a place of inner stillness while grooming, leading, longeing, work in hand, and riding, we support the horse feeling a human who is supporting their own inner calm. We know the horse is designed to be on alert for survival, so fundamentally providing reassurance, inner peace, and calm supports the horse to stay the same.

Drinking tea with horses would be a fantastic warm-up exercise everyday. We have a lot to learn from their state of being.

Moving to emotions, it is like a coating over stillness. Many people don’t understand they can regulate their emotions and that there is a vibration or resonance that goes with each emotion and its range. Sitting in stillness (or one’s best approximation) and then imagining a place of joy. It has a texture and sensation that resonates through one’s body. Now shift that awareness to anger, feel how different that is. We can feel the differences, but so can the horse. They can become a victim of those emotions. Just because they are large four-legged beings doesn’t mean they are not picking up all of our emotions.

It is awareness and discipline to take on riding a horse and then to ride a course or set of obstacles is yet another part of the complexity.. Frustration is a human orientation that isn’t really useful for the horse. It signals to us that we need to shift somehow, but for the horse, he/she feels a disconnect and confusion from the rider. If the horse has experienced a rider/trainer moving consistently from frustration to violence, then they know this too and can become anxious. When we stay clear, open, and at ease, the horse isn’t distracted by our presence and can stay available to hear the rider or ground person. 

Horses understand body language and the unspoken from their awareness as a herd. We feel we are often isolated as individuals and don't realize that we are part of a living herd as a being on the Earth.

We all weigh something and so does the horse. Weight distribution is how we manage the weight that we are. Learning to stay symmetrical, square in the saddle, with legs hanging down from the properly angled pelvis is just a start. We have a vertical alignment to learn and manage. The horse has a horizontal alignment to manage.

The trickiness is in the two alignments merging to create a seamless point of unity. If the rider always sits off to one side (knowingly or unknowingly) then he/she will influence the horse to move in that direction. If the horse is equally misaligned too then it can add to a sense of drifting. It is why a pattern is often more difficult in one direction, why the approach to the jump tends to fall to the left or right when trying to stay centered, and so on. It all appears obvious, but can be very subtle.

Have you ever carried a backpack up a mountain? How everything is adjusted in the pack is a big deal. We think the horse is a big body and can adjust to all of this. It is true, but is it influencing the horse’s well being and/or ability to support success in the arena?

Saddle fit influences weight distribution as yet another part of the alignment awareness too. 

Flexibility is monumental for a rider being able to straddle a horse. It means the hips need to be able to open while the spine stays vertically stacked over it. Riding with skill means there isn’t gripping, clutching, and bracing to stay on. The old adage of riding like a wet towel draped over the horse is useful. In the days of military riding, riders were taught on the longe how to position themselves through numerous exercises developing an independent seat, legs, and hands. They practiced this at the walk, trot, and canter on the circle before they were allowed to ride with reins. Part of the systematic lost art of riding. Consequences are often the horse carrying very unskilled riders and trying to figure out how to make sense of it all.

A stretching routine is an important way to support the body's tendency to lose flexibility, but is often a way to check on symmetry too. Horses can also benefit from focused stretching exercises, breaking up patterns from injuries, and addressing right/left orientations. Moving in the pasture helps. There is a large difference in being in large fields moving with a herd vs. being in a paddock standing alone. 

Selfseeds offers a few check point balance exercises to help look at preferences. The seeds are to create awareness for where the work may need to progress. Again, we are addressing breaking through plateaus and how to look for clues to make this progression with systematic clarity. Can you put your left sock on as easily as your right sock when getting dressed in the morning? From a standing position and unassisted?

Horses have a stance preference when they eat or rest, we do too. How does this influence our overall symmetry? Riding excellence requires working on left and right dexterity. Can you hold the reins in each hand with equal dexterity? Try riding with the reins in your left hand and then your right? Does one side feel more awkward?  Horses compensate for a lot when they carry a rider, but the more we can understand our own body alignment, the more effectively we can communicate with the horse and develop along the levels of riding options.

Riding has types and styles, but symmetrical, balanced, and fluid riding is functional in all cases. 

As a rider or grounds person, do you understand the three gaits of the horse or do you just experience them? Can you listen to music and step in time to it? Understand the timing of the music? How about walking to music and then add in clapping? Rhythm is much bigger than people realize in riding and other sports applications. You don’t have to dance, but feeling and working with timing to a steady rhythm can help one understand how to stay in synchrony with the gait of the horse and apply the aids in motion.

Frequently, we alter our following of the horse when we go to make a transition. Yes, but can we do it at the appropriate moment in the timing with the horse, so it is more fluid and effective? If we are going to prepare for a change in diagonal while trotting across the diagonal, do we understand the sequence of the trot and how to transition to the new diagonal without missing a beat?

All of this becomes remarkably important for the horse and the performance. Practicing dismounted and developing awareness will either reinforce your clarity or help solve an area that needs attention. Selfseeds is for helping uncover pieces of the puzzle to flow through areas of stagnation that are often found in plateaus.

Integration is putting it all together. Why is this a selfseed? Understanding that integration is an actual step is yet another point of consideration. How we integrate, what we integrate, have we integrated and so on. Integration is done over and over in our daily lives, but we all have a style of integration or how we assimilate information. So does the horse.

Learning to observe how you work with information and apply it is a big deal for making change and progress. In later years, I discovered that I learned in a different way then how I was taught to learn in school. I made the school way work, but it wasn’t ideal for me. It led to frustration, confusion, and more labor intensive results. 

Riding is another world and requires integrating feel, timing, and alignment. Observing ourselves in the learning process can be a moment of epiphany. Understanding how integration works will help us to be a better leader and follower for the horse connection.

My background includes extensive ballroom dancing in the role of the horse. One of my coaches had us warm-up with a band that I call the integrative band. It helped us know about ourselves and coherently integrate ourselves before connecting with another dancer, or even taking action in any activity. It is the same for the horse and rider relationship. Ironically, there are modern systems of using leg wraps, sports taping material, and more to help the horse with self-awareness. A lot to be explored and developed for both the horse person and the horse. 

Are we getting to the core purpose of all this now-–the actual partnership? Guaranteed that if you go out to lead, longe, work-in-hand, or ride your horse right now, you will have a different awareness of both of you and your horse partner. But wait, there is more. We aren’t stopping at Selfseeds Partnering. Working with another two-legged with lead and follow exercises while applying all of the seeds is remarkably insightful and educational. 

Putting it all together is the next super cool part. Take your time, work through each selfseed as it relates to what you are doing. The fresh perspective and experiential input are the keys. Partnering involves so many micro-moments, but we can get lost in the whole and not know how to break it all apart.

Every time, I wanted to move to the next level in dressage, it meant improving the basics and understanding what is needed in the next progression. With riding, so much is based on feel, timing, and alignment, but those have subtle core principles inside of each. Going from a trot pole to a jump is a logical sequence, but it still requires a transition for the rider and horse.

There is the joy of partnering and the frustration of partnering, so let’s dive deeper to find solutions. 

Last but not least, Selfseeds Personalize 5. What is it and why? When the design template of Selfseeds was downloaded, a second seed for the state of the inner being felt significant. Yes, stillness and emotions are an aspect, but this is what brings a resonance or essence of inner peace. Words are allusive, but hand grazing your horse, watching him/her in a turn out in the arena with a good roll and buck, how he/she walks back out into the field and joins with the herd, the sunset, sunrise, birds chirping, ocean waves, a running stream and more are all part of this seed.

The wordless section that supports inner flow and harmony. 

The 5 is five minutes. We all live an intricate, busy, and often stressful life, so Selfseeds was created to support this with 5 minute or less increments of self-awareness and practice. Don’t be surprised, it works and can often lead to a longer practice. The seed breaking out of itself is a step and a poignant step. Once the inner transition happens and the new growth begins, it is still a sequence of micro-moments to be nurtured and attended to–you and your horse.

Wasn't the seed itself in a plateau before breaking open?