You know you're getting up there in the years when you look back on your life and think of the experiences you've had, and they seem surreal, that you did that. When I look back, I have memories of doing things that amaze me, and had they not been planted in my memory, I would doubt that was part of my past.
I have some horse parts to my past. I spent some summers wrangling horses up in the Rocky Mountains. I did a lot of trail riding. Later, in college, I did some racehorse workouts, riding those towering Thoroughbreds on a track.
I've been thrown from a horse and stomped on under hoof on a paved road. I've had a saddle slip off, and underbelly, in the middle of a trail on a hillside so steep that I could barely dismount and re-cinch that thing, for danger of falling down the hillside. I've been on a horse going through a bog hip-deep, into mud suction so tight that when that horse heaved his hindquarters from the mud, the mud sucked the iron shoe right off that hoof as it came out of the mud. (Fortunately, we had an amateur farrier on the trail with us, and we were able to replace the shoe, or the hoof would have worn to nothing in an hour or so, walking the rocky surfaces.)
There are many facets to the different styles of horsemanship, and riding.
One thing I never had the budget for was Dressage. I had a friend, whose father was a wealthy New York publisher, who was into Dressage, though, and I learned a bit about the sport / art form. Dressage is seen in the performances of the Royal Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, whose horses became famous for the heroic rescue they underwent during WWII, to save these animals and this art form. I'm always amazed at how, when we learn the higher ways of working with animals, we can apply the same principles to humans. But we seldom do!
One of the precepts in Dressage is a term called "flexing at the poll." You can see this in action well in the above graphic. "Flexing at the poll" is when a horse has the head pulled in and up by the rider's position of the reins. The rider guides the horse's head position by gentle pressure on the bit through the reins, and positioning of the hands.
The "poll" of a horse is the occipital region of the head, located just behind the ears. When a horse flexes at the poll, he bends this region of the neck, in order to tuck his chin toward his chest and raise the head.
Flexing at the poll results in a beautiful form. The head is raised high and the neck arched and elegant. The plane of the horse's face is vertical to the ground, as seen by the observer in the stands - an aesthetically pleasing line. But flexing at the poll is functional as well, more importantly. By flexing at the poll, a horse shifts the location of his center of gravity.
Left to his own will, a horse will stretch out his neck comfortably, lowering his head and pushing the muzzle out forward. But this head position shifts his center of gravity forward in the horse. If you see a picture of a racehorse running, you see this position - head and neck down toward the horizontal, muzzle stretched forward. But think also of the position of the jockey: the jockey is perched way up front on that horse, up over the withers, up over that horse's center of gravity, which is way forward in this head position.
In Dressage, where horses are asked to do fancy footwork and a sort of ballet-of-the-equine, the physics are similar to a gymnast on a balance beam. It's all about balance, and about controlling the center of gravity in order to accomplish technically difficult moves. The horse's four feet are often off the ground, shifting positions during the beautiful horse-dance. It's a precarious balance of a half-ton of weight with a high center of gravity. And for this reason, the horse must have his center of gravity underneath a well-seated rider, and be centered for balance.
So there are two points here: First, that the rider must be well-seated, which means over the horse's back, not up on the withers in precarious balance like a jockey rides. Second, that the horse must have his center of gravity directly underneath the rider's center of gravity, in perfect alignment. This way, when the horse dances, delicately maneuvering through complex moves, there is a tight overall center of gravity.
When you are trying to do Dressage, this makes all the difference in how gracefully the horse and rider can move together - whether the horse is willing to flex at the poll.
But horses can be stubborn animals, wanting "their own head" and not willing to submit, or accommodate to a rider's instruction. They can balk and get stiff, refusing to flex at the poll. The most highly sought after performance horses are those with a flexible, willing attitude... those that willingly work WITH their rider, and flex at the poll.
We are like horses, flexing, or not, at the poll, when it comes to our will. Flexing at the poll is our version of willingness, to turn our life and our will over to our HP. We either balk and become brittle, or we learn to flex. Those of us that flex at the poll learn that by doing so, our center of gravity becomes aligned with that of our Higher Power, and the beautiful ballet can commence.
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So as I'm writing this, I'm listening to a tape by Joe and Charlie, and a couple things pop out at me:
"Willingness is a one-person job..." - the only one who can effect it in me... is me.
"You have a choice: Self-will, or the will of your HP."
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And it all amounts to flexing at the poll.
-The Traveler
Oh, and, I just have to add a footnote: Lipizzaner horses are born black, and mature to white. Hmmmmmmmmmm.
2 comments:
I'm so tempted to make a wisecrack; there are so many doors open for that. I'll forgo it because you're my friend and in the end it was an awesome post.
Thank you.
I have never been particularly interested in horses or riding horses etc., but I found myself totally entranced by your post. It is indeed awesome and metaphorical.
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