6 Tips to Develop More Feel

I’ve always been told that I’m an Empath, maybe you are too. That’s someone who’s very sensitive to the vibe of their surroundings and other people. An Empath can walk into a room and immediately know how others feel. You might refer to it as a superpower that we can all develop with practice –?Let’s call it a type of positive hypersensitivity.

When I work with horses, I tap into this power. I can easily put my awareness into the body and mind of the horse and “feel” what they feel. This gives me the ability to instantly respond to what the horse needs almost before it happens.

When riders tell me they don’t have any feel, it’s never actually true, but they’ve become less sensitive, mainly because of the following reasons:

1. They are too focused on something else, distractions, goals, an agenda or their surroundings. Their attention is elsewhere and therefore not paying attention to the behavior of the horse or their own body senses.

2. A stressed or busy mindset doesn’t allow you to feel. You need to be in a calm objective mindset so that it’s possible to observe instead of judge what you experience.

3. They need to develop sensitivity to physical touch, learning to notice and match pressure, so they don’t apply too little or too much.

4. They need to know?what?they are supposed to be looking and feeling for.

5. Timing! Their response time needs to get quicker, so they can respond correctly to the thing they were feeling for. Otherwise the training moment passes.

6. Sometimes riders can create a?mental block?towards “feel”. This is usually a self preservation mode they’ve adapted to protect themselves from emotional pain. As children we are all sensitive, but bad experiences can cause a person to?make a conscious or unconscious decision to “toughen up.”

The latter one is the hardest one to fix because someone has to consciously choose to undo that decision and make a new choice to welcome emotional sensitivity back into their lives. Humans are great at avoiding moving beyond our fears by rationalizing and analyzing strategy instead. But if you are brave and ready to feel and live bigger, that’s when your real strengths are revealed. Your real super powers, that you always had, but hid.

I think an important mindset quote that I grabbed from “tinybuddha” to help heal this fear is:

“Don’t let a hard lesson harden your heart”

Feeling is sensory and we all have the ability to feel, it’s just whether you are ready to check yourself against those 6 points above or not.

In my opinion you also have to be able to imagine and visualize what you actually want your horse to look and feel like as the end result when you ride, otherwise you’ll stay stuck confusion around what to look for.

I really think “feel” actually has more to do with your ability to visualize what you want than anything “feel” related.

Visualizing, seeing and observing with your inner eyes (imagination) and outer eyes (vision) what you want the horse to look like all have something to do with vision, not touch or feel.

Feel comes later when you start to realize how what you’re seeing “feels” like at the exact moment that it’s happening.

For instance, when a horse gives to the bit, he has to bring his nose onto the vertical and you’ll feel a quick release on the pressure he was previously applying to the rein. This process is visible.?Once you truly see it, you will then be able to feel it.

You should always have a mental picture in your head as to what something should look like when it’s done well. From there you need to let go of perfectionism and practice shaping the horse and yourself in the direction of your goal. Shaping is a training method similar to a sculptor chipping away at a solid block of wood until the art piece starts to take shape. It means you don’t expect perfection right away, instead you commit to patiently practicing until improvement occurs and reality starts reflecting your original vision.

I always want my horse to feel forward, straight and light in all exercises. I also want them to feel soft, willing and relaxed.

This is how I create the mental image I’m aiming for:

I imagine the shape I want the horse to take as he performs a certain exercise. If I haven’t done it before, I observe what other horses look like when they are well trained in this exercise. Then I start the sculpting or shaping process realizing that many of my first attempts will look nothing like the finished project. To stay on track It’s important the visual covers my values from above. Therefore, I imagine what it looks like when a horse is forward, straight, light, soft, willing and relaxed in that specific exercise I’m visualizing.

Those values are also my metrics to compare my results to every time I ride.

For example, when I worked (“x” exercise), did the shape of my horse improve since last time?

Did he feel or look lighter, straighter or more forward?

If so, great! I’ll keep repeating what I’m doing and adapt anytime I observe that something I’m doing has improved on these metrics.

If I realize that he’s going backwards, then I need to also adapt my methods to get back on track.

It’s all about the ability to observe and respond but also not to judge or take things personally.?Judging often makes us respond with the wrong answer. Judging makes things personal or negative. Observing is neutral and therefore allows the solution to come forth more easily.

To improve your feel, practice not having any agenda. Practice just being with your horse and observing him. Notice what he’s doing and how he responds to what you ask of him.

Be in the present with him and tune into what he needs by putting yourself in his shoes. Try to feel what he feels, imagine being him or her and seeing the world and yourself through his eyes.

I often ask myself this question:?If I were a fly on the wall of this animal’s life, what would I see?

This recount must be very objective. Do not mix your own emotions in there about anything. Simply observe and report what you see. You’ll probably see how something you are doing or not doing is messing with your progress.

Do the same when riding. If you are practicing an exercise, hold a clear vision in your mind of what the final best “end result” should be and measure your improvements based on the metrics I measured before.

To discover your metrics, notice what values you want your horse to reflect, what behavior you want to get away from and what behavior you want to move towards, then count the points of each one.

Things to move away from could be:

1. Heavy

2. Unresponsive

3. Lazy on the leg

4. Naughty or resistant

As you improve, the negative metrics should get fewer and fewer points and the good metrics/values should get more and more points for each ride.

Once you get really clear on what you want things to look like and you have a measuring system of your progress with the right metrics, then it starts to get easy to feel what’s happening.

From there forward, it’s simply a process of getting quicker and quicker at responding to what you are seeing and feeling,?and then finally be able to do it on autopilot instead of mentally processing it every time.

This is developed with lots of practice and consistency, so you are always practicing the same thing.

Monica Shah, a coach friend of mine, describes the process of execution and practice like this…

1.?First you have a project… a project means that you’re working on a thing and you’re still in the process of figuring it out.

2.?Then the project turns into a process.?You’ve figured out the exact steps needed to accomplish your project and streamlined them.

3.?The process turns into a system, which means that you could even hand off that project to someone else. All they need to do is copy your process and they will reproduce the project.

In other words, once you’ve figured out what you are looking for, how to get the horse to do it and what it feels like, you can easily do it again and again by applying the same steps. When you get really good at it, you can teach someone else how to do it too.

To recap: In order to develop good feel, simply start by opening your eyes and visually pay attention to what’s actually happening in your horse’s body. Notice how the horse is responding towards or away from your aids. Keep asking yourself: Am I getting closer or further away from my end goal on this specific project? Am I developing the process? Can I turn it into a system?

This will give you a clear insight on whether to apply a stronger aid, a lesser aid, a different aid, etc.

Your homework:

1. Mindset comes first! Be objective!

2. Observe | Observe | Observe

3. …and then feel.

RIDE WITH LIGHTNESS

CELIE XO

To read my previous two articles, click on the links below:

How to teach the Piaffe

What should you be working on with your horse today? Here's one successful habit that I use in training that always gives me total clarity.