Päivintalli

08/08/2025

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If you’re serious about becoming a better partner for your horse, start by learning to read your horse’s fear threshold, stress signals, calming signals, and displacement behaviors.

Because if you can’t see the tension building in the first place, you’ll always be reacting too late.

By the time your horse is spooking, freezing, exploding, or shutting down, the real problem started long before that moment. He gave you signs, tight muscles, blinking less, flared nostrils, clenched lips, scratching himself, sniffing the ground, moments of being zoned out, easy startle reactions…and you either didn’t see them, or you didn’t listen and brushed them off.

If your horse feels unsafe, confused and he’s constantly stuck above his threshold, he can’t learn. Period. His nervous system won’t allow it.

You’re no longer training at that point, because every single cell in his body is dialed into self preservation at that point.

So when people say, “He just blew up out of nowhere,” what they really mean is, “I didn’t catch the early signs.”

It’s pretty easy. If you want better results, fewer setbacks, and a stronger relationship, you need to develop the skill of reading the small stuff. The things that might seem like nothing to us, are big communication attempts in the world of our horses.

Stress signals aren’t misbehavior. Displacement behaviors aren’t your horse being “distracted.” Calming signals aren’t obedience responses. It’s all communication. It’s your horse trying to keep the dialogue going. They’re his way of saying, “I’m trying to manage…are you listening?”

The best trainers don’t just reward behavior. They respond to emotion. They know when to pause, when to simplify, and when to ease it up or step away, before things fall apart.

If you want to teach your horse anything, whether it’s lifting his feet, standing still, loading or starting him under saddle, you need to become an expert in what he looks like and how he “talks to you” before he has to use his loudest voice available to him to get his “No” or “Not yet” across.

-Julia Williamson | The Horse Center, 2025

24/07/2025

niimpä

Horses have a heart energy center just like us and the feeling of them opening their heart feels the same as it does when we’re with another human. It’s electric, our whole body comes alive, it stops us in our tracks. And it’s pretty simple—if we embrace the moment and open our hearts to the horse as well…it feels just like a hug.

But are horses really “hugging us?” Yes and no. Think about that—what exactly are we doing when we hug another? Why is it so meaningful? Why do we feel so much when we are that close to another, embracing each other and pulling each other tight?

When we hug we’re taking physical shape of what we are feeling in our hearts at that moment. We’re feeling close to another and wanting to express it. This connection is then played-out in the hugging of each other’s body, drawing them close to our heart area, the gateway of love in action.

Horses do this too. They open their hearts, feel connection, and their body takes the shape of that. It could be in the way they step closer into our energy, how they touch us, or in how they look at us. It can even happen while you are far away from each other, even from across the world.

But when we are close, sharing space and time and place, and feeling connected…we will feel together as if in the same body. This is when horses will sometimes open up and place us beside their neck/chest/shoulder area, right by their heart, inviting us into that sacred space. Different species have different modes of communication, but what is communicated here is universally united within all living beings. Horses do not hug like us, but they hug nonetheless. Are they aware of this? Are they smart enough to understand this?

Do they even need to be aware of it and smart enough to comprehend it in order to do it?

Or is the doing of it and the feeling of it enough?

To know this feeling is to forever be changed by it. Nothing is the same after. You will feel drawn to the horse and they to you. You will understand them, and they you. You will be drawn to care for them, look after them, and be their champion. You will be honest, respectful, and kind around them like it was in you to be that way all along. All of this will come like a shot into every bit of your existence. Trying hard for each other and confidence in each other will go up, while fear and fight goes down.

Once you feel it there’s no going back. It’s not a discovery but a coming home to what we are. Family across species. A remembering that we came into this world as part of it.

That we are in the world, and the world is in us.

———

Photo by Paige Taylor

16/07/2025

katsokaas, tässä on tavallisten ratsastajien tavallisia kivasti liikkuvia hevosia, jokainen omassa vaiheessaan, ilmeet positiivisina, leukatila auki, kehot kannatuksessa

08/07/2025

Oon niin iloinen, että tänä vuonna pääskyjen pesintä onnistui

25/06/2025

ja kun sitä tekniikkaa on hinkattu, näin alkaa runous

All the back and forth in horsemanship these days, and it’s good. Science and facts need to come to light. New ideas need ears that can hear them, as well as questioning. And ways of doing things need to be shared.

We’re moving at a fast rate right now. The internet connects us all across the world. Ideas and opinions can travel across the earth in a day. And it’s also just plain the times we’re in—for we are in a time of great change and shift, with a lot of friction and flow. Said in another way—it’s gonna be a little messy.

And so it goes during a great shifting. “What was” and its safety, consistency, and predictability doesn’t want to let go, while “what could be” can seem scary and unknown. We usually don’t seek internal challenges that feel threatening…they find us, it seems to “happen” to us. But it’s that type of challenge where the greatest opportunity is. Some long-standing ways of doing things are rooted in good horsemanship, others it’s time to move beyond from; and some new ways are here to stay, while others may fade as quickly as they arose…

So what do we do and which way do we go?

In the clinics we spend time deeply getting in touch with something very powerful inside of us. It can be a little hard to get to, can be foggy and unclear in the beginning, but once you feel it…once you truly know it…it won’t ever lie to you or let you down.

It’s YOUR intuition.

How the universe speaks specifically to YOU.

Your inner guidance system. The one that’s specific to you, your horse (or your life), and the moment you’re in. It helps you to know one very important thing…

What the moment wants.

Because what the moment wants from you may be different from one day to the next. One day you might ask your horse to try something. The next day you may think about asking the horse the same exact thing, but instead feel it’s not the time nor place for it.

What’s the difference?

The moment has changed.

Because here’s the thing—you don’t know what the answer is until you’re in the moment with the horse.

To know what the horse is thinking and feeling in any moment is to know what you should do to help them in that moment. Especially if you have “how may I serve you?” as your guiding principle with the horse. It could be about their care and what they need. It could be asking them to work hard. It could be asking nothing of them and just standing there with them. And here’s the cool thing—serving them, can be riding with them too.

There is a presence and energy within you that is connected to all and everything. And this presence talks to you. And one of the ways to know it, is this: it serves all. Not just you. When your intuition comes from this place of heart and soul, it serves all. It serves all and everything. Which includes the horse, and you.

The big work is being able to let go of the who/what/when/why/how and trust where it’s taking us. Trust we will be supported. Trust we will be safe. Let go of the story in our head of what life was supposed to be and trust where our heart leads us in the moment. And like everything, our intuition is like a muscle, something we work to strengthen for the whole of our lives, with no end to its development.

I once asked one of the wisest people I’ve ever known what to do about something very troubling to me. And this is what he said…

“I love you, brother. And you know what to do.”

To truly understand the simplicity of this statement, is to go places in life that create the most amazing experiences.

Because you do know what to do. It’s in you somewhere. But in this world, it just sometimes takes some time to get to it. That’s part of the process.

It may be scary, though.

And you’ll have to trust yourself.

But the cool thing that comes with that?

It means you trust all of life.

😊🐴🙏

22/06/2025

niimpä

Good intentions don’t counter sloppy tool handling

As the horse world shifts into intention, relationship and the more emotional side of work, we are losing one very important thing: good technique

If you want to be a musician, you have to practice your scales. This can be boring but necessary.

Once the technique is accurate, you can create art, express emotion, even break the rules and create something totally unique as many artists have.

But if you don’t learn to handle your line with care, to make sure the feel inside you is being conveyed to the horse through your body through the line, your intentions often won’t get to where you wanted them to go.

Many people relying on inner feeling are neglecting the technique, and the feeling being transmitted to the horse is poor, sloppy, confusing, even scary.

I’ve spent many hours with my teachers refining the way I hold the lead line, the flag, the lunge line, the way I pick up my reins - over and over again until it’s the right feel for what I’m trying to say. Inside me was always a good intention, but the horse can’t hear it if our technique is jarring.

Practice your scales. Be willing to take critique on the most basic things you do and take it seriously. That’s what makes riders and horse people truly great with horses - good intentions and listening to podcasts about emotionalism and spiritualism can set the tone, but then you have to get the skill to communicate that with the horse, and that requires elbow grease

20/06/2025

Tämmöistä hupaa järjesti meiän neuvokas omistaja

15/06/2025

Mikä on sitten ihanampaa kuin katsoa tyytyväisiä hevoja ja iloisia ihmisiä leppoisan kesätuulen löyhytellessä koivujen lehvistöä 🐴🌿☀️