I always find that I am teaching the things that I most need to learn.  During last night’s Embodied Horsemanship free teleclass, I got very clear that I wanted to deepen a part of my own horsemanship practice.  I call it the intentional pause.

While I am riding, I use the pause to “unplug”, soften and center.  Here is how it works:  Several times during the ride, I ask Deo or Sanne to open into a halt and then drop the reins (loose contact, on the buckle).  Then I just stand (sometimes with eyes closed depending on what else is going on in the ring) and focus on “homogenizing” the inside of me with the inside of the horse.  I am looking for a feeling that all of my cells and all of his cells are humming on the same frequency – soft, opening, allowing.  The breath is the portal and the anchor.  I am looking for them to drop their head, or take a big breath and to lose any sense of needing to move.  When we do start to move, I find that it is easier for me to offer a soft connection, easier to feel their body and my own.

However, I also find that using the intentional pause when I am not at the barn, not with a horse is just as important.  Most of us, I find, tend to harden into our activities, using momentum and drive to get from one place, one activity to another.  We think of moving from one “destination” to another, without a lot of consciousness about the transitions or the journey from here to there.  The intentional pause helps us to feel into the whole bodily, sensory landscape of where we are.   It is about being in the midst of doing.  Here is how that works: As I am typing this blog post, or picking up my cup of tea, or walking from one room to another, I pause.  Sometimes the pause is momentary, other times it is longer.  In the pause, I open my sensory awareness out, remember my breath and soften the feel of what I am doing. Then I begin again.  The pause is like a little intentional recuperation.  I like to experiment with how long or how short I can make a pause.

Try it and let me know what you discover!

(I am available to work with you and your horse one-on-one or in a workshop or clinic.  josajones@gmail.com)