Horse Talk

Hi Folks:

It was a treat to experience the 'Mane Event' with you yesterday. We had a good look at a couple of 'cowboys' interacting with young horses and training them using the methods of so-called 'natural horsemanship.' (The cowboy world is still taking a while to embrace gender-inclusive language!)

What is interesting about this kind of interaction for us, pedagogically-speaking, are the subtleties of the postural, positional, gestural and expressive body-language. Whether staying safe in ensuring that 'personal boundaries' are respected, or 'releasing pressure' when the horse makes even the smallest 'try,' there is an attentiveness to movement nuances and a moment-to-moment reading of 'emotion in motion.'

With Jonathan Field we saw how sophisticated this postural, positional, gestural, and expressive interaction with horses can become. It is still based on lots of practiced structure, but there is now a 'playfulness' with horses at 'liberty' that is possible.

I can create many analogies to the professional work I do in teacher education – that learning to become a teacher requires a similar nuanced pedagogical sensitivity to children and youth. There are 'modalities of body experience' that, in the case of horses, are not just about sheer and evident physicality, but also about mimetic responses (i.e. mirrored actions), leadership behaviors, guiding motions, kinesthetic resonances of breathing, balancing, timing and touching, and the flow dynamics of energy exchange. Our venture into this more-than-human world provides a peek into the ways of those who, like ourselves, regard health, vitality, wellness and quality of life as connected pedagogically to the dynamic relationships created with others (horses in this case, pets for some, and children, youth, adults, patients and clients for we who are professionally engaged in our respective workplaces.

I am wondering what you took from your experience of the 'Mane Event.' Would you mind writing something about it while it remains fresh? This is not an assignment or assessed task. It could be a Blog entry or, if too personal for that, an email to me.

Cheers,

Stephen.


P.S. For those who asked (and because I'm a proud 'papa'), I've attached photos of Spartacus and Lucente, my Spanish 'boys.' There's also a Youtube video of Lucente, the third horse featured, at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChjTZffkyyo