"More Than Words" , or defining feel

[Fillabeana]

So I was watching The Voice on TV this morning (recorded it) and heard a beautiful rendition of Extreme’s song ‘More Than Words’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R-FGchhwLw
The you-tube link is a lyrics video.

Especially poignant to me, were the lyrics:

More than words
is all
I ever needed you to show.

Then you wouldn’t have to say
That you love me
'cause I’d already know.

It really struck me that this song, to me, is all about how “Feel” is beyond words. And for defining feel with a horse, it is beyond cues and responses. A horse can understand your cues and respond well, but feel is beyond that.

I really see feel in music.
For another example, I heard (on public radio) about YoYo Ma at music-camp-for-the-extraordinarily-talented at Tanglewood, teaching his performance class of cellists. He rehearsed and directed them, and played along with them, telling them and showing them what he wanted, at which time in the music score. For the performance, he directed them, while playing HIS cello, facing the audience. So he conveyed feel to them so they could follow, with his back and his playing.

Feel can be conveyed with the horse while you’re riding, on the ground leading, or from a distance.

I know we’ve brought up feel here before; anyone else have any input about what feel means to them?

[re-runs]

Part of Feel means getting in touch with your source. Feel is something that all living creatures are born with. Our modern world with all it`s societal restrictions and crowdedness, inventions and conveniences makes it hard to stay connected with from where we came. Watch a flock of birds, a school of fish, a herd of bison that somehow keep from crashing into one another, who instinctively know the distance from one another that it takes to operate as one entity. And how do they know what the creature next to them is going to do next, but somehow they do…that is feel.

Herd, grouping type animals that live in numbers for safety all understand that it is better to get along and have some kind of order than to stand alone, so they understand by instinct how to blend in to a group. That is feel.

Be pure of heart and intention, and the animal will reveal itself to you…that is feel.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand feel yet. But I’m afraid I need a more concrete definition.

I heard Buck Brannaman say once that you have the horse on a feel when you reach for him and he reaches back for you. I think I sorta get what that means. Anybody care to expound?

[mvp]

Ruh roh. I’ll be the contrarian on this point.

Writing the statement, “Feel is ineffable” is Not Helpful. It may feel fun, accurate and even sublime to write, but it’s no fun to watch someone else do that. It’s deciding you can or will never have sex, or even masturbate or have an orgasm, but will instead watch tons and tons of porn. At some point, with all these limits in place, even pornography will get boring.

IMO, everyone has their own vocabulary for feel on horseback. The best you can do is teach other people to develop their own. And that vocabulary has to do with putting words to physical, kinesthetic experience.

I find that the more metaphorical or even emotion- or justice-based descriptions of feel are even farther from the lived-experience of riding a horse. They are, to follow our porn metaphor, merely suggestive, R-rated movies and not so explicit, graphic or close to the lived experience of sex.

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=pAin’t_Misbehavin’;7291955]
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand feel yet. But I’m afraid I need a more concrete definition.

I heard Buck Brannaman say once that you have the horse on a feel when you reach for him and he reaches back for you. I think I sorta get what that means. Anybody care to expound?[/QUOTE]

Well, to follow on mvp’s sex example, it is like an orgasm - you know it when you have it, but to define it to someone would be a bit difficult. :winkgrin:

So ask yourself some questions. Have you ever noticed a difference in how your horse moves underneath you when he’s pushing from behind and lifting his back? Or noticed that he dropped his inside shoulder so you know what his next move is going to be and/or how to help him straighten out? Have you ever had just a moment or two of lightness that you continue to strive for? All of those “noticings” are feel - you are feeling the horse and your body understands his body and you have a communication going on.

Now, sometimes the communication is one-way - like you give a command to strike off in the canter, for example, and he does it, but you didn’t really “feel” the right time to do it, you just got lucky. But he knew what you wanted and did it. Or, you feel the move he makes before he’s going to spook and spin and run the other way, but you don’t have the time or timing to shut it down before it happens - you felt him and knew what he was going to do. The goal, for me, is to have these moments where my body and his body are in such a state of two-way communication (and I have such masterful control over my mind and body - ha!) that it is almost as if we are dancing and we know each other so well that the subtle cues I give - either with my seat, leg, shoulder, arm, hand, breath, turn of the head, whatever - are so inviting and compelling to him that he follows along. And in turn, with each part of my mind and body I am so tuned in to him that I can predict what his next step will be and be there to support and/or guide it if it needs to change.

Now the reality of the situation is very different, but that goal is what I shoot for!

[re-runs]

“Feel” as in what we talk about with this kind of horsemanship, what Tom Dorrance spoke of, is much bigger than just horses. Feeling a gait or what your horse is doing under you, or a touch, is only a minute and shallow part of it, I mean minute and that could be why people with a dressage backround who have been preached to by their instructors to feel this and that dont come close. True Feel comes right out of your guts, it is empathy, it is compassion, it is being able to transcend yourself into another body/mind and feel just how that "other" feels and how whatever you do effects them and "know" what they think about it. Its leveling the plane, humbling yourself, you become them.

You cant buy it, nobody can give it to you. You cant learn it. Nobody can teach you feel, it is THAT personal. You cant be MADE to feel it. Its not something you earn except, for the fact that you may take a long time to get there and that is the pleasure.

[re-runs]

“I heard Buck Brannaman say once that you have the horse on a feel when you reach for him and he reaches back for you. I think I sorta get what that means. Anybody care to expound?”

May I elaborate in the words of Tom Dorrance.(paraphrasing)

When you reach for him from inside yourself and he reaches back from inside himself… THAT is feel.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

[QUOTE=re-runs;7293271]
True Feel . . . is empathy, it is compassion, it is being able to transcend yourself into another body/mind and feel just how that “other” feels and how whatever you do effects them and “know” what they think about it. It`s leveling the plane, humbling yourself, you become them.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=re-runs;7293299]
May I elaborate in the words of Tom Dorrance.(paraphrasing)

When you reach for him from inside yourself and he reaches back from inside himself… THAT is feel.[/QUOTE]

OK, thanks, I think I understand how that might work. I’ve had a glimmer of it a time or two, anyway.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=re-runs;7293271]

You cant buy it, nobody can give it to you. You cant learn it. Nobody can teach you feel, it is THAT personal. You can`t be MADE to feel it. [/QUOTE]

I’ll accept (for the sake of the argument) your multi-point definition of “feel” with horses. But I don’t think that any of these things-- the physical part, the empathetic part of the horse’s emotions or motivations or intellect (how he interprets the situation of the moment)-- can’t be taught. I also don’t think they are inborn.

IMO, all of these things are learned via feedback and interaction between horse and horseman. So if you also wanted to be the Tom Dorrance of Octopi, you’d have to relearn those creatures. To learn feel, you do have to want to do it. Desire is a necessary condition.

[katarine]

I don’t think there’s a solid, one sentence, or single paragraph definition that will make ‘feel’ accessible to some.

What is love?

See what I mean?

[Bluey]

I will give my idea of what feel is.
Learning to become a riding instructor, we had apprentices in our program.
You could see right off, before they were even more than acquainted with horses, some just had that feel for a horse, some didn’t.

We would teach those that feel didn’t come to naturally and all learned to an extent, some became as good as if they had it from the start.
A few just never did, were a bit “off” with their understanding of horses and/or timing.

You can see who is handling the horse with feel already by the way they naturally approach and touch a horse, how they work around the horse and how they ride.

I consider that a bit like seeing beauty, some do, some it leaves them cold, they don’t relate to beauty or just in a superficial way.

All that comes into play when you look for that “feel” when riding.
It doesn’t start with riding with feel, it is part of a much larger way we relate to our horses, that shows up clearly also when we ride.

The other side of the coin, to those that have that feel for a horse, to watch those that don’t is right down painful to disturbing.
One example of that, the LP and Barney video.:dead:

No, it is not outright abuse, that everyone abhors, of course, but it is so …unnecessary to go there, when it is so easy to learn to handle horses with a decent amount of feel.
The real horsemen are those that everyone admires because they do it so well.
How can you tell who is using feel?
The horses tell on you, clearly.

That is my opinion.

[re-runs]

Bluey, LOVELY post.

I was recently talking to a horseman that I respect and he said that once you have “it” your awareness of everything else becomes very heightened. If you have feel, there is no turning it off, it enters into everything you do. You “slow down to smell the roses” so to speak. When you live in this state of constant awareness (not a nervous awareness but a calm awareness and appreciation), the word “gratitude” is always at hand. Horses feel this intention and they let down their defenses because they feel safe. When good horsemen say the horse is a mirror to your soul; this is pretty much what they mean. Horses are always in this state of awareness, even from a quarter mile away, unless they have been shut down, which they do sometimes just to survive living around others that don`t have this sensitivity. This awareness is how they are wired as a species, that is how they stay alive in a world of predators. When Buck in his movie says, “Sometimes I will be thinking about a certain horse that is out in the pasture and sure enough he will bring his head up and look at me. What is that?” (paraphrasing) Well, of course he is well aware of what that is, he is doing his best to make YOU aware of it and what is possible.

When you have feel, you stop being critical of others because you know they are struggling just like you and you realize that being critical just causes the other horse/person/animal to brace up and possibly mess up. Instead you start being “particular” because you know that the horses around you are noticing EVERYTHING that you are doing…unless of course if they have been shut down.

Some people are content to ride horses that are in some variable stage of being shut down…I prefer not to ride a horse like that. I savor the responsibility of being around horses in their natural state of awareness and that puts a lot of responsibility of being around them…on me.

[Pocket_Pony]

[QUOTE=re-runs;7295420]
When Buck in his movie says, “Sometimes I will be thinking about a certain horse that is out in the pasture and sure enough he will bring his head up and look at me. What is that?” (paraphrasing) [/QUOTE]

OMG, that is too funny! Sometimes when the horses are out in the pasture, I stop by my front door to look out at them and just watch them. Or, when I’m at the kitchen sink or in my husband’s office I can crane my neck to see up at the barn area. Whenever I have a look out there, they look up at me. I doubt they can actually see me because of the reflection of the windows or the blocking of the trees, but they know I’m looking. I always thought that was interesting. Tomato, my husband’s horse, would answer yes or no questions when I’d talk to him. My husband thought I was crazy to think that Tomato understood English, but I guess it wasn’t the language itself as much as the intention of my question. Once even, he was standing at the barn doors and was attempting to open them with his mouth (they were very heavy so the chance was slim that he could actually do it). I told him that if he kept trying to do that then I wouldn’t let him out in the pasture anymore because I can’t have him going around trying to open the doors and get himself into all sorts of trouble in the barn. He stopped immediately and I never saw him try to do it again.

I’ve been reading a lot about meditation lately, and the act of being present. All animals really live their lives that way, and it is something to strive for in humans - at the very least while we’re with them. The only thing that matters when we’re with them is the moment that we are with them. I know that when I’m a bit scatterbrained then I don’t have good rides, and actually doing groundwork ahead of my ride is really a way for Mac and I to connect mentally and emotionally - I don’t use it for “getting the sillies out.” Yesterday when trying my new saddle on him, I didn’t really do groundwork and instead was focused on finding the right cinch adjustment and getting the stirrups set at the correct length for me. Our brief ride was lacking that connection and while it was “fine” I didn’t really feel good about it.

The book I just read called Buddha by Karen Armstrong had an interesting quote: “Deliverance [from suffering] would come from the refinement of his [Siddhatta Gotama’s] own mundane nature, and so he must investigate it and get to know it as intimately as an equestrian learns to know the horse he is training.” To me this implied that even in ye olde days there’s a recognition of the feel between horse and human, such that a person could know his horse better than he knows himself.

[mvp]

^^^

I do find that riding is a great form of meditation. It’s more refreshing than a vacation or sleep. When I ride, I forget what day it is, where I am, who I am, my own history, who’s watching, all the rest. It takes all my brain cells to ride such that when I get off, it’s like someone has pushed a big “restart” button in my head.

I learned this in high school when I was given 4-6 horses a day to ride, most often by myself. I had to learn to “reset the meter to zero” every time I got on another horse. It was great practice. Now I can make a decision to do that.

[re-runs]

Pocket Pony, you might enjoy reading a book recommended by Tom Dorrance; it is called Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugene Herrigel.

My own recommendation is any book by D. T. Suzuki. Everytime I read a segment the correlation with what I am trying to become with my animals and the person I would like to be someday jumps up in my face.

Another good book, but might be hard to get through for those who fight the message is, Kinship With All Life by J. Allen Boone; also recommended by Tom Dorrance. Just a note, this one is a book you must come to with no previous attitude to get the most out of it. I will admit that the first time I read it, I had to put it down in the last few chapters and it wasnt until years later that I got the message that the author was trying to teach the reader. I guess I just wasnt ready for it yet back then.