👐 The Secret of Good Hands... · Get Good With Horses Courses

🔥

👐 The Secret of Good Hands...

✨ Something I notice very quickly when working with horses is the story they carry about hands.

Most horses learn from a very early age that a halter goes on their head…and the hand connected to it usually pulls them along. That’s often their first experience of pressure.

▪️Pulling

▪️Dragging

▪️Holding

Over time this leaves a clear imprint.

Some horses become dull and disconnected - they’re simply dragged from place to place.

Others become worried about pressure and bounce around like squirrels on caffeine the moment they feel it. Both reactions come from the same place.

But here’s the beautiful thing about horses:

Anything that has been learned can be unlearned.

I have yet to meet a horse that doesn’t want a better deal if one is offered to them and I’ve worked with all kinds of horses and humans around the world.

➡️ The real secret for any good horseman or woman lies in something surprisingly simple:

The release of the hands.

It’s actually better to release too soon, even if the horse hasn’t quite understood yet, than to stay too long on something that isn’t helping.

Horses live in the release.

Our hands, however, are naturally designed to close and grab because from the moment we’re born, we instinctively wrap our tiny hands around an adults finger or thumb.

That instinct to hold on can quietly follow us into horsemanship.

But just like horses we can unlearn patterns…

So can our brains.

That’s why I teach people to invite the horse to lead rather than pull them along.

Using rhythmic pressure and using inviting hands.

Even something as simple as asking a horse to lower their head teaches this lesson.

The pressure should increase gradually and thoughtfully, helping you resist the predator instinct that wants to snatch the head down quickly.

It’s all in the details and laid out n a particular order to hep you.

And these details are often the difference between:

▪️Begun and Good Enough.

So a question worth asking yourself is:

What are your hands doing?

If you truly want to get good with horses, learning to soften and release your hands might be one of the most powerful skills you ever develop.

And it’s something horses feel immediately.

It’s why when I work with someone else’s horse, they often respond differently - not because the horse suddenly changed…but because the conversation in the hands changed.

👉 Have you ever experienced a moment where changing your hands changed your horse immediately?

🐴✨🫶

13 comments