Episode 201_ The next most obvious step..mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Stacy Westfall:
The reason I didn't record her very first ride on Thursday was because I let myself be fully in the experience. And it was way more emotional than I thought it would be.
Announcer:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple: to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.
Stacy Westfall:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I teach writers how to understand, enjoy and successfully train their own horses. And as you're listening to this, you might hear that the audio is a little bit different. And if you're watching this over on my website, you'll understand why I actually just mounted up and I am riding on Willow bridleless. Hi! And so I'm attempting to not only ride her bridleless for–well, I rode Her one time last week and earlier today thinking I was going to record this podcast in the house and then I thought, what the heck, I will saddle up and go ride her while I make my point. So I'm riding and recording the podcast, which explains all the sounds, the audio, and if you jump over and you want to see, you can see clips of Willow.
Stacy Westfall:
So the reason I wanted to record this podcast at all, and then the reason I decided to come back out and ride Willow, was because last week, on Thursday, I came out to ride and it just seemed obvious to me that I could ride Willow bridleless. That is not a statement to be taken lightly because I want my horses very well prepared. I want to always be setting my horses up for success. And having said that, the obvious part was that I've been on this journey with Willow since she was four years old. Technically, I've been on the journey a lot longer because we bred her and she was born. We owned the mare. I did sell her and then buy her back. And so it's kind of interesting because when I think about Willow's journey, the reason I wanted to record a podcast about it was because this wasn't my long term plan. I didn't start out with her thinking this is where we would end up. And I think that's kind of an important thing for you to know because there's so many times when I talk about goals. And I have a lot of not only people that listen to the podcast, but even students that kind of cringe at the idea of setting goals yet again. But the reason I am such a big believer in it is because I've seen what it can produce. And I thought Willow's little journey was worth talking about for this reason: I didn't ever think this was where I was headed. I didn't rule it out, but I didn't set out to be able to do this. So to me, there are some little lessons hidden inside there that are worth thinking about. What I will say I did was I consistently took action towards the next thing I could see would be possibly within our reach. And so if that was–when I first bought her back, she was really tiny and I thought, the thing that's in reach is me being able to train her to be a small pony for somebody to ride around on. I had no even goals of keeping her for my own horse or me personally showing her. And as I worked with her, she grew. And as she grew and got stronger, I was then confident in riding her more and trail riding her. And at that point, I was even letting other people trail ride her because, why not? That was probably going to be what was in her future anyway. And so it was this long, slow, step-by-step process of, oh, wait, this horse is getting a little bit bigger. Oh, let's start training her for some reining. Oh, okay. Well, that's kind of going well, but I don't think mentally reining is going to be the best thing for her to start out her show career in because it asks a lot of the horse right away. And at that point, I had wanted to know more about Western dressage. And so it was like, Oh, Western dressage. And then as I headed to do Western dressage, I realized that I'd always wanted to know more about traditional dressage. And it turns out you can do that even with a really tiny quarter horse. So I explored both the Western and the traditional dressage with reining in the background of the idea.
Stacy Westfall:
But what I want you to hear in this story is that it was not clear exactly where I was headed, exactly how I was going to get there. Now, I will say this. One thing that is always clear to me when I'm training my horses is that the system of cues and the process that I use is crystal clear. So the process that I teach my students and the process that I use myself is what produces a horse that can go from being a trail horse that everybody is riding to being a show horse in Western dressage, traditional dressage, reining. She's earned NRHA money in reining. And, you know, she can be this very versatile horse. And earlier this year, just a few months ago, I invited students from my advance at home program to come, and I let four of them ride her. So not only is she moving up and up and up in her education, but she's still a very user-friendly horse, meaning that she is very capable of moving up and down to match whatever rider is on her and what is being asked of her at the time. And that is a combination of really understanding the cue system and having a foundation and a–and a series of steps that goes all the way up that is seamless as well as a process for doing that that values her emotional stability and the ability to take her up and down emotionally and even what I would call physically, meaning I can have her a little bit more dull so that when I put somebody on her it doesn't feel like they're riding an ultra tuned, you know, race car or something. But then I can tune her up in just a few minutes myself so she can understand all of that.
Stacy Westfall:
And the reason I say all of this is because the–the reason I didn't record her very first ride on Thursday was because I let myself be fully in the experience. And it was way more emotional than I thought it would be. Because as I was riding around on her, when I'm out here and I'm not recording a podcast, I typically have music playing. And when I was out here and riding her and the music was playing, it just struck me how special it is to develop a relationship and such a deep level of understanding with a horse. And I was having flashbacks to training her grandmother to ride bridleless and her, you know, siblings and all these different relatives. Her aunt was Roxy and all these different horses that I've trained to ride, bridleless and bridleless wasn't the end goal, but it's kind of sweet to have ended up here because in the back of my mind, one of those dreams that I always had was this oneness type communication with the horse where it feels very effortless and very seamless. And so even though I didn't have a specific goal six years ago when I started riding Willow, that said, I want to get as fast as I can to being able to ride her bridleless. It wasn't at all like that. I was willing to go on the journey, taking the next most obvious step. So when I say that I came out on a Thursday night and it was just obvious to me that I was going to ride her bridleless that wasn't just an emotional decision that happened to occur in the moment. It was a series of steps over years, and we were both just obviously ready.
Stacy Westfall:
If I had two things to leave you with, number one, remember why you're doing this, remember why you got started. Remember why you're riding horses. And I think a lot of times that ties back to some kind of a dream that you have that involves horses. And number two, keep taking committed action because action is what moves you forward. And absolutely, it's a total shortcut. If you follow a program and a system that's already proven to have the results that you are looking for, absolutely, that's going to help you get there the most efficiently. But if you don't know for sure where you're headed, just take committed action regularly, a.k.a. goals. I think sometimes it's easier to sell the concept of a dream, and it's not as easy to sell the concept of a goal because a dream can often feel so far out there that it doesn't feel achievable. I remember hearing this quote years ago and it was, "the difference between a dream and a goal is a timeline." And what I love about setting all these micro goals that I did with Willow was that they were the next most obvious step for her. Good example, the decision not to show her first and reining, because I thought it was going to put too much pressure on her, but to instead go to the Western dressage and traditional dressage first and then come back into the reining. So those things, you could look at them like detours, but to me, it was the next most obvious step. Always grounded in a foundation that wasn't changing. So her cue systems and her foundation, that understanding wasn't changing. Even though I kept rearranging those pieces, those fundamental cue system pieces that she had. I can take those and I can rearrange those into all kinds of different things, which is all I've done to be able to achieve the bridleless riding with her. So that's what I have for you tonight as I record this, because I decided what the heck, I might as well record it while riding Willow because it just felt like the next most obvious thing to do.
Stacy Westfall:
Thanks so much for listening. And again, if you want to see video clips from this, go ahead and jump over to my website and you can see me recording from up above while also being recorded on the main camera over there on the tripod. And maybe I'll do some fun stuff once I hang up the phone here and I have my full concentration to help my new bridleless pony out. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you again in the next episode.
Announcer:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit stacywestfall.com for articles, videos, and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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Stacy!! You and Willow look amazing and so connected. Thank you so much for sharing the video. It is so beautiful to watch you two. Enjoy these precious moments.