The Horse Nobody Wanted
Follow Horse & Rider's lifestyle editor Juli Thorson's blog about an unwanted blind mare, saved from a livestock yard. It's a tear jerker I warn you...
Yoga and Horses
Until two years ago I had only dabled in Yoga, and primarily focused on the fitness aspect. We all lose flexibility as we age and I liked the gentle postures (asanas) which could be eased into and held, not forced. However, in my quest for stress coping techiniques in recent years, and a desire to improve my riding, I began to explore the breathing and meditation aspects of Yoga and simultaneously to read such Dressage greats as Alois Podhajsky, Charles De Kunffy, and Waldemar Seunig to name a few.
The most striking discovery for me was that the principles of a yogic practice mirror those of "classical" Dressage. For example, let's just disect the quote from my home page.
Firstly: "to develop the horse to his full potential" - many of the asanas, mantras, and breathing techniques of yoga are meant to unlock a persons potential and remove blockages in our chakras or energy centers. Raise your hand if you have heard your dressage trainer say "You're blocking the energy!" Like an asana serious study in Dressage introduces the rider and horse to school figures designed to improve the posture and direct energy flow.
Next: "To do this painlessly, gradually, and naturally" Something commonly heard in the yoga studio is "be where you are," meaning there is no rush to deepen a pose or to force one's body into an asana it is not ready for. But also more profoundly it instructs us to just be present in the moment, not focused on the upcoming show or the next step in the training pyramid, or the argument we had 5 minutes ago. Be alert to the signals we are given in the moment, and allow progress to come naturally and gradually.
And my favorite: "which then becomes an expression of loving devotion." This is what it's ALL about. Once one makes a concious effort to study yoga it becomes apparent that this is not just light aerobics but a spiritual journey also. You start to hear terms like compassion, empathy, ahimsa, which means nonharming to self and others. Yoga provides a sound practice for cultivating empathy towards others...2-legged or 4-legged.
As great as it would be if I were the first person to have ever stumbled onto the impact Yoga can have on my relationship to my horses, it sadly is not so. In fact many professional horsemen have written articles and even books on the subject.
Articles on Equestrian Yoga
This article was actually written by a non horsey yogi for Yoga Journal reviewing a book entitled Yoga for Equestrians. He knocks our pointy boots, but aside from that loves the book because of the focus it puts on developing the rider's "mindbody," the mind part being the one I was missing when I first became interested in Yoga. Click here to read the review, here to get the book.
And these are a few other articles which I have come across on the web: