Reading through older posts in this blog, I noticed that I’m often having breakthroughs or new understandings or deeper appreciation about leadership, patterns, refinement. Oddly enough, this comforts me. It feels like progress!

One of the refrains of the Parelli program is that “it’s all Level 1.” It’s one of those simple-but-not-easy truths: that as you develop your skills, expand your repertoire, increase your knowledge, you realize more and more that the 7 games are really it, if you follow the 8 Principles while you do them.

8 Principles of Horsemanship

1. Horsemanship is natural.
2. Don’t make or teach assumptions.
3. Communication is two or more individuals sharing and understanding an idea.
4. Horses and humans have mutual responsibilities.
5. The attitude of justice is effective.
6. Body language is the universal language.
7. Horses teach humans and humans teach horses.
8. Principles, purpose and time are the tools of teaching.

~ Pat Parelli

Level 1 with increasing excellence means more than just refining your body language or never releasing on a brace. It means returning to the center time and time again. Balancing rapport and respect. Equalizing language, love, and leadership.  Thinking like a horse, acting like a partner, putting the relationship first.

It means being aware.

Awareness

The more I think about it, the more I understand that horsemanship is awareness. Without awareness there is no adaptation, but there is a much higher chance that you or your horse will get hurt.

With awareness, you can be in the moment with your horse, connected, responding immediately when he needs more leadership, more friendly game, less energy, less pressure. With awareness you can keep your fingers out of the halter knot and your toes out from under the hooves. With awareness, you can correct yourself quickly when you fall back into the gross motor skills of level 1 level 1, and right away return yourself to level 4 level 1 by practicing energy management and refined body language.

Horsemanship is the habits and skills that humans and horses need to become partners. ~ Pat Parelli

When things go pear-shaped in our lives, we naturally fall back into the habits we’ve practiced over and over again, enough times to carve deep grooves into our brains. We literally develop brain ruts to help us go on auto-pilot when we need to, to stay safe, sane, alive.  We especially fall back into those ruts when we’re in the throes of fear or grief.

But we also fall into those ruts when we stop being aware — when we’re just wiggling the rope somewhere between a phase 2 and a phase 3, without starting with phase 1, because that’s the amount of wiggling it took last time, and anyway you’re not even thinking about it, you’re just on auto-wiggle because you’re talking to someone else and your horse has crept up or you’re thinking about what you “should be” doing instead of at the barn or you’re ruminating over past events or thinking 5 steps ahead about saddling, mounting, and riding out the gate.

The longer we cruise-control down a rut, the more conscious effort it takes to climb out and practice new, improved habits. The good news is that if we can apply that conscious effort consistently, we can create new ruts, and cause awareness to become our default. We can become aware of our awareness without having to devote so much constant effort to bringing ourselves back.

With awareness, you can have focus. With focus you can have clear communication. With clear communication you can have leadership. With communication and leadership you can have partnership.

Confidence

The hard part, for me, isn’t having awareness — it’s having the confidence to trust my awareness. My self-image still believes I’m a complete newbie and that if I “have a feeling” about something it’s probably not right because I’m so new to all this.

Erin: Think back. Has there ever been a situation where if you had followed your intuition with your horse, it would have made things worse?

Me: [stunned speechless}

Erin: [smiles]

Me: … No.

Yet in a fortnight I will celebrate 7 years with Rocky. That means 7 years of being around Parelli and 6 years of living on a ranch dedicated entirely to natural horsemanship. I have immersed in the materials, attended Parelli events, traveled to the Summit three times, and acquired a Parelli pre-school graduate from Atwood Ranch and a rescue pony spotted by 5-star Parelli Professional David Lichman. I volunteered for the Parelli Education Institute for 6 months. I’ve even attended lectures by Dr. Robert M. Miller and demos by John Lyons, Chris Cox, and Linda Tellington-Jones. I’ve written this blog, because writing helps me understand things. Plus all the books and videos and conversations and and and and and.

And, even in those months where life got crazy and I barely saw the horses, I saw the horses. Even when I couldn’t get out to play with them, I could glance out the window and enjoy their existence — and study their herd dynamics — on a daily basis.

With all of that plus my opportunity to get out there at least once or twice a week for actual practice, you’d think my self-image would catch up with the reality that I am truly on the journey, not just toeing the starting line.

I make the same number of mistakes when I’m not second-guessing myself as I do when I’m unsure. The mistakes I make when I’m confident, though, are where the learning happens. And it’s where the horses are more comfortable. They know that if they keep trying they will get through to me and I will change, when I’m not distracted by a thought train of self-doubt.

Aspiring to level 1

About a year ago, I had insights about being particular without being critical. Before that, I blossomed under the idea of purposeful engagement. Five years ago I wrote about “the magical fourth session” — complete with an original pen-and-ink illustration! — showing that I was learning the power of patterns even then.

Just a couple of days ago I included the power of patterns, leadership, refinement, and measuring in millimeters in my list of clinic take-aways.

It’s all level 1. And then you build on it. And then it’s all level 1, again….