Under pressure...

Ah, what a weekend. Frustrating and thoughtful.


Max and I are both coming off holiday, so I guess that might be something to do with it. Horses do like their routine, as do humans, for that matter, and our routine has been up the spout of late.


Saturday I only had a bit of time between yard shifts, and I cut my lunch break short to get Max's beautiful bum into the school for a play. We had fun, but he was a bit inattentive and wayward.


"Oh well," I thought, "it's just a bit of a leg stretch, and we'll do some real work tomorrow."


Well, Sunday came soon enough, and I had Max down for long lining. It was a dismal session, which ended up with me frustrated and Max confused. I called him some names, he called me some names back and we ended up in a tangle, big hard heads set against each other, matching stubbornness for stubbornness.


I took all his gear off, because it's my steadfast rule not to handle Max when I'm frustrated, and I took him back to his box with a kind word and carrot stretches, but I have no doubt Max sensed my mood and I left him, feeling disheartened.


Came home and festered over our poor session for a few hours, and then, when the Ent wandered in to see me with a "What are you up to?" I said, "Shall we go take Max for a walk?"


I just wanted to redress the sour taste our lacklustre schooling session had been with some fun. Just a wander out, the three of us, with nothing much to do but wander.


I sometimes think, as I had been thinking Sunday afternoon before our walk, that I let Max down in every possible way. I'm not skilled enough, I don't know enough, I'm not talented enough, I'm not patient enough, I'm not clear enough to coax out of him the wonderful songs and dances I know that he holds in his heart. I sit and think that if Max was in the right hands, he could express himself freely and with joy, and that I'm holding him back with my clumsy hands and useless legs.


I want to be better... I so want to be the one who can coax that out of Max, and when it all goes wrong I feel so useless, so incompetent, like I'm holding him back. Like he could be this shining, glorious thing, if it wasn't for me standing in his way.


Ahem. That's just silly, you know. That's my stuff, not Max's.


Max doesn't care about schooling. He doesn't care if he can do lateral moves, or respond with incredible sensitivity to a rein squeeze that tells him to go left. He is not standing in his field wishing to leg yield properly or do a subtly aided quarter turn. He doesn't care if I'm on his back or off it. He doesn't care about any of that stuff - I do, and I shouldn't either.

I should take a page out of Max's book and just be in the moment, especially if the moment has pears.


So Ent and I rode our bikes back to the yard, and we took Max out for a long silly walk. Proper Monty Python Silly Walk, which involved a bit of crazy high spirits and some laughing.


And I felt better when it was done. Partly because Max was just as stubborn and contrary with the very gentle Ent as he was with me, and partly because Max was just being Max, and that's all I want him to be.


It's good to remind myself of that now and again.