I shouldn't be up.
I woke up on the couch with Hearing Science notes in one hand, remote in the other with Psycho IV on TV. I didn't even know that it existed. Even more surprising - it stars Olivia Hussey, who I believe starred as Juliet in the 1960's version of Romeo and Juliet.

While I am trying to figure out what is going to happen with my horse, various people are taking lessons on him to see if they might want to lease him, just take lessons, whatever. I spent all of Sunday with Faux Pas, cleaning and grooming him; I even rode him around for hours just walking and checking out all the cool things that live on the property.

I thought that I knew everything about my horse. I've always felt that he is "clunky" just because of his size, but it turns out I am wrong. It really hurts me that there is someone who knows how to ride him better than me. Which I think is weird. It makes me realize now that maybe I didn't get a vey good early instruction, or maybe I fell into "jumper vices" and ignored the basic things I felt about riding. Judy, who owns the ranch, got on to see how Faux Pas works so that she'd be able to teach a lesson on him and blew me away. Within minutes she had Faux Pas bouyantly moving across the sand arena, looking nothing like the horse I've been riding for 7 years. He wasn't concussively dragging himself around, he wasn't tripping over his own feet, he looked perfect. The woman taking a lesson arrived and got the same sort of motion out of him and it was the first time she'd ridden in two years. It wasn't exactly what Judy had done, but very close. Then I got on to see if I could feel what they were feeling and he ignored me.

Judy's whole process sounded and felt very much like Yoga. She explained it was all about the flow of energy from me into my horse. She adjusted me so that I was sittig straight and told me to "plug in" so that I could feel all three points of my seat and move my energy forward so that he would move forward. The opposite should work as well: if I stop the flow of energy and stop moving with him, he should stop. It's all supposed to be about moving with him instead of MAKING him move (I learned the latter strategy). I got him to listen a tad bit if I waived a whip around in the air, but once I got him to do what I wished I immediately stopped on a good note. I just figured he was tired. So I went out the next night and tried the same thing bare-back, thinking we'd be able to feel and "communicate" better if there were no barrier, and he ignored me again.

It's so frustrating, like he doesn't respect me enough to do what I ask. Maybe horses don't feel respect in the way we do, but they have something similar, and right now I don't have a place in that picture as far as he's concerned. It has been driving me crazy. I feel like I should just be able to do this, inherently, because I own him. If I were going to be totally logical about it I would say that he recognises me and expects certain things, and never having been ridden by either or the other women he was more willing to do what they asked of him, but I'm having a hard time being logical, and not hurt.