dancinghorse | Addendum on Horse Brains (Reply)

Joni had an interesting story to tell today. Apparently there was a study in which famous horse-training master Linda Tellington-Jones (she of the TTEAM method of patterning behavior) was EKG'ed while working on a horse, also hooked up to electrodes. The horse was a basket case to start, but as the session went on, his brain waves began to match hers exactly.

The lesson was that we have to impose our mental calm on the horse no matter how frazzled he may be. If we aren't calm, we have to maintain two levels of awareness: the scared primate gibbering away beneath the surface, and the totally calm alpha horse on top. The horse should only be able to sense the latter.

Them as knows martial arts can get this concept--it's about centering and focus.

The thing about Pook and Camilla is...they're projecting empaths. They can force their brain waves on whoever is within about a twenty-foot radius, which means that if they're panicking, so is everybody else within reach. They are very powerful and very focused and correspondingly difficult because while the average horse just gets freaky, these two make you freaky.

I can never get off my guard with them. Whatever I'm feeling when I'm working with them might not be what I'm really feeling--it's coming from them.

Then again, this means that if I can sort out who's thinking what, I can plug in really solidly, get them calmed down, and get a level of focus that's like nothing else.

But oy, sometimes they give me a headache.