The Language of Fear, Finding your Courage in Riding (Part 1)

This article is dedicated to all of us facing fear. 

My greatest experience in dealing with fear is in relation to riding and training horses as well as helping riding students overcome their fears.  It is from this point of view that I address this topic.

Recognize your fears

Riding horses can be a very dangerous endeavor.  Consequently, it is very natural and common that fear comes up when pursuing this sport.  Let me repeat:  it is natural and normal to experience fear in the process of learning the art of horsemanship.

Fear creates its own language.  It can be aggressive and bullying, it can be timid and meek, and it can even be completely unresponsive and seemingly zombified or frozen.  Even though these behaviors seem opposite or even contradictory, all originate in fear and an instinctual drive for survival is at its heart.  We all must face fear, during our life, whether real or imagined.  It is part of our human experience.

Once fear enters, it is likely to be your constant bedfellow until you can disassemble it and write new memories and experiences of success and safety in its place.  This can be a challenging process and the first step is to recognize when fear has you in its grip. 

I grew up in a cowboy culture where you just faced your fears immediately and handled danger in a sort of “rough rider” way.  While this experience has stood me in some good stead, as I will explain further in Part 2, this approach to riding and training also has many failings and pitfalls. 

 Riding has traditionally been a very macho sport.  Admitting that you are afraid was frowned upon when I was learning to ride and train, and so we learned to puff up with ego and false bravado so that no one would know we had any vulnerability. I believe a bit of “fake it until you make it” was also involved.  Unfortunately, often the trainers who “appeared” to have the most confidence were considered the best, whether they were or not.  These charismatic, larger than life trainers would NEVER admit they were afraid.

I have news for you, no one who trains horses is immune from fear. I have had to deal with fear throughout my entire riding and training career. Everyone, even “hot shot” trainers, deal with fear at some point in riding. You cannot interact with these big, powerful animals and not experience moments where doubt enters your mind, and you feel that small twinge at the back of your heart that suggests there could be danger. Some people are more in touch with their fear than others.  This is what makes confronting fear so tricky.  I have seen trainers and students declare that they don’t have any fear, yet fear is written all over their body language especially in their use of the aids while riding.

Fear Aggression

It is probably hardest to identify the language of fear when it appears aggressive and retaliatory but truly, most of us were trained to deal with fear in horse training through aggression.  When challenged with a horse that was acting badly or not doing our bidding and possibly even threatening our safety, we were taught to not only muster our courage and “show the horse who’s in charge” but also to dominate him and enforce our will in a very strong physical and emotional way. This approach almost always opens the door to real violence and truly only covers up a deeper fear in the rider.  It is the fight in “fight or flight”.  Many of us were trained to “cowboy up” and engage in battle with the horse.   

Fight behavior can also be observed in some horses.  A small percentage of horses can react to fear with aggression because they want to end a very negative experience.  These horses are almost always created from an episode(s) stemming from abuse and punishment. Horses that respond with fight are the ones that charge, bite, kick and strike at their handlers.The fight strategy is akin to a prize fighter entering a boxing ring, or even a soldier rushing into battle, it can have a sort of immediate effectiveness but can also quickly backfire and get you into real danger.  I have observed many trainers who have some decent skill just overwhelm training issues with a slash and burn mentality.  It can work temporarily, but very often fails and almost always creates major problems down the road.

The oppression of fear is passed onto the horses and students who are taught with a fight mentality. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard “just get on that horse and make him do it!” --bullying timid riders to “buck up” and become aggressive.  In the long run, these students never learn the skills of mastery in horsemanship but only learn to bury their true feelings of insecurity out of shame.  Horses trained in the shadow of physical threats also can harbor hidden fear that festers and can eventually erupt out of the blue.  Fear repressed ultimately becomes like a rot, undermining the foundation of training.  You can plaster over it with all the bravado in the world but eventually, hidden fears will break down the structures of training built upon it. 

Avoidance Behavior

While some learn to fight, others learn to flee the uncomfortable experience of fear and failure in training.  Timid riders and horses will find the fight approach too difficult and flee. Running away from that which scares us is embedded in our nature.  This is a good thing when confronted with certain real dangers; however, it can become a huge liability and create riders and horses with avoidance behavior.

Riders who use this technique to deal with their everyday fears in training tend to avoid putting themselves in the same situation where something happened that caused them to be afraid.  These fearful circumstances can be as simple as asking for more energy from the horse, riding into the “scary” corner of the arena or enforcing boundaries with the horse on the ground.  People who use avoidance to deal with fear often explain why they can’t do something and make excuses, if not outwardly to others, at the very least inwardly to themselves.  I am certain we are all guilty of avoidance behavior.  The problem with allowing ourselves to always avoid our fears is that it causes our world to contract; it is the death of our growth and improvement in horsemanship and makes the achievement of our goals impossible.

Avoidance is the most common response in horses that experience fear.  Horses, being prey animals, are designed to “spook” and run away from things that startle and frighten them.  A good trainer must work with this fear and calmly, lovingly, teach the horse to trust and move past fear to perform commands.  Otherwise, horses will learn avoidance as an acceptable response.   An example of this is what I have observed in much of the Arabian horse community.  Many trainers and breeders almost relish the excitable, “hot” nature of their horses and foster this behavior.  Often, I have had so-called “crazy” Arabian horses in training that are notorious spookers and bolters only to discover after a time that they are very levelheaded…and smart.  They learn very quickly that acting afraid and shying can be a great avoidance behavior!

Frozen in Fear

Some horses and students shut down or freeze when faced with fear.  Very often they shut down in response to another acting out the fight strategy upon them.  Their experience of fear is so overwhelming that they fall into learned helplessness and become zombie-like, only going through the motions and doing what is absolutely necessary.  This response to fear, in my opinion, can be the most concerning.  Riding students who shut down often cannot voice their legitimate concerns, instead they just do what the trainer tells them to do even though it may not be okay with them or even worse, may put their welfare at risk. 

Horses that are shut down are some of the hardest to train.  First, you must get the horse to unbury their actual feelings and begin to speak to you.  What they have to say at that point can be very interesting to say the least!  You must employ a great deal of compassion, patience and good judgment.  These are the horses that can be most unpredictable during their rehabilitation so you must also employ caution.

Moving forward

Recognizing that fear is a part of your riding experience and then understanding how you respond to it is really the first step toward empowerment and mastery. We are all afraid of something at some point and we must all deal with it in one way or another.  The question is, how are we going to respond in the face of fear?

This is what makes the art of horsemanship so extraordinary in my opinion.  We take horses that are fearful by nature, harness our own fears to put ourselves in peril upon their backs and then, convince these horses to trust us in the face of their own fears to carry us forward boldly with confidence. 

Becoming a great rider and trainer takes many acts of courage.  You must learn to abide by fear when it is real and potentially dangerous.   Then, you must also recognize when fear is deceptive (False Evidence Appearing Real) and holding you back from your goals; in which case, you must then learn to “screw your courage to the sticking point” and act.  This journey is not for everyone especially the faint of heart.  Mastery of classical horsemanship is really mastery of Self and requires us to explore dark and uncomfortable places of our psyche where dragons often dwell.