The Power of Breath: Your Secret Training Tool

Discover how changing how you breathe can transform your interactions with your horse. Learn practical ways to calm an anxious horse or enliven a "lazy" one, plus a Feldenkrais-inspired quadrant breathing lesson that can enhance your seat and connection! 

You'll learn:

• Why tension in your breathing affects your horse's responsiveness
• How your breathing can invoke a state of calm curiosity, which invites creativity and connection with your horse
• A Feldenkrais-inspired quadrant breathing exercise that can improve your seat, develop more precise weight aids, and create clearer communication with your horse

Whether you're dealing with an anxious horse or struggling to create forward movement, this episode offers natural, effective solutions through the power of breath.

Resources:

💥Learn how the Feldenkrais Method can help improve your seat, position, and balance on your horse! Free rider videos masterclass: https://www.marydebono.com/rider 💥

Email mary@marydebono.com

All information is for general educational purposes ONLY and doesn't constitute medical, veterinary, or professional training advice. Always use extreme caution when interacting with horses. 

About the Host:

Mary Debono is a pioneer in animal and human wellness, blending her expertise as an international clinician, best-selling author, and certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner. With over three decades of experience, Mary developed Debono Moves, a groundbreaking approach that enhances the performance, well-being, and partnership of horses and their human companions.

Recognizing the profound connection between equine and human movement, Mary's innovative approach draws from the Feldenkrais Method®, tailored specifically for the equestrian world. Her methods have helped horses and humans:

• Improve athletic ability and performance
• Enhance confidence and reduce anxiety
• Reduce physical limitations and discomfort
• Deepen the horse-human bond

Mary's flagship online program, "Move with Your Horse," offers equestrians a unique opportunity to experience the benefits of Feldenkrais® while also learning her signature hands-on work for horses. This transformative approach has helped riders and their equine partners achieve harmony, both in and out of the saddle.

As a speaker and educator, Mary has touched the lives of equestrians across the globe, empowering them to unlock their full potential through mindful movement and enhanced body awareness.

Discover the power of Debono Moves and transform your equestrian journey. Visit https://www.marydebono.com/you-and-your-horse to learn more about Mary's unique work.

Because you and your horse deserve to feel great. Together. 

Transcript

Hi. Now, many of you know that your breathing can help calm and settle your horse. Did you also know that the way you breathe can help enliven your horse or help your horse be more responsive to you? So today, I'd like to talk to you about using your breath in different ways to help both you and your horse feel better and move easier. And in case we're meeting for the first time, my name is Mary Debono, and this is the Easier Movement Happier Horses podcast.

So, yeah, let me start with a story. The very first time I rode my horse, Breeze, this is before he was my horse. I just was in a round pen with him. He was wearing a halter and a dressage saddle, and he was crazy. I mean, crazy. Flying around the round pen with me at 100 miles an hour. And I could tell he was just very anxious. So I thought, okay, what can I do to help this guy?

And I started just changing my breath. And I. For some reason, I had this image of I was exchanging breath with him, like with a figure eight pattern. Okay, so that's what I was thinking about. I was thinking about as I take a breath, right then I exhale, and then he takes a breath. Of course, I wasn't timing it to his breath at this point. He was just zipping around this round pen, and I just was breathing in this way, but again, thinking of the breath kind of going through him and then out and through me.

And again, I just had this image of a figure eight, and just he started to really respond to that. And I. And I will say that prior to that, you know, I had tried other things, and nothing was really getting through, but really changing the way I was breathing made a profound difference. And what I discovered and was that Breeze was not just this anxious horse. Yes, he had a lot of anxiety, especially at that time.

That's before I. I really got to work with him. And he was a super, super sensitive horse. So once I tuned into that, like, once I. I took responsibility for the way I was breathing and how my breath was influencing Breeze, I realized, wow, the way I could use my seat is really different now. And he was so responsive. Like, if I put just a couple of ounces, it seemed more of pressure in one seat bone, like, more weight.

He would just zip to that side and then zip to the other side if I put. I mean, like. Like, I'm talking about, like, ounces. Like, it was crazy how sensitive he is or was. And it was very cool, but I couldn't feel that until I really took charge of my breathing until I really paid attention, became more aware of myself, and I connected more to myself through my breath, and then was able to connect with him.

Okay, so that's a, that's a situation where you're helping a horse be more calm, be more responsive in that way. Okay, that's all well and good. Now what if you have the opposite situation? And I know many, many people like this, where they say, my horse is stubborn. Which, by the way, that's not really a word I generally use. I'm just repeating what other people have said and they'll say, my horse is lazy.

My horse just doesn't want to go. My horse is belligerent, by the way, Breeze used to be called all of those things. Well, he used to be called stubborn and belligerent by people that had him before me, and I never found that he was that way at all. But anyway, I digress. So I've worked with people like this where they feel like they have to use spurs and they have to use whips and they have to like really quote, unquote, get after their horses to get any forward movement.

And what I found is that when I teach people how to work with their horse on the ground, like doing this very gentle, hands on work, they might learn how to rock their horse from different ways, use different parts of their body, you know, connect with them like that, that way, then connected to their breath, they realize, oh my goodness, I can invite my horse to move just through my breath.

And then we take that to the saddle. And this is what's so cool about it, because just say you have a story about your horse. You, the story is your horse doesn't want to go, that he's lazy or something like that. And then when you go to ask your horse to move, right, there's probably this uncon, you know, probably it's unconscious, but you tense up a bit and it's like you have to quote, unquote, make them do it.

So think about how that feels to your horse, right? That doesn't feel good. That doesn't feel inviting, that doesn't invite, you know, this connection of you both moving forward together. Not at all. It's quite the opposite. So the two of you just get into like this brace mode. But instead, if you learn, like, wow, like, my breath can influence my horse, right? Then when you invite your horse to move, say now you're in the saddle, you invite your horse to move.

You tune into your own breath to initiate that invitation. And it's a quite different Experience both for you and your horse and the people I've, I've shared this with that I've taught it to have just been floored because they're just like, oh, suddenly my horse is like listening to me. And it's, it's, it's a real game changer. So now let's talk because I want to make, you know, my podcast.

I'd like to have to give you something you can do to improve, right? Not just talk about it. So what I'd like to do is to give you a little breathing lesson. And I say lesson because we in, in. I'm a Feldenkrais practitioner, and in the Feldenkrais world, we call things like movement lessons, not exercises. Exercise. You tend to associate that with striving and straining and having a particular end result.

Where when we think of these movement lessons, it's more a self discovery, right? You're exploring, you're curious, you're. You're not correcting yourself, right? You're just connecting with what you do and discovering how you can do things easier, more efficient, better. So, so, so let's let me guide you through one now. Now, if you're driving or doing something else like that while you're listening to this, then you'll have to wait for later.

But if you're simply at home somewhere you, where you could lie down, let's do something fun together. So go ahead, lie on your back, have a comfortable place to lie on, a carpet, an exercise mat, something like that. Bend your knees so your feet are comfortable. You know, your legs are comfortable, your feet are standing, your knees are bent. And I have to say, don't do anything, anything, anything that feels unsafe to you or feels uncomfortable in any way.

Like if you start getting achy or anything like that, just don't do it or do it much, much less, okay? So. And it's important that you monitor your own comfort and safety, okay? So what I invite you to do is to take a breath and hold that breath. Just hold it. And imagine it's like a ball of air. It's a ball of air. And then you push it down into your belly area and you make your belly area kind of poof out and your chest gets flat.

And then without taking another breath, you simply push that ball of air up into your chest, you inflate your chest and you flatten your belly. I want to say, please don't do this strongly, okay? Don't. Do not strain. Just do it with a playful attitude, okay? Just be curious, like how does it feel to take a breath, hold it, and then push this imaginary ball of air down and then up and do that a few times without taking another breath until you need to breathe.

Okay. Don't wait too long. Just do it a few times gently and feel how you do that. And what. And then. And then breathe normally, Take a rest. And what this does is it really helps you interrupt your habitual ways of breathing. Because we get into habits of breathing the way we get into habits of how we sit, how we stand, how, how we walk, you know, all the things, right?

How we bend to the side more, you know, than the other and causes us to be crooked on our horse. But that's a whole other subject, although this is related to it. So. So you'll. You'll find that this can be helpful for that as well, for balancing you out. But. So this is the first step. We're just playing with this ball of air, pushing it down, pushing it up.

Do that a few times, take a breath, few breaths, and then do it again. And just be really, again, curious about it. You know, when you're in a state of calm and, you know, curiosity, right, that invites creativity and connection. So this is the state that's super helpful for you to be in when you're with your horse as well, as well as when you're with you by yourself.

But. But that calmness and that curiosity, again, invite, you know, creativity and connection. Okay? Help you figure things out and have more joy, have more fun. Okay? So that's the first step. Taking this ball of air, pushing it down, pushing it up, helping us interrupt our habits around how we breathe. Okay? Now we're gonna. We're gonna change it up a little bit. Now, instead of just having a chest and abdomen, a lower abdomen, we're going to divide your trunk, like, into quadrants, so into four spaces, okay?

So you'll have, you know, a lower left, a lower right, an upper right, upper left. Okay? Four quadrants. So now you're going to take a breath, have that imaginary ball of air. But now instead of just pushing it up, you know, down and up, you're going to be more specific. You're going to direct it towards your lower left quadrant. And then without taking another breath, you direct it to your upper right quadrant and then down again to the lower left.

So you start doing this diagonal movement with the breath. Again, it's an imaginary ball of air. And as you do it, notice can I feel like just imagine that my upper right ribs are expanding, that there's more space There. And can I feel how I can expand my lower left part of my belly? Right. And you just go up and down like that again, breathing as you need to, of course, and then let that go.

And now let's do the other diagonal. And this is what's really interesting. For many people, it'll be different. It'll feel different. So again, you take a breath, have that imaginary ball of air, and you can, like, give it a color and everything. And you push it down to the lower right and then the upper left and go back and forth and feel like, oh, is that different than the other, the other diagonal?

Is this one easier, like more accessible or maybe less access accessible? And just play with that very gently, breathing as you need to. And if you're doing this, you know, so we're doing it lying down, you have your knees bent, but just notice, like, actually. Okay, pause for a moment. Let's, let's, let's add another variation. Lengthen only your right leg. Only your right leg. So now we're going to take your ball of air from the upper left to the lower right and just think of kind of just very gently lengthening your right leg, just like from the hip.

Just do that a few times. You're still thinking about expanding the ribs in the upper left and expanding your, you know, your abdomen in the lower right. And then you're just thinking of also kind of gently lengthening your right leg just a little bit. Okay. And notice how that affects the feeling of the diagonal. Okay, let that go. Now switch legs. So it means your left leg is long, your right leg is bent.

Yeah. You know, the foot is standing. And now let's do the other diagonal again. So the upper right to the lower left quadrant. And now you lengthen the left leg a little bit. And of course, you take a breath whenever you need to. And now bend both knees. Have both knees standing. And just do it again. Do it again. Do one. Do one diagonal and then the other diagonal.

Okay, let that go. And now slowly come to sitting. You can sit on the floor. You can sit in a chair, whatever you want to, you know, however you want to sit comfortably. And now can you play with those, that quadrant breathing, that diagonal quadrant breathing in sitting. And notice how, how it affects you. And if you're sitting in a chair, you know, it's actually kind of cool to put the soles of your feet together and have your knees apart and just, just notice, do you feel your knees moving as you do the quad?

You know, the diagonal path of your breath of this ball of air and feel. So. So do you feel? Wow, just by doing that, I could actually wait a seat bone more easily. Right. Like, you can be clear on how you can direct more weight into one seat bone or the other. Feel the control that this gives you. And you can also play. So again, breathe as you need to, please.

You can also play with this idea of doing the quadrant, like the upper right to the lower right, so it doesn't have to be diagonal. Right. How does that affect it? Is that easier than doing a diagonal, or is it more challenging? And then do the other side. Then do your left side. Right. How does that feel? Okay, let that go. Take a rest. You can lie down if you'd like, or whatever you want to do.

And now this is something that you can take into the saddle as well. Just be, of course, safe about how you're doing it. Sometimes we get so focused when we're doing something new that we're not paying attention to our horse and to the environment. So if you have a saddle stand that can support your weight safely, you might want to try it there first or have someone hold your horse's reins as you do it.

But be really safe if you choose to do this when you're on your horse. But it really can be very, very helpful. So it's helpful for a number of reasons. Again, this little exploration, this little movement lesson, if you will, can help you interrupt your habits so that then you breathe more appropriately. Because there isn't, like, one correct way to breathe, despite what some people say. There really isn't.

It depends on what you're doing. Right? So we have to give our nervous system sort of the freedom to choose what's right for us in the moment. Okay. And we do that by. By noticing habits that are restricting us, habits that are constraining us in such a way that this is kind of the only way I breathe when I ride or when I'm worried about something or when my horse is not doing what I hope they would do.

Right. So this is a great way to give you more awareness and more choice in how you breathe. And then you can. You. You're then free to breathe in a way that is connecting with your horse, that's helping your horse, that's helping you, you know, experience each other in a more harmonious way. Because, remember, I say this over and over again, but it's. And it's so true. How you move, how you breathe, how you direct your attention are all felt by your horse, and they all shape your interactions with your horse.

And they also signify your underlying sense of either ease or effort. And that very much will affect your horse. So if your horse is experiencing you as someone who's like, straining all the time, that there's this sense of effort or anxiety, that's not going to bode well for your harmony together. But if your horse experiences you with a sense of ease, right, Then they're comforted by that, right?

Their nervous system is like, oh, yeah, yeah, she's really good to be around, right? And you're then able to have that connection. But what I said earlier about when you have a sense of calm and you're curious, that invites creativity and connection, which of course, as we know, will then, you know, bring harmony and joy to your experience with your horse. So play with this, play with this idea of breathing in a way that is different, right?

To help get you out of maybe habitual patterns that you didn't realize you had and then also notice the effect it has on your seat. What I love about this quadrant breathing is it helps so many people have more awareness of how they are sitting and how they can use their weight aids in a way that's more beneficial to them and their. And their horse and helps them be more secure in the saddle and again, have clearer communication with their horse.

So let me know what you discover when you play with this. I'd love to hear from you. You can always email me mary mary debono.com and yeah, and if you're dealing with something else, let me know. And happy to do a podcast episode for you as well. So thank you so, so much for listening. I really, really appreciate you and I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Bye for now.