Do you ever notice that what you resist only gets bigger and takes on a life of its own? Have you noticed this with your riding? When you focus on where your horse is resisting, you just get more resistance. What can you do instead?
Ride with presence, and ride from your center. There is a place outside of what is going on that can see, observe, and be able to have a choice in what happens next. This your “center”, the place where you don’t have to REact, you can simply be, observe, and ACT from a place of freedom and peace.
How do you find this place? Notice when you are in the middle of reacting to something. For example, you put your leg on and instead of the horse moving off it, the horse moves into your leg. Notice how you respond to that situation. What are you doing? Is there a different way of encouraging your horse to move off your leg? Just by asking these questions, you are NOW in your center and have a way of choosing to act, instead of just reacting.
It has taken me a while to get to this place in my riding, but what it has done for my horse is amazing. My horse used to be anxious and concerned about what she needed to do next. Now she has learned that we are only concerned about what is happening in this stride, right now. This new way of being for me and my horse even carries over to when others ride her. They are amazed at how my horse behaves in such a friendly, calm, and accepting way. They are amazed that when they get on, even if they make a mistake, my horse still stays calm and works to do her job. Things that frighten other horses don’t bother my horse because she has learned to trust her humans and know they will make sure she doesn’t get hurt.
Spend some time seeing if you can find this place of peace and observation. See if you can bring this to your life and to your riding. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at the changes you find happening without any resistance to the change.