We are having a great time on our trip. Yesterday was only the half way point. I can hardly believe it. Seems like we’ve been away an eternity!

We stayed the first 7 nights at a resort in Puerto Plata. The resort had wonderful beach beds. They were wooden four posters with a free-swinging mattress. It was only too hot for the beach 12-2 or maybe 11-3 if you weren’t getting in the water at all. The water was the perfect temperature. You could easily stay in it all day. We mostly just hung out and worked on our tans. It has been 3 years since we’ve really had full body sun, what with having been sick. It feels good to get some of the layers off.

On Wednesday we made the journey from the resort in Puerta Plata to Cabarete. We did most of the journey with a private taxi we hired from the hotel. We are now staying at a very, very nice estate in the hills. It is owned by a friend we made through ponies on Facebook. Our friend, who we only know online, is out of town. She had a neighbor named Roland pick us up after the taxi dropped us off at a cafe in town. We are staying here in the hills outside of Cabarete with the family’s servants waiting on us. They have seven! There is one for the horses, 4 for the property, and 2 for the house and kitchen. They are very friendly, a little quiet, and very courteous. The cooking is amazing. It’s strange to get up and have breakfast prepared, then to wander around doing nothing for a few hours and have lunch prepared, then to do nothing some more and have dinner. The food is so fresh, too. It is delivered from an organic farm.

The estate is 150 acres. It is about 10 minutes from down town Cabarete. It is definitely jungle up here. There are vines, plants that eat mosquitos, and everything is covered in grass. The estate grows oranges, grapefruit, clementines, pineapple, and coconuts. Nothing has to be irrigated. I’m pretty sure you could grow anything here.

The estate has 14 horses and something like 11 cows. The riding is very interesting because the ground is always wet and a bit squishy because it rains most evenings. The scenery is very nice. When you look out over the hills, they are very misty and have a lot of depth to them. Jurassic Park was filmed here and it actually looks very much like the movie. You would definitely want an indoor arena to do much with horses here, though.

We have been working with the Dominican, Luis, who works with the horses here at the estate. He is 22 and a lot of fun. He LOVES Parelli. The Dominicans are 17 out of 17 Carribean countries for education. Cuba is #1, Haiti #3, believe it or not. Because education is so limited, it seems like the Dominicans really soak up whatever they can get their hands on… They seem to love to learn. Jeanene, our friend, taught Luis about Parelli. He is very vocal about it and sincerely wants to go to the Parelli Center some day. He said he wants to be a professional dancer and a dressage trainer. The Dominicans we have met are very high on life. They are all so enthusiastic.

Many Dominicans are only paid $2000 a year, but Roland says that a person must make at the very least $6000 a year to survive. It seems that is why we see so many 18-22 year old boys working. Luis has something like 6 younger siblings. He wants to come to the US to make money to send home. Roland explained that literally 1/3 of Dominican survive on “recurso” – money Dominicans living in other countries send home. If I understood Rolan correctly, there are 1 million Dominicans in NY alone, 300,000 in Boston – 3 million in the US total, as legal immigrants. There are 2 million more spread out between Switzerland, Spain, Germany, etc, with the total DR population only being 9 million. There are huge gaps in pay here. Luis says the richest Dominicans live better than Americans, while the poor barely have 3 meals of beans and rice a day.

We are practicing a ton of Spanish with Luis. He knows about as much English as we know Spanish so it must be very funny to listen to us. When any of us talk, the sentence comes out with about half the words in Spanish and half in English. It actually works pretty well. It is a treat to get to practice.

Luis took us into a tiny town called Las Minas the other day on bikes. Saturday he took us on horseback into a little village where some Candians have a small Catholic church and pre-school. Everywhere you go the Dominicans are very friendly. The Dominican kids will say things like, “Hi! You speak English? How are you?” or “Hello! You be my friend?” We are told it is because tourists often give the kids presents, but one would hope they are also genuinely friendly

We are 3 hours ahead here. It’s nice that it won’t be a huge change coming home. In fact, when we come home, we’ll probably be getting up early enough to make a.m. yoga, which would be handy

We just got our first minis! They are rescues. Many of the original owner’s animals were seized by Deschutes County. These two were given to the person’s friend. One is REALLY fat and the other has very bad feet. Other than that, they’re sound and healthy with great temperaments. The little one is 9’3h (39in) and the other is 10’2h (42in). The big one has a head that fits a cob halter! She must be half Classic Shetland. The little one is absolutely darling and sooooo gentle. The big one is 6 years old and the little one is 3 years old. Their parents were registered but these girls are not. The little one is a little sickle hocked but for the type of work we’ll be doing with her she should be ok. They were very calm and sweet for their first day at the ranch! We’re taking name suggestions! Right now the big one is Sabrina and the little one is Lily.

In high school, I decided I wanted more time on my SATs so I might get a better score and might have a better chance at college scholarships. Though I never had trouble in school, I knew something was different about how I learned so I thought I could argue for more time on tests. The way the doc determined that I was ADHD was to have me click a button whenever a box appeared on a computer screen. People with ADHD go back and forth between being REALLY FAST and really slow clicking the button. That variation is what they used (at least at the time I was diagnosed) to determine the degree of ADHD. I was capable of hyper focusing, but they test administrator told me not to – just act how I did at school. The variation in my click times was huge.

Thinking about my students, past and present, many have had learning disabilities. Without any urging on my part, it has come up in conversation that 2 are in eye therapy, 3 have dyslexia, 2 are ADHD… I’m thinking that about 1/2 of my students have “learning disabilities” of some kind. So why are kids with “LD’s” so good with animals

Jim Crew, the Parelli’s farrier (healthy-stride.com), remarked to me once that an above average number of farriers are dyslexic. Jim is dyslexic and he’s one he is nothing short of amazing at analyzing a horse’s balance. He has an eye like a laser level.

I’ve always loved animals and one of the things I like best about them is that I can be very engaged with them. My students with “learning disabilities” seem to have an amazing ability to synch up with the animal they are working with. Linda Tellington Jones comments in one of her books that horse’s and human’s brains fire the same way during T-Touch massage. I suspect this happens to greater or lesser degrees during training depending on the talent of the trainer.

But how and why does this synching of brains occur? In Chinese Medicine, there is a concept called Wandering Hun. I don’t know much about it, but the first time I heard the words I was like, “I know that feeling!” What I have learned about wandering hun so far is that the hun is like your feelers. The hun goes and hangs out with other people’s huns and then reports back when called. I feel a good trainer can put her feelers out there and get a sense of what the horse is feeling, then pull them back. That way they have knowledge of the situation but don’t get sucked into what’s wrong with the horse. An even better trainer can put her feelers out there, creating a good space for both herself and the horse to be in.

Some people can’t keep their huns from wandering and they are extremely sensitive to energies around them. In Chakra theory, this would be like the third-eye having too much insight. It sees more than you want it to.

What? Third eye? That sounds like a bunch of nonsense… Or does it. We have to remind ourselves not to be put off by names that may sound woo-woo to us but may be plain as day in other languages. Have you ever seen a trainer or a student vigorously rubbing their foreheads like they are wearing an itchy hat? This seems to indicate over active frontal lobes, which often happens when the lesson is hard for teacher or student. Scientifically speaking, I believe the frontal lobes enable insight, internal visualization, and planning. To me this means the ability  to “try on” different scenarios and see how they feel. It’s a proven fact that when we imagine something, our bodies produce chemicals as if it were really happening. But, what if instead of trying other energies on, they pulled you right into them like a vortex? Some people even see what others are seeing when this happens. That would be a third eye that is too open and a 6th chakra that needs a little TLC, or if you prefer, over-active frontal lobes.

At a basic level, the third eye and the wandering hun could be called empathy, and on the other, physic powers – literally putting yourself, or your energies, in someone else’s shoes. Personally I think everyone has the ability to do this, but my students who have “learning disabilities” seem to be especially good at it.

Yesterday I had emails from several folks (yay!) with ideas about the correlation between dyslexia and talent with animals. Almost all of them said it’s about being a visual thinker… I think that’s true, but I want to take it further… One of the individuals remarked that she had ADD and thinks that the way she looks around the world all the time is more like a horse. I’d buy that. I have often told others that my eyes work differently than most people’s.
I have the METT/SETT program for learning to rear human facial expressions faster. It was very easy for me, and I think would be very easy for these students. I’ve heard horses reaction times are 8 times as fast as humans. The METT/SETT program explains that the majority of human facial expressions happen are 1/25 or 1/50 of a second in duration. Maybe horse’s are even faster and that’s why ADHD people are so good with it? Maybe the movement of the eyes in people with dyslexia shares similarities with the movement of the eyes in people with ADHD, or maybe they move in different ways that are still more beneficial than what is common?
I’ve had this other thing on my mind that I’m sure ties in, but I’m not sure how… I keep thinking about the Silver Fox Experiment and breeding for tameness, which actually ended up looking like breeding for low adrenaline levels and juvenile qualities. However, I wonder if they were really breeding for ability to read human body language? Perhaps juvenile animals, like humans with spoken language, can learn any body language? Maybe the pups’ were friendlier because they understood that the humans were approaching passively? Maybe the pups had more ability to synchronize because they were under the human equivalent age of 7 when the hun arguably wanders most? The logic is not all there, but something I’m rolling around in my brain.

Now, how does that tie in with dyslexia and ADHD? Well, I don’t really know, but here are some more things I’m thinking about…

People claim folks with dyslexic and ADHD behaviors can grow out of them. Interestingly, most docs suggest around age 22 as the turning point. This would be about the time when people are supposed to start acting like grown ups. Have you ever noticed that people with ADHD and Dyslexia are often crowd favorites? The most friends, fun to be around, enthusiastic, but compassionate? When we like the way they are behaving, we call them fun-loving and gregarious. When we don’t, we call them childish and immature. On a similar note, the younger kids in a grade are often the most popular (except maybe when everyone is getting their driver’s licenses ) With both humans and animals, humans seem to subconsciously favor juvenile qualities. I would love to know more about the relationship between hun and juvenile qualities.

I’ve also heard that vision is a learned skill – people MUST have opportunities to learn to use their sight a certain way in order to be able to call upon it successfully that way when they need it. I found a vision therapy site saying that vision problems are so prolific now because kids don’t spend enough time outdoors. The two girls I mentioned who are in vision therapy spend a lot of time out doors, but maybe their brains are working in different ways (ways less compatible with traditional academic education) while they’re playing. They’re very astute kids, high emotional IQs I would wager. Maybe their eyes are looking at energy and an emotional cues, rather than seeking logical relationships?

Did you know that when forced to assign a color or a tone to certain words, objects, or feelings, most humans agree on the color or the shape? People who have synesthesia perceive theses associations in real time. They are consciously aware of the “extra” sense experiences rather than experiencing them subconsciously. I think most folks have the same experiences “sensies” have without taking notice of them. Perhaps students with dyslexia and other “LD’s” are responding to these other sensory experiences without realizing it.

My students with LD’s all seem to have eyes that move differently, and I would say all of them have a high emotional IQ. Perhaps there in lies the relationship… Studies show that the eyes of a person with autism latch on to things they know, like light switches, versus seeking human faces, which leads to people with autism being regarded as having a low EQ. On the contrary, kids with ADHD have eyes that move around a bunch. Maybe its this eye movement that is a “gift” equaling high EQ, particularly in relationships with animals whose perception of the world may be equally governed by emotional relationships and energetic triggers…So, now I need to go find out how eye sight works in children with dyslexia to see if the eye sight/energetic trigger theory works there as well. Now, I wonder if the eyes are working under the subconscious direction of the hun?

If you’re enjoying this article, please leave a comment or drop me an email, kalivanagas@gmail.com. Your thoughts and insight might just inspire the next great question.

Our local newspaper, the Bend Bulletin, is doing an article on one of our scholarship  students who has dyslexia. They are interviewing us Tuesday. I mentioned to the writer, Linda Weiford, that I have noticed that people with  dyslexia are often particularly good with horses. Linda wonders  if I have more info about this phenomena. Anyone have thoughts or leads for me? If you do, please email me!

Here is what I’m hearing so far…

“I have ADD. I think visually before I think verbally.  Horses have been a great source of comfort for me because I can communicate with them much easier than I can with my fellow humans.” Susan A. Lennon

“A similar situation that I have been noticing is with a 15 yo girl with ADHD that is learning clicker training! She is soooooooo focused when she is working with a horse or dog, it makes me wonder?? Inability to focus for long periods of time is a symptom of ADHD…” Brenda Buja

“My own limited experience with people with dyslexia is that they are usually extremely bright! So of course they would CHOOSE to be with horses….:-)” Lyndsey Lewis

“Would also say that mild to moderate ADD is also useful, the lazer-beam focus of the human mind tends to get in the way of the global management of the horse.  The horse constantly scans him self and his environment like the sweep radar of Air Traffic Control, and if the human can mimic that then he can govern the horse more correctly.  If the human gets too focused on any one thing, then he misses out on a multitude of other things that need to be attended to. I have dysgraphia and ADD.” Callie Fulmer

“Richard Maxwell is a trainer in the UK with dyslexia. He says on his blog he has to have his wife write it for him because his dyslexia is so bad he gets teased about it.” Carolyn Guinotte

“Could be speed of processing is slower and therefore person has more patience and ability to be able to break tasks into smaller pieces.
Scroll to bottom of page:http://www.aqha.com/showing/QTalk/qtalk_current.html Could also have something to do with strong body language reading ability (visual picture thinking) due to difficulty with language. I have a suspicion that mirror neurons play a part too, but how that fits I am not sure. It’s a fascinating subject so please share what you find.” Anne Sullivan

“My daughter was just diagnosed with dyslexia two weeks ago.  She has always been good with animals and has attending dog training classes and agility workshops . . . and she is only 7 years old.  This summer, she is participating in two camps about animals.  The first one she will actually take our dog and train all on her own.  The second camp is “pets and vets” where she will learn about caring for all different types of animals.” Lynne Ticknor

“What an interesting subject. I asked my daughter to comment. As a person with sensory processing difficulty, and being an assistant instructor for therapeutic riding, she makes the following observation: ‘Yes, definitely.  I have noticed quite consistently that people with sensory processing disorders such as dyslexia often have an affinity with animals.  I think it is partly because those people are often visual thinkers, which means they really can ‘think like a horse’ more easily than someone who is a strongly verbal thinker, and partly because they often seem to be more sensitive to sensory stimuli, and therefore notice the kinds of things that animals notice, such as background noise or visual distractions.  I think also, though perhaps this is not so universal, those people might pay more attention to body language, as their verbal/auditory processing might not work quite the same way as other people’s.’ (Mary Lynne Mountjoy) I hope your interview goes well.” Bonnie Ivey

“Sounds really cool! I’m sure you know this guy already, but just in case (there might be something there to support the idea) http://www.horseboyfoundation.org/” Keri Gorman

“Direct line vs lateral thinking. I believe that the linear thinking issue goes deeper than we have discovered.” Becky Bryan

“I have researched this quite a bit. I learned about in because of horsemanship. It has to do with Visual spatial thinking, which dyslexia can be a part of.  Horse are visual spatial thinkers and our culture ignores that method of thinking.  For the human issue, Upside-down Brilliance by Linda Kreger Silverman in a good resource.
For the horse side, you need to understand how fragile their thinking process is with humans. I have an unspoiled horse herds of about 200+ to play with and some horses that have come back with conventional training, so the difference is huge. The people who think in pictures, (visual spatial) think more like a horse. Read Temple Grandins, thinking in pictures. The audio sequential learners, end up teaching in patterns and pressure and release, which really make no sense to a horse, even though the perform the action, brilliantly at times. It ties in with different brain chemical production, Curiosity the root of visual spatial learning creates dopamine in the brain, a pleasure Chemical. Operant conditioning seems to work with the primitive brain of animal. There is the dual brain theory, where fear is handled by reactions and is almost permanent, and curiosity takes longer, but uses the frontal lobes of the brain (0ff the top of my head).

In humans we have two methods of thinking, visual spatial and audio sequential. Visual spatial is handled by the right lope, audio sequential the left lobe. Horses seem to have two visual spatial lobes, so the primitive brain handles the sequential training, which in not a good deal. Over the past 10 years, I have experimented a lot with horses in this area, and the visual spatial training techniques confuses a lot of audio sequential thinkers. In my professional career, I had to convert my visual spatial thinking process to audio sequential, so even though I cannot learn that way, I can teach and understand that process.” Russ Burns

“I think you’re right. I’ve noticed the correlation of this in my experiences with other people that have dyslexia.” Bill Seagraves

“I actually have noticed that my self… their brains do not follow linear tracks and tend to order things differently… but my observations are far from science…You have to figure that normal linear thinking does not work with horses… they are not linear thinkers… that is what is wrong with dressage is it creates a linear system and applies it to a non linear being… horses think in circles not straight lines… silly way to put it but there is some truth here…It is a good and interesting thought and is a question to be researched by some one some day… if anything has been written about this, I haven’t seen it… but that does not mean it does not exist, only that I have not seen it…. if you find something let me know I am interested.” Craig Stevens

Cinnamon has had about a month of training. He’s now trotting around the arena with confidence, even in a group of 8, ridden bareback by  12-year-old! He LOVES people and is such a good boy.

Last Thursday we did a trail ride on Olbernolte at the Larry Chitwood trailhead. You ride in about 20 minutes, then get to a canal. We rode along the canal for awhile and got to be in the shade. It was 78 degrees! Absolutely wonderful, but unexpected, so I was wearing wool socks under my breeches, lol. Still, I was so thankful for the vitamin D! Nature’s pick-me-up.

I’m not normally a breeches girl, but Les and I got some AMAZING Kerrit’s breeches on sale at Riding ‘n Style. They are the most comfortable pants I have ever worn. Seriously. I would live in them if I had the choice. Sleep in them. Do yoga in them. Computer in them. Ride in them. They are awesome. Plus they dry really fast so when I forget about the laundry til the last minute (which I do all the time), I am not stuck riding in my least favorite pair of jeans (which are never in the wet laundry because they never leave the bottom drawer of my dresser). You’ll see my glorious breeches in the photos.

The breeches are a part of Les and my new decision to pretend we live in the tropics (Thank you Jeanene and sons, if you haven’t seen the video of the boys in a lagoon with their ponies, you must watch it!). We are tired of this year’s extreme weather, so we have donned breeches and are dressing for the weather we want! I braided Ilo’s mane, tail, and forelock and used a rainbow schema of rubber bands to tie of the ends. I joked with Les that we needed grass skirts for our barrels and that a lei would make a really good cordeo. I was completely serious about that second one. We’re going to the Dollar Store to find leis for our open house

Ilo and Koa were feeling tropical as well. And who wouldn’t on a day like this when the incessant wind and hail took a break for 78 degrees and sunny with the canal running?! Ilo and Koa trotted almost the whole ride, which is brand new for them. They have only done a tiny bit of trotting on the trail before. The Chitwood trail was particularly good for getting them confident because the road by the canal was level and smooth. Talk about heaven. About 1/3 of the way in, Les looked over his shoulder and said, “You know, trail riding with the dogs is my favorite thing to do on a nice afternoon. I don’t know when that happened.” I laughed. What girl wouldn’t want to hear those words out of her guy’s mouth?? Go us!

The photos are of us stopping to play with our shadows. We love taking pictures of the horses and our shadows coming together in the sand. Just something special about seeing you and the horse merge together.

Last summer, I remember Maddie and Zoey bringing bunches of grass to Peanut and Wallie and asking the ponies to marry them. I wish I had had a video camera. This morning, I  woke up and this poem of sorts was in my head:

If you must spur, spur yourself to learn more.
If you must kick, kick a bad habit.
If you must rush, rush to my side.
If you must pull, pull off a smile.
If you must strike, strike hands with me.
If you must hit, hit up a friend for suggestions.
If you must fight, fight your fears and your pride.
If you must lean, lean over backwards for me.
If you must hurry, hurry back to see me.

- Kali Vanagas, May 17, 2010

Please share with your friends, but be sure to credit me!

Here are some variations:

EQxpressionists

Conversations with Individuals Modeling Horsemanship as an Artistic Practice

Edited by Kali Vanagas
Interviewee Kim Sturgeon, Cheryl Glen, Ivy Schexnayder, Kim Gould-Wende, Karen Clouston, Joyce de Vos, Julia Thut, Les Freeman

EQxpressionists is a book about playing with horses as artistic expression.

Featuring interviews with seven progressive trainers from around the world, EQxpressionists questions what makes horses special to people, how we can create good relationships with our horses, and how we can develop a horsemanship practice that is fuel for life.

Those interviewed share their experiences training horses for showing, trail riding, and demonstrations. From Classical Dressage to trick-training, the individuals featured are sure to inspire.

EQxpressionists encourages readers to imagine their dream horses and digs at the question, “How should we work with our equines so that they can truly be the horses of our dreams?”

Gina’s new Fluffy Fluff arrived today! She is about 20″ tall and 8 months old. Gina is going to train her to be a guide pony for the blind! Fluffly Fluff is the perfect size and age for the job. Plus, she is going to be a confidence-builder for new students and a buddy for an elderly mare at the ranch named Sienna.

Les and I took turns working with Sundae. I worked with him on tracking through so that his hind feet land in the track of his forefeet properly. He tends to swing wide. We also did the Flexions and lots of shoulder-in, transitioning to changing direction on the circle. Les worked with Sundae on sidepssing a pole, the Balancera, and jumping the barrels. Sideways over the pole and the balancera create ownership of the 4 quadrants of the horse. The barrel jump gives it a purpose and helps the horse see a reason to focus on his balance.

Later Les, Chloe, and I went on a trail ride. Les and I took Koa and Ilo and Chloe rode Celeb. Celeb was perfect, despite loud motorcycles next door (grr).

When we got back, Chloe worked on jumping Celeb over barrels on the ground and built up to jumping a single barrel off the rail. Hopefully it will lead to her being confident enough to jump him over them undersaddle in the not-too-distant future. Ilo was amazing for demonstrating barrel jumps for Chloe. She is not a big fan of jumping because she is a stocky, introverted Mustang, but she really does a nice job of it when you ask her to.

Les’ work yesterday with Koa clearly paid off. She was gaiting beautifully at the trot, which she only does when she is truly relaxed. Les doesn’t ask for it – Koa just falls into it. It’s nice because the gait is really smooth to ride.

I played with Cinnamon and he was beyond cute. Talk about smart. He was not the least bit scared of the tarp. Took a nibble at it, got a click, and then started picking it up and shaking it around. So, I put it on his back and led him around with it. We did “accidental dismount preparation.” I clicked him for stopping and waiting for a cue when it fell off his back. When it fell off, he got to turn around and pick it up for a click. He despooked himself with little help on my part. At the end of the session, I took his lead rope off and he laid down to roll. I got to treat him 3 times while he was sitting up. He has such a cool temperament.