From the Archives: Don’t Let Your Horse to Move

Lex Duff

I recently travelled through Tepoztlán, a mountainous Mexicano Pueblo Mágico, over New Year’s Eve with friends. My first foray into Latin America. Early into the new year, we decided that a day of learning Western Style Horse-Riding sounded like an excellent intermediary activity between drinking margaritas. Enter Jorge, the co-owner of Amatlan Horse Riding - a handsome, slightly weathered, older Mexican man who, unironically, looks most at home in chaps and a cowboy hat. He picks us up in a red chevy on a corner of a non-descript road for our day’s activities. While we wait for him to arrive, it surely passes through each of our minds that perhaps we’ve been conned or are about to get kidnapped. But sure enough, before too long, the car bounces down the street, suspension a comical concept, and a window rolls down to greet us. Just as his text message said it would.

It’s he who introduces us to our horses, each feeling somewhat mystically aligned. He explains that we will spend a significant part of the morning getting to know the ‘energy’ of our horses. ‘Lady’ and I connect instantly but she’s pretty food motivated (as am I) and doesn’t love being told what to do…(also me). Moreso, she is stubborn and strong willed (sound familiar?). I like her immediately, though I am well aware that she is a force to be reckoned with.

We enter the ‘pen’ and spend some time un-learning English style riding. We change from two hands on the reigns to one, from pulling to leading, from commands to quiet control. One hand on the reigns, one hand to hold onto our own cowboy hats. Heels down, relaxed posture, left fingers loose around the knot. It is here that our masterful leader utters the sentence that we have grown to use weekly between us four friends…

“You must use your two brains. One for your horse, one for everything else. And most importantly. You are the boss…

Don’t let your horse to move”

The perfect clarity of this otherwise imperfect english sentence is our north star for the rest of the day. At times, he calmly utters it to us. At other times, like a strict task master, he says it at volume. We are the captain of our ship, as it were. It is our command that controls our unique duos. Nothing should be happening that we don’t design. Kindness. Firmness. Respect.

“Don’t let your horse to move.”

Once Jorge is convinced we have our ‘Master-and-Commander’ energy, we head out into the bush. For the rest of the day, the only way I can accurately describe it is, we fucking fly. We skip trotting, walking and cantering and head straight for a gallop. It’s the kind of experience you dream of on a horse, until you remember that you’re not, in fact, Kevin Costner in Yellowstone and that you come from countries where Occupational Health & Safety is mandated.

Is it magical? Yes.
Terrifying? Absolutely.
Invigorating? The definition of the word.

We spend hours in the mountains. We ride to a clearing and sit amongst trees where the dappled sunlight feels too beautiful to be true and gentle leaves fall from the trees so subtly it’s like the forest is breathing. We pass by local dogs who sniff always a little too close. We (read: I) lose my hat... more than once.

When we arrive back to the ranch, we share the sweetest, most wonderful natural lemonade of my life and a cigarette or two. I look out over the mountains and think about how expansive these experiences are to a life (and how much I needed a shower).

However, since coming home, it’s had me meditating on the areas of my life where Jorge’s command may also apply - in the context of my ‘two brains’. I find, when I’m on the go and get ‘over-tired’, I allow my monkey-mind to roam untethered and unwisely, a bit like a beast or brawn without reigns. I “let my horse to move”. After three months on the road working and shooting, I’ve just landed back in Barcelona and find myself, once again in my own space. And when the quiet hush of not being followed by my suitcase hits, the inertia can feel a little like whiplash. It’s in these moments, I am now taking to reminding myself not to let my brain roam too far from the pen when I start to gather myself again. To protect my energy and plan the abounding and careening Spring. To be mindful, present, wholesome.

Kind. Firm. Respectful.

And when the anxiety of the vanishing year arrives, ask myself whether that thought was my design.

Don’t let your horse to move.

Maybe with March just around the corner, it’s advice you need too?

So here it is.

From one cowgirl/cowboy to another…

Don’t let your horse to move.

Unless you’re ready. Then god-speed!

L

x

Find Amatlan Horse Riding and Jorge here.