Broken
I felt like maybe, instead of trying so hard to control the horse, I could start by trying to understand it.
Taming a horse has long been marked by sheer will, stubborn determination, and force; the process is human against horse until the animal is brought under submission. It’s been called “breaking” a horse because it usually meant that a horse’s will needed to be broken, and conventional wisdom argued that it was the only way a horse could be put to use and given a purpose.
But a new kind of training has emerged in the last 30 years or so. The goal is the same, to give direction and point a horse toward a purpose it can’t even begin to imagine, but the methods are entirely different, taking into account the fact that the animal is a living, thinking, and feeling being.
The modern-day trainers who are using this new way will tell you that instead of breaking and bending the horse to their will, this method requires that the trainer actually bend to the horse first. Beginning from a place of empathy, they use their body to mimic the horse’s own body language, they try to think like a horse might think, and they become like the horse in every way possible in order to lead the horse toward a purpose that only the trainer can see at the outset.
The point isn’t to subdue or force the horse toward a use it might never comprehend or enjoy, it’s to lead them to understand what they’re capable of and even love it.
For all of us who lead teams, churches, or even our own children, the principles of modern horse training have lessons to teach about leading with curiosity, empathy, and a vision toward pointing the ones we love toward a greater purpose.
After all, when we humble ourselves to become like those we lead, we follow in the footsteps of the one who leads us all.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:5-8
This film was made with the assistance and supervision of experienced trainers specializing in the methods of gentling horses. No animals were harmed in the making of this film.