Ep 14: Activating the third eye

I was of the view that the top riders in the world, those riders who are in the top 10, 15, whatever, they must have something different. They must be relying on a skill set and a feel that is more advanced than what I had at the time. And I'm like, what could it possibly be?

From performanceriders.com this is the Pabri podcast. I'm Nat Foxen, and each Episode I challenge will World Equestrian Games top 10 dressage writer Brett Parbury to explain and discuss what I call a parburyism. That's a pearl of wisdom I've written down over the years of working together in our performance writers programs. Brett doesn't know what today's pabraism is. Let's get into it. Okay, Brett, I've got kind of a weird Paburism for you today, Right? Oh, I mean, you're not going to think it's weird, but everyone else might think, like, what are these two on about? But I feel like we're at the stage with the podcast where, you know, we all know each other pretty well now. We can start to go down some crazy lines.

So to be honest, most of the Parisms, when I hear them said back to me, they all sound a bit weird.

This one's going to take it to the next level. Okay. Today's potteryism is I'm activating my third eye.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You go and say that. You go and say that in a public place and you're gonna get locked up.

I've got to admit, whenever you say this in our programs, I do kind of on the inside giggle a little bit. It's just one of those ones like, oh, my God, what are people thinking?

I mean, it sounds weird. It sounds like you're some spiritual guru.

Yeah, it does. It does. So activating the third eye. Now, speaking of spiritual gurus, I did do a quick Google because I know the third eye is something they talk about in yoga, and I looked it up. Yeah.

Maybe that's where I got it from. I don't know where it came to me, but it just. It just. It landed one day.

It landed. Maybe you took a yoga class and I said it. So it says, like, here we go, Right? This is first thing that came up when I googled it. How do you. How you know that your third eye is open? You have heightened intuition, vivid dreams, sensitivity to energies, and heightened awareness. So there you go.

That's a good definition. I mean, I don't know about the dreams, but saying that the heightened awareness, that's all exactly what it's about, you.

Know, over to you tell us, what is activating your third eye all about?

Well, I mean, it's, you know, it fits in line and in context when we are speaking about awareness and developing our awareness as riders of the entire horse that's underneath us. And usually, you know, to hear it said just like that cold, it's like, oh, wow, that's crazy. That's weird. But, but in the context of us human beings, we are so used to living our lives with our two eyes, with our, in front of our body, you know, in front of our body and with our hands. And then all of a sudden, you know, we get on the horse and we're supposed to be being aware of what's behind us, the way the horses work from behind and, and the way we make half halts to get more load carrying on the hind legs. So therefore, we need to have some feeling for the hind legs, but also then everything that's underneath us. So to take, to take our normal way of living and suddenly go, right, you're now living for the next 20 minutes or half an hour or 40 minutes with your thinking about what's behind you and underneath you and feeling with your backside and seat and legs and not focusing on what is in your hands predominantly, of course there's going to be some thing there, but focusing on your seat legs, body balance, coming back to the hind leg and everything that's behind you and underneath you, and then go back to your daily routine with living in front of yourself again and with your hands. So it just makes I use it in that context because then it's like a skill set that needs to be developed. So how do we develop it? Well, it's like everything when it comes to developing something, it feels really weird when you start and the more you think about it and the more you use all different techniques, like when you're watching yourself on video or when you're looking at yourself in the mirror, or if you're watching your horse on the lunge, you start to get a picture of what is happening behind you and underneath you. And then when you're writing, you start to imagine you can feel it. And it's amazing when you start imagining you can feel something and then you start checking in, you know, on yourself when you're watching could be your shadow or, or. But looking at things that, like the mirror and the videos, looking at what is happening underneath you and behind you, you start to develop a really good feeling and a really good awareness for the whole horse. And then you start riding the whole horse and not just the bit you can see and the bit you can feel in your hands.

So, I mean, you, you sort of mentioned, you, you're not quite sure where this particular phrase came from. Do you remember sort of how or why you started using this?

Well, I was of the view that the top riders in the world, those riders who are in the top 10, 15, whatever, in their skill set, they must have something different. They must be relying on a skill set and a feel that is more advanced than what I had at the time. And I'm like, what could it possibly be? And then I'm thinking what they would probably know. Everyone tells me to ride my horse from behind and, and make a half halt. And, you know, all this information I was getting during my lessons and, and, and talking to people, I thought they must, these people must have a better feel of what's underneath them and behind them than I do. So I thought, how could they do it? Well, then I thought maybe if it's this third eye or just I've got to grow this feeling somehow and I'm the sort of person that it, it has to make sense. So if it's kind of got a, a name and a, and a, and a sense behind it, I'll then make it work. So once I thought, oh, yeah, that, that's it, it's going to be. I'm going to feel like I'm, I'm expanding this part of my brain that feels the horse and sees the horse and understands the horse and can see it crystal clear behind me. I'm going to call it the third eye. And I don't know where that came from. It probably did come from a yoga expression.

Yeah. But it probably came from one of the three yoga classes you've done in your life.

Yeah, exactly. In between the groaning and moaning. But like. So once it had a name, once it had a. Once I had a concept and once I had a something to chase. And I believe that those really top writers in the world, they do have this skill. They might not have named it, but we'll come up with a concept. But once I felt like I named it and I, and I knew what I was chasing, then I just started to find ways. And it's amazing. You know, we talk about, you know, all the time, we talk about personal development. How do we keep developing ourselves personally so that we can become better riders, trainers and competitors in dressage. Well, once I had something to chase that I thought, this makes sense. This must be what they're doing. And then I could develop it through visualization and using all of those wasted minutes in the day that we talk about, just making myself grow this. And it's amazing when you run these personal experiments, you know, I sort of got a feeling like I'm a bit of a mad scientist because I was running this experiment going, I wonder how much I can develop this feeling. And then you realize after a while it does grow. Like it gets stronger. That feeling does get stronger. And it is like a muscle. And the more you work it, the better, the stronger it gets.

Okay, well, let. Let's go a bit deeper, deeper into how you do actually yourself go about activating what you call this third eye. So you've mentioned a couple of things there. Visual visualization was one. And using scrap minutes. Do you want to go a bit further into those two ideas?

I mean, activating. I'm not sure if sort of I probably have said that, but it's like, yeah, I guess what's the difference between saying activating or waking it up or growing it? But it is just a feel. It's a feel for the whole horse. So when, when I talk about visualization, I probably some subconsciously do visualization now way more than I think I do. You know, I. I find that I'll be doing it. I mean, I've got the benefit of being able to stand in an arena all the time and teach and coach people how to ride. So when I'm coaching them for a split second, I might just visualize myself doing it and visualize myself doing whatever I'm telling them to do. But with my third, you know, feeling the horse from the back end, like trying to re rehash or re feel what I would feel from my third eye, even though I'm explaining it to that person. So I get the opportunity to practice that a lot. And that is probably the main benefit of coaching all the time, is you do get the chance to go over things over and over and over. And if you're interested in riding well yourself, you'll use that to your advantage. So the visualizations could happen in the arena. They could happen when I'm walking to the stables. They may happen when I'm sitting in my car at the traffic lights. You know, just this split second where I can almost think about what's behind me when I'm on a horse. Imagine what the hips are doing. Imagine what the hind legs are doing. Imagine what the feet are doing when they're hitting the ground. Knowing the horse's footfalls to know exactly what sequence and what feeder on the ground and what feeder off the ground at the same time. And then developing this really clear picture of what I'm feeling underneath me. And, and that, and that happens in those scrap minutes, the minutes that you're not really doing anything, like sitting at traffic lights, waiting for coffees, walking to stables, walking home from stables, mucking out stables. They're all minutes that you can not. A lot of your brain power has been taken up. So you can actually multitask safely by using a little bit of your brain power, your visualization or whatever, while you're doing something else.

Yeah. So what's a ride like for you in which you're successfully, you know, tapping into or activating or however you want to call it, using that third eye? What does that ride like for you versus one that perhaps you're not doing that as successfully?

It's chalk and cheese. Do you know what's really funny? And I think, I think of this a lot when I'm. When this is happening, when you're riding your horse well, from the correct parts of the horse, so let's say from, from the back end with impulsion, but not running horses in balance. You've, you've, your, your legs and feet are working effectively. You're sitting. You tend to sit better when that becomes your focus. Sometimes when the front owner becomes our focus, we tend to lean forward a bit more than normal. But when I feel like I'm riding my horse with the clarity from the back to the front better, suddenly the reins are the correct length. Suddenly the horse doesn't, you know, test me as much in the reins. And if I'm making transitions and still riding all the things I want to do, all of the positional changes and all of the transitions within paces, between paces, when that, when, when I'm riding with a much more awareness of behind me, so many other things seem to take care of themselves when I'm on. Alternatively, on the flip side, I, When I'm, when I hop on my horse and I forget completely and, you know, I'm only human. So this happens when I forget completely about just the correct riding in the correct way and riding with the correct emphasis and awareness. Suddenly the reins are too long, the reins are too short, the horse is leaning right, the horse is leaning left, the horse is pulling along and, and you know, it just, it's chalk and cheese. And, you know, I've had, I've had, I've had plenty of rides of both of those situations, and it's almost like when you're doing it correctly, when you've made yourself take more time and be more focused on all the right parts. So almost like there's a fog that you don't really care about what the front looks like. You don't, you know, you know, of course you're feeling the horse on the bit, you're feeling the horse, you're, you're making the adjustments to. So the horse has the correct posture in training, but after a while, that is almost a bit irrelevant. And you're, you're, you're making all of your adjustments through the, through the horse's body and, and in reference to the hind legs, you're adding impulsion when you feel the hind legs need a little bit more impulsion, you're making a half hole and balancing the horse on the hind legs and getting a bit more carrying on the hind legs when it's needed. You're guiding the horse onto the correct lines with, you know, your inside leg and then your outside rein to show the horse where it needs to be. And, yeah, it just, it's chalk and cheese.

What about a. Is there a correlation between your best test rides and using that sense?

It's funny. Dressage is a really funny sport. Right. So you can have really super results and not necessarily have felt amazing.

Right.

Because, yeah, the look of it and the feel of it is two different things, as we know. I have definitely had tests where my awareness of what I think are the. Is correct writing. So from the back end, getting my all that has been better than others, but I wouldn't necessarily say that that resulted in better results. Better score.

Yeah, that's really interesting.

Definitely. I've had one test in particular where I, I come out of there so happy. I couldn't have cared what I scored, to be honest, because, I mean, the horse did do very well in the class, but it didn't worry me. Like, I just went in with the goal. I'm going to try and ride every single setup and movement with just my feeling, with this heightened awareness of the back end of the horse and the line from my leg and all these different bits, I'm going to have this much better awareness. And funnily enough, I came out and I was so happy with that. Really, really so happy that it didn't matter what I scored.

Yeah, right.

Because I do think, you know, unless you're, I mean, everybody has different reasons for competing and for, for an enormous part of my life, the reasons for competing were to try and test myself and do as well as I could and possibly win the classes and, and that would in turn boost my business so then I could have more opportunities. And that's sort of the, the whole point of being self employed and what sometimes gets in the way of, of of let's say it being a great writer, sometimes commercial side does. But the, the results, as you get older, you start to look for more, more within like more things to take to take from it. And if I can ride my horses with this and develop these skills in myself, I know full well that that will result in better, in a better result long term.

Just a quick message from us. If any of the ideas discussed today resonate with you and you'd love to dive deeper, deeper, head over to performanceriders.com there's a bunch of free content for you and there's loads of opportunities as well to work with us by enrolling in one of our training or mentoring programs. Performanceriders.com okay, so you spoke about how it's chalk and cheese, the rides for you that are that you, that you ride with a really heightened sense of awareness, especially what's going on behind you and a ride that you're not activating that third eye, so to speak. What about for us riders who are just new to this concept? What's a couple of giveaways that perhaps we're not as tuned in as we could be in terms of what's going on behind us? Would it be that we get a little bit fussy with our hands and the reins?

Yeah, I think the micromanaging and being fussy or only focusing on the front that that's the first indication that, that we are only thinking about the, the front of the horse or the, let's say the first third of the horse where we're failing to think about the rest of the horse and yeah, just, just doing proportionately more with the reins than we are with our body and with our legs and, and that would be the first thing to say. Okay, I am only riding the parts that I can see, right. A little bit, A little bit about shoulder control, but perhaps and a little bit about okay, I'm placing the quarters to the inside. Of course you need some awareness of the rest of the horse to do those things. But the, the essence of dressage is not. The essence of dressage is collection. Collection how to, how to produce a horse that is giving you the, the most of its athletic ability in collection. So and with collection comes this whole group of muscles that have to, you know, the horses needle has to Lift up and their back has to lift up and they compress themselves and they. And with that, their hips can come under and they, you know, if the posture is correct and they're nice and through, then those hind legs will work better. And we wish we're putting the weight back on the hind legs. There's all this. All of these skills required to get the horse into the ultimate of collection, which is different to just placing the horse into different positions.

Yeah.

So I don't want any listener to this to think, okay, well, I'm putting my horse's quarters in. In travair. Well, therefore, I'm thinking about the back end. That's. You're doing a good job doing that. But the whole point of this third eye thing is how do I train my horse to become better and more established and more developed within the collected paces? And being able to go from collected paces to medium paces to extended paces to. And. And through the paces, because that's where that is the hardest part of this whole sport. So I think if a rider is feeling like they're micromanaging, they're only really doing things in the front that they are missing. The concepts of. Of riding the whole horse to. Incredible. To enhance and develop the collected paces.

Yeah. God. I think we all need that printed out and put up in the arena. The essence of dressage's collection. I mean, it sounds so obvious, but it's. We, we get taken down so many little pathways, or as you like to say, tangents, when we're training. Sometimes we lose sight of that.

Well, we do, and probably doesn't help that. Three quarters, perhaps even more, I'm not sure. But at least, at least 70% of the sport is taking you in that direction. And all of a sudden the last two levels, say three levels intermediate, a medium tour and the big tour into two Grand Prix. That's when they ask the proper questions. Yeah. Okay. You know, can you collect the piaf. Can you collect a passage? Can you collect to do pirouettes? One tempis. So it doesn't help that the majority of the sport you're doing doesn't quite steer you in that direction. Yeah. And all of a sudden it's all about collection, so.

That's so true. It does feel a little bit that it's kind of sprung on you at the last, Last second there.

Yeah, yeah. And you can do. You can do the pirouettes in the, in the small tour with. With a bit of collection. You'll always get better marks if you're. You know, collected cand is at a pirouette candle is. Is good, but you can get through the trot work with very little collection. And so it does come down to making sure that all of our participants in dressage are aware of this and understanding it. Because the concept of collection is difficult. Yeah, but at least be aware of it. At least be working towards it. What skills am I going to need to give myself a chance to do it? Well, maybe developing this, let's call it third eye or, you know, having awareness of the whole horse. That's a skill I need to develop because it will help me later on in collection. Well, I'm going to start playing with it now and just. Just making it aware now. I don't really care if anyone calls it the third eye or if they call it something else. I don't really mind. For me personally, it was just something that I needed, I had to develop to get myself to where I wanted to be as an. As a writer.

How awesome. Thank you so much, Brett, for telling us all about your third eye.

I feel like I've revealed part of a body part that no one's seen before. It's a weird feeling. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe it's a dorogo thing where you come from. I don't know the back blocks, but I love it. And I love, like you said, that you put some phrases and some. Some phrases that are easy to recall when we need them. And that's all of what your programs are about because it turns very kind of slippery, fuzzy concepts into something a little bit easier to understand and take with us into the arena, I think.

Yeah, no, it doesn't. I hadn't found thought of it like that until I just tried to explain it. And once it had a name and a concept, then it started to develop. So. Yeah, that's a good point.

Very inspiring. And I think we can all start practicing right now. Of course, off the horse as often these things happen. Practicing, activating our third eye and take it into the saddle and see what happens.

Sounds good. Let's do it. Awesome.

Thanks so much, Brett.

Thanks.