How much pressure or strength do you use to carry out the daily tasks with your horse? Softness starts before we ride, it even starts before we collect our horses from the field, it starts in the mind, the language we use and the way we call them, it starts in the physical act of walking towards them, and then the process of moving into their space. Softness continues in how we hold our headcollar, how we grip the rope, how we touch our horse, it flows through our breath as we speak or walk in silence and through our thoughts as we think about what we’d like to do today Are you a grabby human, do you grip your lead rope like it’s going to be pulled away from you at any moment? When you walk towards your horse are you think softly, openly, with a feel of presence and positivity or are the stresses of the day still rolling through your head Softness creates awareness and that awareness creates feel, noticing how tightly you hold things, how much unnecessary strength you use to get jobs done or how quickly you rush from one thing to the next is just as important as focusing on softness when we ride, because it’s much harder to get softness back once it’s lost than to start with it. If you want your horse to be soft and open to you, start by being soft and open to them. So how hard to you grip the rope?