What the Horse Whisperer Teaches Us About How We Learn
Buck Brannaman, the man who inspired The Horse Whisperer, proves how trust can transform our relationships, whether with horses or humans.
Sam Chaltain is a veteran educator and two-time father who writes about how people learn at www.samchaltain.com.
In theory, Buck is a documentary about horses, and a cinematic profile of the laconic cowboy who has learned to speak their silent animal language.
In fact, Buck is a documentary about how people (and animals) learn – and a reminder that just because something has always been done a certain way doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way to do it.
Against a backdrop of horizontal landscapes, azure skies, and shape-shifting clouds, the movie follows Buck Brannaman as he conducts horse clinics across the country. But these clinics aren’t solely about helping people learn to ride horses. “A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems,” he explains in the film’s opening minute, “I’m helping horses with people problems.”
The Backstory
Buck’s own life story bears this out. A professional rodeo entertainer by the age of six, he was beaten mercilessly by his hard-driving father, Ace. By the time a gym teacher spotted the network of thick welts on his back and buttocks, the young boy had grown silent with fear and mistrust. Swift interventions by caring adults and a loving foster family slowly restored Buck’s sense of visibility, but the father’s beatings left a permanent mark that the son sought to lessen through a different understanding of human and animal nature. “I was looking for a peaceful place to be,” he explains in a clipped, twangy rhythm. “There’s a lot of fear in both the horse and the human. So there has to be trust.”
Unfortunately, the historic approach to horse training was about anything but trust. Horses were tied to posts, whipped, prodded, and constrained – the logic being that the only way to get such strong animals to submit to a human’s will was by literally “breaking” them down. But Brannaman’s clinics demonstrate a different approach, one that is based on a deep sense of empathy, respect, and communication – and one that is filled with valuable lessons for the participants that extend beyond the riding circle.
Horse Whispering
“You can’t be a good guy when you leave the barn, and a bad guy when you enter the barn. Human nature doesn’t work that way.”
“Your energy moves the horse.”
“Everything’s a dance.”
“Respect isn’t fear; it’s acceptance.”
“It’s not the young-un’s fault. He just doesn’t know what’s expected of him.”
At one point, Brannaman demonstrates what he means by holding one end of a rope and asking a participant to hold the other. “If I jerk at you, hard and sudden, like this, you’re going to flinch every time I approach you. And that’s definitely one way to get the horse’s attention. But if I just pull gently and steadily until you feel the tightening of the rope, like this, then I’m operating on feel, and I don’t even need to grip the rope tightly. It’s how you get there, to that point of deep communication, that matters.”
Kid Whispering
What makes Buck such a powerful film is the way he proves what we already know to be true about how people learn – and struggle to live out. Too often, instead of providing the parental or pedagogical equivalent of what Buck does with horses – call it “kid whispering” – our actions result in whispering kids. Instead of a deep sensitivity to the invisible, orderly dance that occurs between two beings learning to trust one another, our efforts result in visible indicators of control. It’s the modern manifestation of the age-old saying: children are to be seen, not heard. And it’s just as out of tune with how we learn as horse breaking is with how they learn.
Buck reminds us that when learning is about shared inquiry, it transforms both teacher and student. He reminds us that the process will surface what is already present, and help us make sense of what we see. And whether we’re a parent, teacher or trainer, he demonstrates that the art of the whisper comes in the search for, and discovery of, the delicate balance between reassuring structures and empowering freedoms, something Buck describes as the ‘soft feel.’
“Most people think of a feel as when you touch someone,” he tells us. “But a feel can have a thousand meanings. Sometimes a feel is a mental thing. Sometimes it’s a glance exchanged between horse and human from across the arena. But always it’s an invitation from the horse to come closer, and it’s a moment of perfect balance.
“Your horse is a mirror to your own soul,” he reminds us. “Sometimes you may not like what you see. But sometimes, you will.”
Image from http://www.buckthefilm.com/