The surprisingly difficult skill of doing nothing

“I just wish my horse would stand still.”

I hear some version of this all the time, and understandably so. We ask horses to stand still for a lot of things.

Standing at the mounting block. Waiting while we open a gate. Holding a hoof up for the farrier. Standing for grooming, tacking up, bodywork, vet care, or while we stop and talk to someone on the trail.

Sometimes we aren't even doing anything in particular. We just want to pause for a minute without our horse wandering off, nudging us, pawing, backing up, swinging their hindquarters around, or deciding that surely there must be something else they should be doing.

And because standing still looks so simple, I think it's easy to assume it should also be easy for the horse. After all, we're asking them to do… nothing.

Except “nothing” is still a behavior.

Standing quietly for ten seconds, thirty seconds, or five minutes while all kinds of interesting things are happening around you requires a skill set, just like backing up, picking up a hoof, or walking onto a trailer does.

The horse needs to understand where we want them to be, how long that expectation lasts, what releases them from it, and what they can do while they're waiting. Then we have to build duration, add distractions, change environments, and gradually generalize that understanding to all of the places where we're eventually going to need it. Yet we often skip most of that and simply expect the horse to know.

We teach the mounting block behavior…but get frustrated when they walk away while we're adjusting the stirrup.

We teach them to pick up a hoof…but expect them to somehow know how to comfortably hold it there for several minutes.

We teach them to lead…but don't necessarily spend much time teaching what happens when we stop leading and simply stand somewhere together.

Then, when the horse moves, we put them back. They move again, and we put them back again. Before long, we're spending a surprising amount of our time correcting the absence of stillness rather than actually teaching stillness. They learn stillness to avoid correction, rather than because they feel at peace by our side. Or... because they know it's the most reinforcing place to be.

I want my horses to understand that waiting is an actual part of the conversation and feel comfortable doing it.

Not like statues or robots. Nice, relaxed, animated, peaceful “being” with me. By choice, with confidence, and with softness. 

The goal isn’t immobility or trapping them at our side for control purposes, but rather to support the understanding that just waiting with me is an important behavior that will get reinforced. To calm the mind, steady the body, and offer a place of connection. It’s where we “reset” before the next thing. 

Once we start treating standing and waiting as skills worth deliberately teaching and reinforcing—rather than the empty space between all the “real” behaviors—it changes a surprising number of things. Mounting, hoof handling, grooming, opening gates, trailering, and training in general all gets easier.

Sometimes the behaviors that look the simplest are the ones we've made the most assumptions about. Which is why I love teaching people about the small things that make the biggest, longest-lasting impact in their training and relationship with their horse inside The Willing Equine Academy.

We certainly teach the bigger training goals, but we also spend a lot of time on the less obvious pieces underneath them. The skills that make everything else clearer, safer, and easier to build.

If this spoke to you and you want to fill in missing gaps and really dive into the nuances of the “simple things”… I'd love to have you join us.

Stay curious about the why,

 Adele