When I go into the arena with the intention of doing inhand dressage I often feel a beautiful merging of my body with that of the horse. A mentor of mine told me recently that it's like she becomes part of the horses skeleton, which is such an evocative image and really resonates with how I feel.
It was strongest with Sasha - I could be walking with my eyes closed and feel the flight path of each of her legs through the air. I could pickup if she felt slightly off on a particular day within a couple steps without even looking at her.
The same mentor who told me about feeling like part of the horses skeleton also talked to me about feeling a ball of energy between her hands, or a waterballon.
Sometimes when doing dressage inhand with Sasha I could feel that waterballon, a giant ball of power between us which kept our shapes in sync, so we were both responding to the others bodies.
I felt similar things going inhand dressage with Jezzie and Giggles, two horses belonging to a yet another friend and mentor who I practiced with as well.
Saffie was a little different - probably as a result of her being a hypermobile and not having great propreoception, especially at the start. Walking with her with that much focus felt highly disconcerting for both of us. I had the strongest impression that her legs were attached with chewing gum, and that if I wasn't careful she would wibble wobble fall over ontop of me. This gradually faded as Saffie got stronger. Saffie never enjoyed inhand dressage the way Sasha did but Saffie did love liberty work, and I eventually felt a similar (but never as deep) connection through focus with her at liberty.
Una is different again. With Una, I feel a little like she hides from me when I am leading her. This is both because she does actually physically hide behind me (I suspect whoever taught Una to lead as a baby really enforced staying out of the humans space. Una walks far behind at the end of a loose lead behind the human, even when shes really excited to get to wherever we are going) but it's also a slightly spiritual sense of hiding.
Its like Una wears a little invisibility clock when shes being lead, and its very hard to kind of get a sense of her. I find it much harder to synchronize with Una in a halter and lead then I do with many other horses. I also find it a lot harder to predict what she is going to do in advance - Una surprises me on the lead in a way that Sasha and Saffie never really did.
Another metaphor which springs to mind is like Una casts a little "notice me not" spell and fades into the background while being led. This is a really interesting contrast to Jezzie, who always feels like he has a loudspeaker and a taser when I handle him on the ground.
Happily, Una doesn't hide in the same way when working in longlines, on the lunge or under saddle. She also doesn't hide from me when working in a cavesson with me walking backwards in an academic art of riding position. She does hide with me walking forward and her in the cavesson - this to Una is the same as leading.
I've also very recently started working Una inhand off two reins, which requires her to walk forward with me standing at her shoulder. This was a very brain melty experience for Una and I got the sense she thought she would be punished by walking too close to me and in particular by walking with her shoulder ahead of mine. She stopped every few steps to check if she was ok, and I gave her heaps of praise and reassurance and kept the sessions very short.
I'm really interested to see if I can get to the same point of harmony and synchronization with Una inhand and at liberty as I did with Saffie and Sasha. I feel like I have to sneak in with Una - get more and more harmonized with her longlining, lunging, riding and in the backward walking position, then kinda tiptoe from there into inhand off two reins, and then see if overtime we can slowly come to share space while leading.