Earworms

Do you know what an earworm is? Its that piece of music that gets stuck in your brain, like chewing gum stuck to the sole of your shoes.  Maybe it’s the irritating muzac from the “Please keep holding” of a phone queue, or the equally irritating jingle from an advert.  Or (hopefully) it’s some thing that is actually pretty cool from a song you like to listen too. Whatever it is, once it’s stuck, it can be hard to get rid of.  Sometimes its not a bad thing…  There is a Robbie William’s song, First They Ignore You.  One line goes “When you think we're lost, we're exploring” and I have to say, whenever I’m somewhere new and I get lost, it’s the line that always pops into my head...A while ago, I had a fairly regular pupil, (when I actually lived in one place) and during one of our early lessons together, we discussed something that she needed to work on. I said to her something along the lines of – if you’re not aware of something, you can’t fix it.  The earworm that she still has, a long time later is, “If you are aware of it, you are working on it”.  Which she now applies to all aspects of her life.One group of people who are trying desperately to plant earworms into your brain, are advertising copywriters. And the one advert that always pops up in my mind – a brilliant slogan for a Singaporean bank – “Where will your spark take you?”  It just speaks to me – what can that spark ignite and where will it lead?Most people who know me, know I like going on adventures (no, really??). That is partly where my spark takes me.  Under seas, on top of mountains, across savannahs, over half a million air miles in the last couple of years.  But how about in real life?  Well, I guess it takes me around the world, into an awful lot of different arenas, meeting different 2 and 4 legged clients and friends, and has led me to start KudaGuru instead of just sticking with working for other people.  My initial spark had me helping out a bunch of horses in Zimbabwe, and setting up my own yard there, called Ballyaugh.  That spark involved a lot of young people, and I love the fact that the spark seems to have lived on in many of them…Last year, (you may have read my New Year blog a few weeks ago?) seemed to be a bit of a stagnant year – my spark didn’t seem to be ready to take me anywhere except round and round in circles… So, I am in the process of working out just where my spark can take me in 2018.An old friend of mine used to say that when something was not quite going smoothly, that it could be like pushing an elephant up a hill. Her theory was, if it’s meant to happen, and its your spark, the elephant will walk itself up the hill quite happily.  But the less its meant to be, the harder you have to work to make the elephant move…  2017 seemed to have a lot of elephants!So, I’m sitting planning where my spark is going to be taking me in 2018… Clearing the way for all those elephants to march themselves along, and following my earworm…But now, I want to ask you a question, and would love to hear your answers…. Where will your spark take YOU?  With your horse?  Maybe a different way of working, or a new discipline?  A new way of keeping him?  A new method of increasing your fitness?  What about in your non-horse life?  Is the spark going to take you round the world?  Or into a new job?  Think for a moment, where will the spark take you?Follow