"Be prepared... it's glorious!
First when there's nothing
But a slow glowing dream
That your fear seems to hide
Deep inside your mind
In 1983, a relatively low-budget film took off when its anthem caught the cultural imagination. As Jennifer Beals' character in Flashdance fought to become a professional dancer against all odds, her body told a story words could never quite hold. When reading Chris Adderson's Mastering Unspoken Connections, the lyrics to that hit song, "Flashdance... What a Feeling," kept returning to me like a decades-delayed echo. This isn't a book about horse-riding technique or step-by-step training—it’s about reclaiming the quiet wisdom of the body, dissolving the borders between control and compassion, and learning to feel deeply enough that movement becomes meaning. In an era where prominent voices like Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk have openly questioned the value of empathy—calling it a distraction or even a threat to Western civilization—Chris offers a vital counterpoint: that empathy isn't a weakness, but the highest form of intelligence. A sacred strength. A language older than speech.
All alone, I have cried
Silent tears full of pride
In a world made of steel
Made of stone
Chris knows the terrain of silence intimately. After a traumatic surgery as a child, she stopped speaking. For years, she relied on the unspoken—the movement of horses, the rhythm of breath, the language of dance—to make meaning of the world. The body became her compass and her song. And that embodied knowing is woven through every page of this book. Whether it's restoring trust in a "bombproof" Quarter Horse named Holly who had shut down entirely, or dancing through the danger zone of her own rehabilitation from a spinal injury, Chris shows that transformation doesn't start with domination—it begins with awareness. With presence. With the courage to ask, "What are you telling me right now?" and the grace to wait for an answer.
Where I hear the music
Close my eyes
Feel the rhythm
Wrap around
Take a hold of my heart
There's a quiet reverence in Chris's recollection of lying beneath her mare ZJ in the snow, both of them falling into a shared stillness—hearts syncing, silence holding them like breath. It's a moment that embodies the "Greeting Pattern," one of the foundational Patterns of Reciprocity she teaches, and it invites us into the spiritual ecology at the heart of her method. Chris does not approach horsemanship from the outside in, applying techniques to achieve results. She moves from the inside out, attuning to the subtle exchanges of energy, emotion, and intent. These patterns aren't commands—they're invitations. They're blueprints for co-creation, not control.
What a feeling
Being's believing
I can have it all
Now I'm dancing for my life
The story of Merlin—Chris's majestic Andalusian gelding—stands as a cornerstone of this philosophy. After a devastating accident left him trapped and unable to walk, it wasn't pressure or protocol that brought him back. It was presence. Chris walked with him, inch by inch, through pain, patience, and recalibration. She embodied every movement she hoped he could find again. They rebuilt trust not by demanding function, but by practicing feel. This, she says, is not just rehabilitation—it’s relationship. It’s the living heartbeat of her framework: a shared willingness to flow. A mutual consent to co-adhere. What’s at stake isn't just performance, but the very possibility of belonging.
Take your passion
And make it happen
Pictures come alive
You can dance right through your life
It’s no coincidence that Chris draws on her professional background in dance, referencing choreographers like Martha Graham and José Limón to illuminate her ideas. Her body—like the horses she works with—remembers what it means to express fully, without self-censorship. The "Ultimate Transition Pattern" is one such tool in her method: Imagine—Sensation—Embody. It’s a spiritual choreography, a way to transform thought into intention and intention into connection. The body doesn't lie, she reminds us, echoing Graham's words. But it does forget—until someone helps it remember.
Now I hear the music
Close my eyes
I am rhythm
In a flash
It takes hold of my heart
Mastering Unspoken Connections is not a manual. It’s a love letter to sentience. A prayer for reciprocity. A disruption of systems that prize obedience over understanding. Horses don't lie, Chris writes. But humans do—often to themselves. And yet, the path back to honesty is always available. Through the body. Through humility. Through tuning in rather than tightening up.
Chris's vision is not about dominance or mechanical technique—it’s about surrender, empathy, presence, and becoming. As the other iconic Flashdance track "Maniac" puts it:
Locking rhythms to the beat of her heart
Changing movement into light
She has danced into the danger zone
When the dancer becomes the dance
In Chris's cosmology, this is where true connection lives—when horse and human dissolve into a shared field of resonance, when movement becomes meaning, and when we ride not with control, but with compassionate passion. This is the dance of Hum—and once you feel it, you'll never go back."
~ Mark Peters
