You've got your new bird -- and what's that boom I heard? That was your adrenalin-fueled heart sending your blood pressure blasting through the stratosphere. Savor the thrill and awe while you can, because every next step with your passage bird will make you tense.

It's easy to be tense because training a hawk is linear rather than parallel. Dogs, for example, train in parallel: they sit, they roll over, they heel and it doesn't matter what order you teach it to do those things. Hawks on the other hand need to learn one stage before they can progress to the next. That makes each stage contain the possibility of complete failure. But believe me, failure is surprisingly difficult to achieve with a passage redtail.

The apprentice MUST suppress the tension. It makes passage birds nervous. Whether you're angry, frustrated, happy, excited, the hawk senses it. In the case of the first two it is best if you stop whatever you're doing and leave the room until you've calmed yourself and are ready to try again. Pretend you have the full emotional spectrum of a two ton rock. When you're getting ready to go hunting, if you make your voice sound excited, often they will pick that up and get excited too.

It takes practice, but if you're able to understand and accept the hawk's actions whether or not they meet what you desire of her, you'll have a much better, calmer and more successful relationship with her. Think zen.