Recently liberty presentations have been a part of national competitions, such as the Extreme Mustang Makeover and just this past weekend, the American Horsewoman’s Challenge (AHC). These events require trainers to train a horse within a prescribed space of time.
Continue reading On the way to performance with liberty horse training
Riding is the next step in our relationship with our horse. Working with relationship on the ground comes first, then the saddle.
Continue reading Better riding through Ortho-Bionomy on horseback
The herd grazes on the high desert plains, snatching mouthfuls of grasses if there are any. When they are thirsty, they are generally thirsty as a group, because the water hole may be some distance from where they are grazing.
Continue reading Feel invisible threads of connection with your horse
This is a refrain that I heard recently from an owner who was startled by the news. It’s not new; I’ve heard it many times before, spoken to owners with horses who have some behavioral issue. What is going on here?
I have recently written about the trail in The Trail as a Metaphor for Life.
Continue reading Sharing heart and mind with your horse on a trail ride
As a follow-on to last week’s blog, 10 Tips for Working with A Fearful Horse, I collected three very different case studies of fearful horses. With each, the treatment was slightly different, adjusted to the situation and the fear the horse was experiencing.
For a number of years now, I’ve been doing distance bodywork on horses and people. Honestly, it doesn’t matter how far away those horses are, they can still greatly benefit from this help both anatomically and physiologically.
Horses and their honesty, which sometimes translates to their inability to be polite, is energetically one of the things that differentiates horses from people and also from dogs. With horses, mostly what you see is what you get. But it takes time to know what you are looking at.
I recently became aware of how the Liberty work I teach really expose to us not only our greatest strengths and weaknesses, but also what parts of the work we are drawn to.
From the standpoint of a bodyworker, when the horse has “had enough” is pretty obvious. But even so, students will continue to press on an area and worry over it even when the horse has moved away. Why don’t they see it? Feel it?
