Just because we are doing liberty work it doesn’t mean that the horse is at liberty to boss us around. We are working with boundaries, territory, food, all things that are very important to horses.
Category Archives: Liberty training
Secret sauce in horse work: horses have auras
The success of people who work with horses depends a great deal on the energy they bring to the relationship, and recognizing the energy of the horse and how to respond to it. Auras are just one of the tools we can work with in horse work.
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Horse time!
What time is it? What does it matter? If you’re dealing with a horse, trying to get her to load in the trailer, or perform some activity by the end of your lesson, the lack of interest in your agenda can be frustrating at times. Most of us who work with horses know there is such a thing as “horse time.”
Tune in: developing a caretaking horse
Today my grandson Kaiden was riding our 24-year-old gelding, Khami. Kaiden slipped or stuck his leg out, I don’t know which, and Khami stopped. Kaiden said he felt like he was falling off.
The thinking horse – promoting healthy curiosity in your horse
Have you ever encountered a horse that seems dull, uninterested in his or her surroundings, steps on your feet, seems robotic in work, or just wanders off when you’re doing an exercise?
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Spring Santa Fe Clinic builds the working bond with horses
Each liberty clinic forms a community. Some of the six attendees at the March 30th clinic held in Santa Fe at Arrowhead Ranch knew something about the Waterhole Rituals by Carolyn Resnick before coming, and some did not know them at all. We started out getting a feeling for the Rituals with a short video. In the arena, we worked at first with each other, which helps to ground everyone and helps them get the rhythm of motion with a horse. Later we would see how to adjust energy to each individual horse’s needs.
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I thought I had a good bond with my horse…
I hear this phrase from a lot of people. It’s startling and disappointing for people who have gotten a horse that they think likes them and then they find out the horse doesn’t want to do what he or she is asked. In some cases, the horse has “chosen” them in some way, and they feel a special bond with the horse right from the beginning. Why isn’t that bond carrying them through? Why aren’t they riding that horse through magical landscapes with the sun setting golden in the west?
The rhythm of grazing
How do we get in sync? How do we achieve an energetic connection?
While I was out in the pasture with Patches one day, it occurred to me that a really good way for people to get a better sense of their energetic connection with a horse is to feel the rhythm of the horse grazing. The horse nibbles a few bites of grass and moves along, sometimes never lifting his nose from the grass very much. He moves along in a loose-limbed way, almost like he’s going to roll. You can feel the relaxation in his whole being.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKiKIHy1oyI&w=560&h=315]
Waterhole Rituals and sustainable horsekeeping – clinic news
It always amazes me how much you can get out of a clinic even when it is bitterly cold and windy.
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Poetry in motion – reciprocal movement in horse work
Reciprocal movement or “mirroring” – when horses mirror each other’s movement – helps horses help each other in healing and is supportive of the herd as a whole. I use this movement in horse bodywork and it is also used in liberty training – a prerequisite to dancing.
