It's an amazing feeling to have when you are riding your horse and everything just flows, you move together as if you are one.
To have a relationship of trust, harmony and respect - this takes time.
Over the last couple of years I've worked with lots of horses and their owners, mostly I've been called in because they have a problem either the horse is impossible to lead, can't be caught, won't go into the trailer etc. While the problem itself is usualy not too dificult to solve getting to the root of the problem is often far more important so that it doesn't re-surface.
This very often comes down to a problem within the horse / owner relationship which is why I have decided to concentrate on teaching owners how to start a better relationship with their horse and so solve their own problems.
Many owners have unrealistic expectations of their horse, others simply do not realise that they are letting their horse walk all over them, (sometimes literally), another very common problem is lack of confidence and I find that owners are very reluctant to admit this, but again, with relationship training you can learn more about what makes your horse tick, work out exactly what makes you nervous and why so then you can start building your confidence slowly.
And yes this does work because I lost my confidence a few years ago - I have ridden horses for 27 years now but after a couple of nasty falls I was just so nervous that even asking my lovely quiet Irish cob to walk around the arena with me was terrifying. I couldn't just carry on being scared so I tried many diferent techniques, the one that worked was from Dr Stephanie Burns 'Move Closer' book. I have since helped several other people get over confidence issues using her techniques.
The relationship training I teach is based very much on the work of GaWaNi Pony Boy, I am currently studying hard to be one of his advisers and am now about halfway through the required courses. Hopefully soon I'll be able to teach many more people the full range of his training methods, which are largely based on round pen work, although can be done without, his methods are basically common sense mixed with the age-old-wisdom of his ancestors, they work and are accessable to anyone .
I have also been learning Parelli Natural Horsemanship - which I enjoy (I am a level 3 student), but do not feel it is realisitic for me to become one of their instructors. I have also studied the training methods of other natural horsemanship trainers such as Mark Rashid and Monty Roberts as I feel it is important to have as much knowledge as possible before you start to even think you can teach anything to someone else.
If you're interested in relationship training here's a couple of basics to try:
1. Spend time with your horse, this time should be just hanging out time, not feeding, riding etc. Hand grazing, going for a walk etc are all good opportunities to connect with your horse.
2. Learn about your horses habits by observing him - where is his favourite grazing spot, what time of day does he sleep, how many times does he go for water, does he start squabbles with others or back down from them, is he vocal or not etc.
If you want to try relationship training for yourself I teach in the Mid & North East of Wales areas, you can email me on talkinghorses@btinternet.com.
Good Luck & Be Natural!
