7 Questions to Improve Time with your Horse

I believe people can learn from many different forms of shared horse knowledge (even if it is what not to do,) BUT I find without a clear foundational basis, the constant barrage of "dos and don'ts" that drastically differ in shared horse training approaches, theories, and methods can be exhausting for the student to filter through.

Improving Horse Rider Balance- Raising Awareness

 It all starts with Awareness

I just finished doing a 12 hour drive drive. I encountered horrendous fog, hail, pelting rain, light snow, sun, strong wind gusts, and just about any other weather you can think of.

Throughout the drive, I would audibly exhale, reset my fingers on the steering wheel, notice the tension in leg muscles from the incessant shift through the high mountain, twisty road climbs, and "open" my toes in my shoes, I'd observe if I was "hard" staring at the road or if I could zoom in and out at various degrees on the details of the surroundings. I "checked in" with my shoulders- if they were scrunched up and together toward my neck, or if I could rotate the muscle onto the scapula and "open" my chest to have a soft breathing. I noticed if my tongue was "stuck" on the roof of my mouth or rested without tension...

Increasing Human Behaviors to Improve your Horsemanship

 

Assess yourself before you critique your horse.

When did your ride really start?

Your ride should begin when you THINK about going for a ride. Learning to raise your level of awareness that at every moment you are interacting with your horse (starting with when you catch him) or are even in close proximity, you are influencing the conversation, energy and focus for the upcoming ride.

Helping the Horse- Mentally and Emotionally

 

 Helping the Purginging Horses 

Day 5 #Equi-Quality Challenge with Alternative Horsemanship™

 #Equi-Quality Challenge

Eliminating Self-Sabotage

Day 4 #Equi-Quality Challenge with Alternative Horsemanship™

 #Equi-Quality Challenge

Letting go of Have Tos

4 Tips to Improve your Horse Skills

 

Are you breathing?

When people focus, they tend to hold their breath. Talk. Tell your horse what you are doing (literally, it also helps you keep track.) Sing to him or whistle. Anything!

Learning Horse Skills

Horse Skills: Refining your Feel to improve your Communication

A major challenge for many horse enthusiasts is that there is SO much to learn in terms of understanding horse behavior and communication, never mind refining self-awareness, and then combining that with trying to learn how to offer a "common language" to communicate with the animal.
Of the many horse-related skills to learn, the concept of "following a feel" can be incredibly challenging. In many interactions, people focus on how a horse is moving, without acknowledging that "how" the human is asking will influence the outcome.

Horse Learning Goals Tips and Insight by Alternative Horsemanship™

 Horse Goals and Looking ahead to New Year
A lot of people have a lot going on in their lives, and limited time with the horse. I suggest to students to get a journal (no, you will not be writing pages and pages) to "track" their equine interactions. Writing experiences, thoughts, questions (it doesn't have to be coherent to anyone but you) can often help "organize" some of the chaotic thoughts and questions one may have about their equine interactions.

Horse Learning- Giving you and your horse a gift

 

I've recently had quite a few older horsemen reach out in response after seeing some of the videos I have been posting, sharing "what" it can look like when we offer the horse time to think, search, and try. It has been the stimulus for private conversations with equine professionals worldwide as they struggle with their teaching abilities to convey (i.e. get owners to believe and commit to) the "how" to offer/give oneself permission (and the horse) time to observe, learn, experiment, try, process, grow, and evolve on their horse-learning journey.

Honest Horse Conversations & Considerations

 Everything I had been working for my entire life seemed to have come crashing down.

My belief system, values, the approach and perspective in how I viewed the horse.

Horse Skills Help Self-awareness Tips

For people who are new to my teaching and training theories, there are many questions and frequently a great deal of pondering and brooding as folks start to question “the way they’ve always done things” with their horses.

Horse Skills- Stop Overwhelming Yourself

Stop Overwhelming Yourself

It is very easy to become overwhelmed by everything that "isn't" or is challenging, frustrating, and exhausting with the horse.

Horse Tips: How will you help the horse succeed?

Often horse folks have a laser focus on task accomplishment rather than assessing if they have the necessary "pieces" to fairly ask something of the horse.

Questions for your Horse Learning Journey

What does Quality with the horse mean to you? 

What do you consider as Success?

How often do you connect how the horse's mind and emotions influence his physical responses, versus fixating on containing/blocking/driving his movement?

Where is your focus during the equine interactions? 

Are you mentally present and available to acknowledge and address the horse's feedback? Without triggering his fear?

Do you ever adapt your original goal whether temporarily, short or even long-term, to prioritize first building trust, try, and willingness in the horse?

Horse Learning & Skills Tips

Horse Time Mindfulness 

Photo is of a very dedicated student who wore this shirt she made to an Alternative Horsemanship clinic...
1. Many people focus (and worry) about doing things "right" and don't realize their concern has affected consistent, regular breathing when anticipating or being"hopeful."

The effects include:
* rigid and delayed communication offered to the horse
*mental & physical fatigue
* limits their physical adaptability to assess and address the horse in real-time
 

2. Many people offer constant negative criticism towards the horse (often after he has offered an unwanted response,) rather than communicating what I call Positive Alternatives. Offering proactive communication to help the horse mentally engage and offer physical responses that he CAN do.
Always communicating after-the-fact criticism teaches the horse to be defensive toward the human communication.

Horse Skills Tips - Misconceptions of a Circle

One of the most misused "techniques" I have found is how people present asking the horse to move around a circle.

Human Emotions Sabotaging Equine Partnerships

I've had many comments over the years about how I seem to never lose patience with the horse during moments that for most people would trigger a rollercoaster of emotions... such as in the scenarios of when a horse:
Resists being caught
Difficult to Trailer Load
Bolts when Led
Won't stand quietly tied
Avoidant towards the farrier
Has excessive movement when tacked or mounted
Is sensitive about fly spray or bathing
Is buddy or "barn" sour

Horse Skills: The Check- In Learning to Acknowledge the Equine to stop Guessing

The Check-In

I often encounter people who are surprised or overwhelmed by their horse's responses. There tends to be a major gap in the human's perception of when/what/how things have occurred rather than an understanding of all the ongoing, continuous equine communication that was ignored, overlooked, or criticized and how the animal's feedback would "tell" the person what behaviors were coming next. 

Tips for Improving Horse Skills

Tips for Resetting Your Breathing and Releasing Tension at the Halt
(Mounted or Unmounted)

Only when realizing it, many riders hold their breath quite frequently when interacting with or riding the horse.
This Unintentional simple act creates continuous containment of the horse due to the rigidity the human then carries in their body causing constant chaos, and miscommunication with the horse.