Alternative Horsemanship™ with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach teaches horse behavior, horse training, and coaches horseback riders of all experience levels. Offering horsemanship clinics worldwide, distance horse coaching instruction, horse video learning catalog, equine consultations, equine re-education and rehabilitation, colt starting, and lessons. Follow her #alternativehorsemanship on all social media platforms.
One Step at a Time
Detrimental and hindering things the human often "brings" to a session with the horse...
Stigmas
Assumptions
Ego
Lack of Clarity
Rushing
Lack of Awareness
Mental Distraction
Critique
Judgment
Emotional Chaos
Hopefulness
Distraction
Avoidance
Fear
What if the "equine experience" started with first honestly assessing oneself, so that we could be mentally present, emotionally calm, and physically balanced to refine the intention, specificity, and Quality of communication to have thoughtful, two-way Conversations with the horse, rather than screaming matches.
Learning how to Learn
I find the way most people offer information to the horse is with an expectation of tolerance by the equine.
Rarely is there any consideration for being able to influence the horse's focus, redirect his thoughts, help him let go of physical tension, or have many of the other tools needed so that he can learn how to think through the unfamiliar, rather than just tolerate it.
Why does it matter?
Because each interaction you're teaching the horse to either become more weary and distrustful of the human experience, or you're increasing his curiosity and building his confidence for all that you ask of him in the future.
The real motivation, even without acknowledging the horse and what he is experiencing, might come from asking oneself, "Wouldn't it be easier to set the horse up for success from the start, rather than having to undo unnecessary traumatic experiences and dangerous coping behaviors created because of hurried, unclear, and lack of quality human communication?"
The Best Teachers
Time with horses can be our greatest learning moments; they reflect our thoughts, emotions, energy, intentions, fears, insecurities, and so much more.
We can learn about our behaviors, habits, patterns, mindset, anticipation, and triggers that may be sabotaging the clarity of communication and limiting the Quality of the Conversation in our equine partnership.
I just read a great quote,
"Those in pursuit if WHY are inspired to do right." SimonSinek
Have you ever considered if your goal and priorities are to do "right" by your horse, or if you are hopeful that he'll do "right" by you?
New Year New Goals- Assessing and Improving the Equine Partnership
I came with these six GOALS to help equine enthusiasts keep perspective when assessing their horse relationship.
I see so many horse people posting photos and referring to the horse like the animal is an accessory.
The focus tends to be on the human agenda, rather than addressing the Quality of what THE HUMAN is bringing to the Equine Partnership.
Too many riders are so very quick to critique the horse without ever acknowledging how their own grey-area, inconsistent, unfair communication is influencing the unwanted responses in the equine.
Buying and selling a variety of different horses isn't going to "fix" anything if the person is still unable to recognize, believe, and address horse behavior nor will it improve their skill-set.
Perhaps let's make the GOAL for the upcoming year to focus on improving ourselves rather than blaming the horse.
