The Effective of your Horse Communication

 I find that sometimes making comparisons outside of the “horse world” helps folks better see/believe when they are with their equine.

Horse Skills- The missing "tool" of the Positive Alternative

 In many training approaches, the moment a horse does something unwanted, the response is correction. The focus is only on stopping, blocking, and criticizing the equine behavior, to “teach him a lesson.” This leads to what I call “surviving” the experience/ride.

Horse Help- Improving your Equine Communication- Eliminating the Brace

 Horse Help- Improving your Equine Communication- Eliminating the Brace

Chasing the Horse Dream

 Chasing the Horse Dream

I meet horse people wherever I go in the world, whether or not I’m traveling for work or by random happenstance. More often than not, I hear stories of how they chose to leave the mainstream rhetoric/perceptions of working/thinking/interacting with horses to explore and develop their individual quality long-term equine relationship.

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...

Horse Skills and Improving the Equine Partnership

 Nothing is too “basic.”

To demonstrate how repetitive interactions or behaviors can lead to mindlessness, I’ll sometimes ask students if they’ve ever been showering and suddenly stopped, and thought to themselves, “Did I already wash my hair?” People will chuckle at the “guilt” of realizing they might have had a similar experience...

Human Skills- Tips for Releasing Tension (Mounted or Unmounted)

When learning horse skills, many people focus on the mechanics to get the horse’s obedience or compliance, with little to no self-awareness of how their mindset and behaviors will influence the equine's responses. Anticipative, hopeful, or distracted thoughts decrease the ability to reset breathing and release tension in real-time, limiting one's adaptability to help the horse. 

Horse Learning without Guarantees

 The only consistent thing I have found to be true is humans ARE seeking connection.

Repeatedly, social media videos that “do best” show the horse that is willing to interact with people, offering an emotional connection. The promise gives viewers hope, triggering interaction… A great motivator for change, or to “activate” people- whether to react, sign up, or buy into a belief system- is to engage the human emotion of hope.

The New Year: Horse Learning without Guilt- New Beginnings

I'm very aware that this time of year can stir up a particular kind of mental static. It’s the inner critic, tallying up the "not yets" and the "I should haves" with your horse.

Let's name it: Horse Guilt. It’s that feeling that you didn't do enough, "fix" enough, ride enough, or progress enough.

Guilt is not a motivator; it is a paralyzer.

Learning Horse Skills- Raising Self-Awareness

 

Your thoughts influence your Behavior, Communication, and Interactions with the horse.

How one describes the horse's behavior reflects a lot more about the person, than what is actually happening with the equine.

Check out these Horse Learning Mindset Webinars on the Remote Horse Coach video catalog.

🐴 Five Practical Skills to Build with Your Horse

 

Whether you’re working from the ground or in the saddle, every session can develop physical skills that improve how you and your horse move together. Here are five ideas to strengthen your partnership and your horsemanship:

Horse Time- Sharing Space vs Emotionally Dumping

For a lot of equine enthusiasts, their time with the horse helps to balance out other aspects of their lives. I was having an interesting discussion with a Remote Horse Coaching student and thought I'd delve in on some on the topic here.

For decades, I have been "preaching" that most horses are not mentally present or emotionally calm enough to handle the human's emotional chaos. That is why so often you see the mirroring effect in the equine's behavior (though most people don't connect how their thoughts and emotions are influencing/reflected in the equine's behavior).

November Horse Learning Livestreams

 Learn more and register for the November Livestreams HERE

When the Horse Training Quits Working

 

What happens when the way in which we’re doing something with the horse quits working?

Maybe our current approach has been successful with previous horses. Maybe we have decades of horse handling experience and become stumped. Maybe we enrolled in a course, class, or clinic and previously saw immediate changes, tried to replicate it without the coach, and had it all fall apart.

Irrelevant of the individual scenario or case, in general, it creates an uneasiness, doubt, and often emotional triggers in the human when “it” quits or is no longer working.

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.

Improving Horse Transitions- Mental and Physical

 

Most horses I meet fall into two categories:

*Fearful or defensive (tight, rigid movement) to go forward

*Hypersensitive and overreacting with fast, fleeing movement

Over various sessions here are some of what I look to address in re-educating the horse.

Horse Trailer Loading Help- October Livestreams

 

Join HERE

 

 Join HERE

If you miss the live version, the replays can be found HERE throughout the month of October. 

Equine Enthusiast Tips: Empathy + Horses 🚫= Weakness

 

There is a constant human imposition upon each other and horses...

Unrealistic ego-based demands without having accountability as to how a person's clarity of thoughts and intention, quality of communication, adaptability in energy, accuracy of timing, and everyday mindless interactions, are constantly "teaching" horses unwanted responses that people then criticize and chastise the equine for.

5 Physical Horse Skills Assessment Opportunities and Tips

 

When learning or experimenting with a new way of communicating and interacting with the horse, people can unintentionally develop intensity in their facial expression, the tension in their posture, increased energy, and tight movement.

Without meaning to, as a person is trying to mentally assess, process, and physically coordinate their communication with the horse, they may also be conveying unintentional signals to their horse.

This adds unnecessary confusion when attempting to change old patterns in the interaction.

Alternative Horsemanship™ Horse Learning- Is the Horse mentally available and re-directable? YouTube Videos

 Can you Influence the Horse's Mind?

Is the Horse Mentally Re-Directable?