This cartoon is what many horseback riders experience irrelevant of the discipline or years of riding.
Learn horse behavior, communication, and improve horsemanship skills in weekly articles from Alternative Horsemanship™ with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach. Sharing her horse training philosophy developed over three decades. She coaches riders of all experience levels in clinics worldwide and offers distance horse coaching, instruction, and consults. Her horse video learning catalog has webinars, courses, classes and more. Subscribe on all social media platforms #alternativehorsemanship
Horsemanship: Laser Focus versus Quality Interactions
Too often folks have a laser focus on task accomplishment rather than assessing if they have the necessary "pieces" in order to present a specific scenario to the horse.
Improving your Riding without the Horse
Missing time in the saddle?
I've found 50 gal barrels have helped countless students find their seat bones and center.
This has helped them learn to discover and engage the correct muscles to become balanced and what I call "plugged in" when sitting in the saddle.
Practicing while keeping the feet off the ground allows the barrel to reflect the human's imbalance if it begins to roll.
Recently a student posted this,
"How often do we get to take the time to work on the finer details of our horsemanship? Well when its 36 degrees and blowing snow Samantha Harvey of Alternative Horsemanship Remote Horse Coach says its an "opportunity ". I had an amazing lesson today!"
What other non-horse activities or creative things do you do to help improve your body movement awareness and balance?
Opportunities to Improve your Horsemanship
One common word I teach my students is to call ALL scenarios whether initially appearing to be potentially overwhelming, stressful, or less-than-ideal, as
Opportunities. It may be a "simple" approach, but it is amazing to watch the direct correlation in students who are persistent in practicing changing their vocabulary and the leaps and bounds of progress they make in the journey of horsemanship leading to a rewarding partnership with their horse.
Horsemanship and Equine Partnership
This post comes as a result of several recent comments I’ve heard from horse people as they are getting “amped up” for the upcoming spring riding season. Especially in areas of the country that are affected by nasty, cold winter weather, it seems that winter brings on a lethargic feeling, and so instead of the actual hands-on time with their horses, people tend to try to learn via technology, books, etc.
Horsemanship: Misinterpretation of horse behavior and communication
Frequently I've had posts shared with me about how "cute" something is in a horse, mule, or donkey's behavior. Unfortunately, when folks filter their interpretation of an animal's behavior with human emotions, it clouds their judgment in learning, recognizing, or believing what the animal was experiencing and communicate.
How to create Adaptable and Reasonable horses
How do YOU and YOUR horse respond if:
You go into the pasture/stall with a halter in your hand, but don't immediately catch your horse.
You open the gate/stall door but don't go out it.
When you do go out the gate, you stop and talk to someone, instead of continuing on to wherever the tack up area is.
You tack up "wrong"- place your saddle blanket on the horse's neck or rump instead of the "normal" area, or change the order by bridling before you saddle.
You lead from the horse's right side.
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