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
Reactive Riding
When people sit down in that saddle their brain tends to focus solely on themselves. Instead, if they treated their horse-like they were "on the same team" and told the horse what the PLAN was ahead of time, the horse would have a better chance of offering the desired response toward the rider.
One of the most misused "techniques" I have found is how people present asking the horse to move around a circle.
How often does your focus "leave" as you are nearing the end of a session with the horse? Mentally moving on to something else?
As with everything, there are many interpretations when it comes to the terminology associated with horses. I try to be clear and precise in the words that I'm offering, but there still can be a gray area in the human student's understanding. This often comes from their level of awareness, background, and unintentional anticipation/expectation of their mind "getting ahead" of wherever they are currently at with their horse.
Join Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey for the Following a Feel Livestream
Discussing the everyday, overlooked opportunities during the horse interactions that either refine the equine's mental and physical directability or unintentionally teach the horse to avoid and be defensive toward human communication.
Saturday, April 13th at 5pm pst.
Click the link to learn more
Dear Sam: Horse Help Horsemanship Series
Horse Problems, Unwanted Equine Behavior & Uncomfortable Discussions
Click the link to watch the latest episode on the Alternative Horsemanship YouTube Channel.
Ponying the Horse- Continuing Quality Conversations
I find when ponying, many folks focus on getting the ponied horse to follow the movement of the ridden one. This can create mindless movement in the ponied horse and contributes to what seems to willingly compliance (as long as nothing specific is asked of him) but he is not thoughtful, mentally directable, or physically adaptable.
What intentions do you have for you and your horse? What are you doing to work towards them?
