Learn about horse behavior, equine communication, and rider mindset with expert guidance with Alternative Horsemanship™ the Remote Horse Coach. Improve your groundwork and riding skills through weekly articles, videos, virtual coaching, and clinics. Over 30 years of experience helping riders and horses connect worldwide.
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.
If I had to be honest, most horses that come to me nowadays have a lot of baggage. A majority of their time with me is spent undoing what has been previously taught through aggressive, hurried training tactics...
A lot of people are unsure about "how" they can learn if the instructor is not nearby... The irony of much of what limits the human's student ability to learn and retain new ideas and skills, can be the "distraction" of having their horse in hand/sitting on them. As a coach, we know the estimate is that humans retain less than 10% of what is taught in a lesson- never mind when they are trying to address their horse in real-time.
I cannot count how many times initially unsure new virtual coaching students have shared how much more value they have gotten out of the distance learning lessons, because they had the time to process what was being taught. Then when they headed out to interact with their horse, their clarity, intention, and awareness was significantly raised leading to significant changes and improvement with the equine.
The video catalog was designed as a support to the coaching and an introduction to Alternative Horsemanship™... It is not your traditional "one size fits all" mindless or "it should look like this" vague horse instruction.
Instead, it is a grouping of many aspects of horse behavior, human skills, and communication that I have found "holes in the education and understanding" after decades of teaching people worldwide of all backgrounds, disciplines, and experience levels. It is a starting point to raise self-awareness, for new thoughts, considerations, experimenting, etc...
For those committed to developing long-term changes with the horse, I still find the one-on-one sessions to be the jumpstart most equine enthusiasts needs to find the motivation and belief that change is possible. Video Catalog Individual Coaching Options
