Alison Jones is one of my favourite natural horsemanship instructors. She is incredibly talented, but calm and comfortable to be around. She came over from UK to give us students here in Stavanger some horsemanship food for our brains!
We played mainly with liberty and freestyle tasks, and I brought home some very good lessons! To sum up the highlights for me:
1. The importance of checking for relaxation during tasks and how to check and make sure the horse gets, and stays relaxed during tasks.
2. Making the horse feel like a winner! So often I find myself too stuck on the task itself, while on the way, it is so important to reward the horses effort, relaxation, position, energy, mental state and so forth, which are most of the time more important to have than a completed task! And while we are focused on just making a task happen, the horse stays feeling wrong for a long time, which can really impact the time it takes for the horse to feel confident and "get it". Reward all the small things, instead of waiting for the big thing before the reward.
3. Our own attitude and how powerful the words we use are. The words we use when thinking about a situation, has a large impact on how we act in that situation. For example, by saying the horse is lazy, "fault" is placed on the horse and his "laziness" becomes a problem in him. But, by looking at it another way, and saying instead, the horse is "unmotivated" makes us think that the responsibility is instead on us, and thus we will work on finding ways to help him get motivated to do something. Keep a positive mind and use positive and constructive words!
4. How to use backup and sideways to get more power and upward movement in the canter. And it felt like jumping from standstill, it was incredibly fun! Basically, is was sideways 10 meters or so and than straight into canter as the horse was already far back on his hindquarter as a result of the sideways movement.
The same realisation I make every clinic now is that the horse always performs according to the human. If something does not work, it is always a result of the humans lack of knowledge, skill or attitude. Unless there is something physically blocking the horse from doing certain things. That is a reassuring thought, because then I can go as far as I wish to go, it is only up to myself to become as good a horse person as it requires :)
Improving the draw by having a little driving help from behind
Liberty sessions are always fun!
Working on maintaining circles at liberty, and keeping a mental connection with the horse so he will not run off
Scratches makes good rewards :)
Playing with leg yields without reins
Forequarter yields without reins
Sideways - forequarter yield - sideways pattern over poles to improve forequarter yields.
It`s hard work being horsemanship students!
Very hard work!
Very very hard!
Or.. is he laughing?
Sideways into canter
