For anybody coming in to my blog for the first time, I welcome you.

Thursday’s blog is my classroom on the Uberstreichen Exercises, the exercises that I offer are a system of training horses to be able to create collection when you ride and to introduce tack and rein aids. You can go back through the blog and find the start of this class. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.

Continuing with the program…

After having worked with the first Uberstreichen Exercise for a month, on a regular basis for 10 minutes a day, and that you feel that you have received a great deal of benefit, you are ready to move on to the Second Uberstreichen Exercise. Before I give you the next exercise, on next Thursday, I want to further explain some details in what we are achieving through their practice, and what benefits you need to have received from the first exercise.

1. Your horse is more trusting.

2. Your horse is willing to allow you to hold on to both sides of the halter, in a free-floating hold that asked nothing from the horse.

3. Your horse allows you to manipulate … Read more

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This is one of my favorite stories from my own experiences growing up with horses. This is a quick version of a story that will be out in my next book, a how-to book on the Waterhole Rituals.

The story offers a formula in “How to get what you want from a horse”. Let’s say you want to bond, or to be able to put a halter on a horse, or maybe you have a larger goal like winning the Olympics on a horse you have trained yourself, or take the “buck” out of your horse, or take the anger out of your horse, or teach your horse not to be afraid of a trailer, or teach him not to bite you, or how to be successful with the Waterhole Rituals to solve these issues, or to be successful using any method that has stumped you.

The secret to your success with a horse might be revealed to you through asking yourself one question only. From this question a path will unfold easily, you will return to what you “should be” doing with your horse rather than want you “would want” to do with your horse.

Maybe you read Tom … Read more

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Hello, I hope you are enjoying this holiday time with your family. Today we are going to continue our exploration of the Uberstreichen Exercise by learning to use the first Exercise to recognize when the neck begins to form a true arch.

When a neck comes shorter it does not always arch, most of the time it just bends or lifts. As you practice, you will start to recognize when the neck arches and later to recognize when the shoulder raises, from the arching of the neck. You will learn more and more to see subtle shifts in the horse’s whole body that are needed for collection.

Before you start the practice of forming the arch in the horse’s neck, there are two new things to practice within the first exercise with the horse, when his poll is relaxed in a floating hold. So far we have been working on relaxation, cooperation, training the horse to accept us holding the halter with consistency, lowering and raising the head and neck, tipping the nose, along with straight and lateral flexions of the neck created when we rock the horses head from side to side. Now we are going to start doing … Read more

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For anyone new to my blog, the programs I offer are about developing better connections between horse to human and human to horse. They are meant to support the equine community by creating better equine partnerships through social interaction and communication that strengthening the bond, trust and dance.

If you are new to my classroom and want to understand more deeply my philosophy and the programs I offer, I would suggest that you order my book Naked Liberty, the DVDs Introduction to the Waterhole Rituals and Panadero’s Journey. I also invite you to join in on the free training course on the Uberstreichen Exercises. These are exercises to develop a better partnership and connection when your ride, by working from the ground teaching a horse to perform the beginning stages of collection.

You can join in the free winter Uberstreichen Exercise Program by going back in the archives and reading from the November 19th entry. Every Thursday there will be a new lesson, Tuesdays will be regular blog entries that might have further information regarding the lessons.

From reading all of your comments, many of you say you are visual learners and are grateful for the YouTube videos. … Read more

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Hi again. Today we will be moving on with the Uberstreichen Exercises.

When your horse will stand on his own then you are ready for the next step. Put your hands on each side of the noseband of the halter and do not but in fingers or thumbs inside the halter in order to prevent injury to yourself your horse should jerk his head up. Don’t but your head above his for the same reason. Hold the horse’s head straight, breathe deeply, and relax. If the horse turns his head one way or the other gently bring it back to straight and then float with him holding his head. Do this for a short time as the horse will tolerate it, then let go slowly and walk away and disconnect. The disconnect is very important to practice. The horse is learning to give and to stay put. He is learning to be responsible without you having to police him. This teaches your horse to stay focused in a hold as well as in a disconnect. Self-carriage of the horse’s gaits can only occur when the horse is free from the rider’s active influence. This exercise starts the journey. Self-carriage creates … Read more

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Hello again. I love working with my horses. There isn’t anything much that I get so much pleasure out of, as you might have guessed. However, there one thing that thrills me almost as much and that is seeing my students succeed with their horses using my Method.

One of the students who continues to delight me and who is always very generous with her praise of me is Stina. For those of you who don’t know her story, she contacted me about 3 years ago asking if she could study with me. As she lives on St.Vincent in the Caribbean and I live in southern California, this was pretty tricky especially considering the horses she had recently ‘adopted’ were a herd of effectively wild horses. So she started having phone coaching with me and I must say that Stina has done a remarkable job with her herd. The results she and the horses have achieved are fabulous as you will see here and on the videos on the Coaching and Favorites pages.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank Stina for her continued support of my Method and for the lovely videos she continues to make. … Read more

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The Uberstreichen Half-Halt Exercises school the horse from the ground to respond more effectively to your half-halts when you ride.

(Half-halt is when you ask the horse to stop and he responds immediately and in the moment you know that the horse will stop you ask him to go forward and he does this whole-heartedly. The purpose of the half-halt is to prepare the horse to listen for your next request. It prepares the mind and body of the horse to be able to respond easily and promptly.)

There are about 10 different reasons one asks a horse to half-halt. Keep in mind that a half-halt is a message to a horse that you will be asking him to perform something different that what he is doing in the moment. From your half-halt you may be making a request to halt or go forward or change pace or gait become more active, lengthening or collect or soften or change direction or to bring a horse to straighten. I am not going to go into the minutia of the benefits of all the exercises because it will not really help to create better result. If you need more explanation you can … Read more

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