Carolyn Resnick Horsemanship: Liberty Horse Training

To create a deeper connection with your horse, put yourself in a state of happiness before you see your horse. It will help you to discover yet another core strength within you. Your intentions to elevate your awareness will grow your magnetism. Growing your magnetism will draw your horse to follow your lead. It will cause your horse to trust in your leadership.

So how can we do this?
Start by putting your attention on the well being that is always there inside of you until it consumes your awareness fully. Become aware of how your body feels in the moment. Focus on the parts of your body that feel alive and well until your whole body feels alive.

If you have something that does not feel good inside you, this is not you. It is an external condition that has caused feelings of sadness or any negative feeling that pulls you down. Let it go on your exhaled breath. Imagine breathing in healing energy. Imagine breathing from the parts of your body that you are focused on and then feel the sensation. Notice the well being growing within you. Feel the connection to all things and a peace… Read more

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Be Sure to not miss out on Robin Gates’ Clinic on the
Waterhole Rituals™ Click to link to PDF

Unlike us, horses have a natural desire for connection built into them because they are herd animals. Horses have a big desire to be with horses, even the ones they do not like. We humans are more selective in who we share a connection with. We want to connect with very few people, and the people we want to connect with must almost be perfect from the standards we set for them. Or we fall for someone as they are, but this is a rarity.

Because we are not compelled to connect as much as horses, we don’t get enough practice in our lives in how to build connections with others. So, we may not know how to set up the circumstances for a horse to want to start a connection with us.

In Sharing Territory™, we can accidentally stop the connection from occurring in many ways. We could choose the wrong spot to wait, or the wrong time, or we could go with the wrong feeling and focus. You want to pick a spot that your horse… Read more

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Here is some information that should help you in how to approach the first Ritual- Sharing Territory. The approach is especially important in how you go about doing nothing with your horse. Sharing Territory in a certain way will help you to establish a deep connection in friendship.

When we begin to share the same vibrations and feeling a peace in the moment, a natural friendship takes shape. It takes no effort or skill just being with your horse and following some simple criteria. Start by sitting with your horse. Read a book, or write in a journal, or any other quiet activity that puts you into the moment will draw your horse to you while you are waiting for him to connect.

To create a true bond with a horse from the horse’s perspective, you need to wait for the horse to come to you first, without tack, and fully able to choose when he would like to get to know you better. This is something humans rarely think of doing. I have found that sharing this little secret with my students has changed their horses’ performances to a complete harmonious dance. For those of you… Read more

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I have another new horse sighting. It was with a student of mine. She had not ridden her horse for some time and rode him. She started him back with all the precautions one would take to bring a horse back, but did not share space with her horse or make a great personal love fest connection. She did not do that with this horse because she never needed to do the rituals with him before.

Well, he bucked really badly but showed no signs that he would object to her getting on him at the time. She was sure he was fine. During the bucking, he paused and she jumped off. As soon as she did, the bucking continued. As she stood there in shock, the horse stopped bucking and gradually walked back up to her. At that point, she thought that getting back on again would not be a good idea and decided to take things much slower. Over the next two weeks, she worked her horse by hand walking him, sharing territory, and lunging him. He was also tied up around the barn and horse trailer. Occasionally, she would saddle him up, but not ride him,… Read more

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Little Known Precursors to Aggressive Behavior in Fearful Horses, and How to Deal with Them.

I was watching Animal Planet with Victory Stilwell. She mentioned something about a little known fact about dog behavior. I thought I heard her say that a dog that will roll over on his back as a submission gesture in the future will surely bite you.

I started thinking of the things that most horse professionals do not know about horses. One of them is if a horse tries to look at you with only one eye with a stiffness in his body, he does not trust you. It is a fearful as well as an aggressive stance, and it comes with strong threat in the future to the person the horse responds to in this way.

The horse that will look at you with one eye or will switch his head around back and forth looking at you from one eye to the other may follow this behavior with biting, charging, kicking or striking at a later time, when you might least expect it.

Years ago, I had to clean out stalls as an every day chore when I was apprenticing… Read more

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Today I am sharing another question from my Insider Circle program. This is a common beginning experience. The student writes:

Three times I have attempted the circle game with my horse. The first time he behaved liked he invented the game. I thought, “This is easy.”

The second day with the circle game when I moved him off his hay he would walk a few steps forward then circle to my side and stand there looking at me. I would have felt bad chasing him off after he faced up to me, so I rewarded him instead. But, I worried that he thought that is what I wanted.

Then today when we were going to play the circle game I attempted to move him off his hay, he walked off in the opposite direction of the hay piles and stood about fifty feet from me, looking at me.

Looked to me like he didn’t want to play. So, I fed him carrots instead. I fed him carrots when he came up to me, then I chased him away and fed him carrots for moving away.
So, what do you think?

So let me first explain what the circle game… Read more

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Hello. Work is progressing well with my book and we are aiming to have it finished by the beginning of December. I’m very excited about it. We have been taking some wonderful photos for it so it will be more like a coffee table book. I will also be discussing horse and herd behavior and how it relates to our lives and society, so I’m sure you’re going to love it.

OK, on to today’s blog post and I’d like to share with you a little more from the Insider Circle. So one of my students asked:

I am working with a horse who really isn’t a perfect candidate for this. She is complicated and I knew that from the get-go….she is a Marilynne. She is the only horse accessible to me and I wanted to learn what you had to teach so that I would grow and be able to work with her as she heals. We are in the beginning stages of sharing territory and saying hello. She is learning to love both of these rituals.

I am still pondering how to help her overcome her fear of the reed. The look in her eyes when she sees

… Read more

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