Posted in Advice on Jul 15th, 2010
This picture I posted on Facebook shows an advanced horse trained at liberty performing piaffe. The piaffe was achieved without tack, in a free, open environment. After the horse has a strong foundation with all seven of the Waterhole Rituals, I start with this kind of work. I will show you how to begin working with a horse to achieve this movement in connection.
At this level of training, the horse will work in the arena at high speed and maintain that speed once I send him off, without me having to maintain it. The horse understands that he wants to run and is not planning on slowing down, unless I ask him to. This is very high energy work.
This way, I can work in front of the horse directing him where to go. This is the first phase of working a horse that is completely trained at the lower levels of the Waterhole Rituals. It’s the advanced work of the last Waterhole Ritual, Liberty Dancing. I am sharing this with you at this time for the Insider Circle and Box Programs to show where the next phase of schooling begins. This is… Read more
Read Full Post »
Posted in Misc on Mar 4th, 2010
From this point, forward I am focusing on helping people to understand my Method of training through the Waterhole Rituals at liberty.
I have trained at liberty for over 40 years and in the mid 70’s I coined the phrase ‘Liberty Training’. In those days I had to explain what Liberty Training a horse was. Now 40 years later, people frequently use this phrase and in some cases not as it was intended or defined by me. For those of you who do not know yet what Liberty Training is, my definition is that Liberty Training is a method of training a horse in a free environment without tack from the ground in a wide open space large enough for a horse to avoid his training if he wants to.
This is the secret of how to bring about a horse’s interest in wanting to bond and seek out your company. In ‘Liberty Training’, you want the horse to feel free so he can begin to act and react from his instincts and to show the handler his true feelings and so that the handler can respond more proficiently and fairly. The Method causes a horse to exercise… Read more
Read Full Post »
Posted in Stories on Aug 20th, 2009
The other day I was telling you about how I started to use music to train my horses and so I wanted to tell you a little more about my experiences.
When I trained to music, I found that the horses responded more quickly to my spontaneous direction. We became united as a team beyond anything I had experienced before. It caused me to be more careful not to ask anything of the horse that would cause the loss of rhythm or negatively impact the horse’s ability to perform. Music made me a more tactful rider. My spontaneous cues caused the horses to focus on performing at a moment’s notice, which created a brilliance in their steps. It was a miraculous discovery. After that, I developed a training program in four stages.
In the beginning, when I first started a horse to music, I chose classical or any music without a beat so the horse could focus on even cadence and develop an evenness and smoothness of the gait. This way, he could easily attach to the flow of the music. After the horse responded naturally to what he was listening to, the next step was to pick music with… Read more
Read Full Post »
Posted in Misc on Jul 4th, 2008
Hello and a happy 4th of July to you!
I am delighted to announce the first in what we hope will be a series of stories from Margaret who featured on the post Being in nature. We have been exchanging messages with each other and I asked her if she wouldn’t mind sharing some of her journey with us as she gets to know her mare, Amber, in the 230 acres they and 30 other horses share up there in the mountains in northern California. Margaret seems to experience the same joy as I do from the simple pleasures to be found in nature and her stories bring a smile to my heart, I hope they do to yours too.
Have a super weekend and I look forward to talking with you again next week.
*** To read the rest of this post, get Carolyn’s Blog Collection Volume 1 ***
Click the image above for more details
Read Full Post »
Posted in Stories on Apr 14th, 2008
This is a picture of my horse Stoney, who I had since he was two months old. He is performing Levade, one of the Spanish Riding School movements that is trained with tack. I trained Stoney to perform Levade without tack, at liberty in a full-size arena. I was able to do this because of the bond of the friendship I shared with him. By working with Stoney at liberty, I did not make the mistake of teaching him when he did not want to listen. Because he was free to choose, Stoney was able to lead me to a true understanding of horses, horse training, communication and leadership. He taught me to look for the big “yes” that is inherent in all horses.
*** To read the rest of this post, get Carolyn’s Blog Collection Volume 1 ***
Click the image above for more details
Read Full Post »
