Hello all, good morning from Warsaw Poland! So we just finished our first clinic with wild horses here in Poland and it was a huge success! This was one of the coolest venues that I have ever participated in. The facilities were phenomenal and the people and the horses were absolutely incredible. This was a great opportunity for people to come see the true meaning behind Colt Starting and how to properly work with horses using Natural Horsemanship. The venue consisted of three roundpens all set up underneath a viewing gallery where us coaches (Andrzej Makacewicz and myself) and the general public were able to watch, dissimmilate and observe different styles and techniques, while Andrzej Makacewicz and myself gave tips, advice and sometimes some hands on help with the horses and students. *It needs to be noted that these were not only wild horses but they were wild stallions! I will write about this more on my blog but I will give a brief example now. The guests and students got to learn the true meaning of Natural Horsemanship and the differences between Starting Colts and Playing with Colts. Unfortunately most people and trainers are not aware of the differences. The differences are quite simple. Lets take desensitizing as an example, most people think that there needs to be lots of desensitizing to different stimuli done before safely mounting a horse. I disagree, I do say desensitizing is an invaluable technique but people need to realize that because you have shown things like a tarp to a horse in a roundpen does not mean he will understand what the tarp is when he gets into the outdoors. The proper way to go about desensitizing is to start with leadership and trust, get the riding aspect out-of-the-way immediately, get on your horse and teach him what his job is and what partnership is all about. Thats why we own horses, so I can ride them, right? I do lots of desensitizing but it usually gets done after I have already started riding my horse. The reason this is is because I want to build trust and confidence in my horse so he looks to me as a leader and for me to guide him through any situation. The Considering the Horse competition was a perfect example of what Im talking about. My horse went into school so I was a teacher and I taught him how to read and write essentially instead of playing games with him, when I went to school and wanted to go play on the playground all day the teachers do not allow us to play on the playground until after we finish doing our lessons, most people want to have lots of fun with her horse so they put off riding until later. The truth is they are scared of getting on their horse so soon and the desensitizing is really done to build their own confidence as a trainer/rider. (In the wild the horses see new things everyday that scare them but they look to the Alpha horse to lead them, they dont spend time in a roundpen desensitizing each other o the scariness of the world! As we saw in the Considering the Horse competition that after I built trust by riding my horse he was willing to go anywhere and everywhere with me even though I never desensitized him to logs or tarps or trailers or fans or posts or dogs or carwashes or any of the other obstacles that we had in the final and yet he accepted them all because I said they were ok. This was the difference in my training and why I won the competition, it is because I understand what the horses really need and what they are looking for! If you would like to learn more I will be in here in Poland teaching clinics on working with horses using horse psychology and herd behaviorisms for true understanding of how the horses operate and learn then get ahold of me or contact Andrzej Makacewicz JNBT or Jakub Ciemnoczołowski on how to get into one of my clinics. A huge Thank You goes out to Andrzej Makawicz and his JNBT Team, Marek Serafin and his organization/facilities/horses and to Klaudia Kundzik for her incredible job translating everything from English to Polish and back again, this would not have been possible without you! Happy Trails, Joe
Posted on: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 10:15:40 +0000
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