The Art of Natural Dressage

I thought it might be fun to think about the last year and how you and your horse evolved and what big things have happened to you this year. A sort of reminiscence.

Here I go:
I'm down with the flu at the moment, so that gives me some time to think about the last year... Since I started AND!!!

and it's great... I look forward to the future!

The start was difficult, getting your horse to want to do things with you and for you. Now this is no longer an issue, I can work with him on a halter or at liberty and he will always contently work with me, whether it is playing around or some 'real businesses' like training to get him to put his weight more back.
I've ridden dressage for years and been interested in classic dressage for ages, but never really started it, until I got Beau and found you guys! Now it is still difficult for me to learn the new things myself and then being able to help my horse doing those things, without asking too much.

So I have a new path... evolving every day. With the teaching on the cavesson and then letting that evolve to the same thing on a cordeo and even without anything. I feel for me this is at this moment what works best. Maybe future horses will be in more luck of me being on a higher level of knowledge so I can teach him at liberty. But for now, I am happy that Beau tries to help me the best I can and never refuses to work with me and comes to me to help me train because I need him to help me

I dream of the future, of me and my horse, moving to our dreamhouse and then sitting in my big chestnut tree in the pasture with the horses grazing under me and just watching them, and playing with them, going out on rides and getting to the point of complete trust in each other, just being there me and him!

I am sure now I will get there, the world is great, life is great and it is like that every single day for the last year almost, ever since Beau got the choice to be with me!

sigh


ps. I know Beau did some great things when we started AND, but I saw the piaffe and other things that looked so great were actually too difficult, he offered them to make me happy. That's why I decided not to ask them until I feel he will be more up to it. I loved to show you guys how great he is and I will in the future in time...

_________________
Horseriding is an art

My horse is a beautiful living sculpture

The last year for us has been full of upheaval and worries but through all of this I have found that since starting trainging in a more AND style Bo is much happier to express how she feels about things. We have fewer battles of wills and now we have found a field we can settle down in I am hoping the next year brings so much more. Next year for Tegan looks to be fun....now she's growing older I will try doing a little more with her and hopefully play some more.

Basically this whole year has been interesting....teaching little AND things and getting the girls to enjoy training and seeing it as fun rather than something they have to do...was a wonderful thing. And like I said....now we have hopefully found a place they can settle and calm down in things can only get better and more fun!! Fingers crossed for the next year and all we can accomplish!!

_________________

Hey Barbara, what a nice idea!

Wow, this last year has brought huge changes for me and my horses.

We started the year (about exactly a year ago) by packing ourselves up and moving to a new boarding facility after some true stupidness at the old one. The highlight of the move was moving my entire tack room on the back of a flat bed truck, (courtesy of my incredibly kind feed store people, who volunteered time, truck, and hayloader to get it moved) -- we had a miscommunication about where we were heading, so we took the scenic route from ranch to ranch. I was so wishing I could be sitting on its porch in a rocking chair as we drove in circles around our valley!

It was a great move, to a much better facility that is laid back and open enough that I have been able to explore AND with virtually no editorializing. I am so grateful for this! I don't know if we could have done what we've been doing had I still been in the old place -- the critiques would have been relentless and mean, and it would have been difficult to find the freedom to play lightly under negative scrutiny.

And AND...oh, boy. I joined the forum in April, I think, and feel like my whole world has blown open about what's possible emotionally, physically, and creatively with my horses. I feel like we are just beginning to imagine the possibilities about how we can play with each other, and it feels simultaneously brand new to me and a returning to my most cherished hopes and dreams about horses from my childhood.

This community online has become one of the most important in my life. There is such wisdom, such curiosity, such kindness here, and I feel creatively and intellectually stretched in ways that I haven't found anywhere else. I am thrilled about how international this group is -- it is a special gift to be able to make friends with people all over the world, to catch glimpses of their lives and cultures.

And while we have worlds of experiences to explore yet, I have discovered that empathy, gentleness, and a sense of delight WORKS with horses! Whatever else we ever accomplish (or not! ), this community and conversation has given me the support and courage to explore my beliefs that love and play are legitimate ways to approach my horses and that they respond by loving back. They are happy, curious, bright-eyed, and have decided that people are wonderful playmates.

In the last couple of days, I've had three different people at the ranch tell me (unsolicited) that they just love my horses -- that they are so engaged when people walk by, and want to say hello. I'm thrilled by this! I have seen them wake up with me as we've begun to explore this path, and it makes me very happy to know that they are translating it to their surroundings even when I'm not there.

So thank you, AND'ers! I wish everyone a very merry and joyful holiday season.


Leigh

_________________
"Ours is the portal of hope. Come as you are." -- Rumi
www.imaginalinstitute.com

Good idea

Hmm A year ago...

A year ago we will already on the good path, but far form where we are today. She was in a stable were she could go outside in the summer and when it was dry. There we started wit chase the tiger, and there it worked. That was our first accomplishment I think.

She followed only in trot and we never got much further then that.

Then we moved to another place and we made good progress there. We played in freedom and I rode her with only the cordeo. She didn't run very flexed but it was more to find out how the directions work . She was great. But she was a lot hurt by the other horses so I decided to move again.

Then we found our field. She is very lonely now but I hope it will change in a small 3 months. We didn't get a lot further ever since we got there because of bad weather circumstances.

The greatest thing we have accomplished is really the playing at liberty. I still love those pictures and look a lot at them. I never thougt it would be possible. So it was a good year, it really was.

_________________

I wish I knew your world

This year has been so great

It started with me getting my C* for pony club and finally deciding never to go back. I was hating it and I only rode in the bit once a month while I was there.

Then about April I found this forum and I spent ages just reading stuff then eventually, slowly but surely I have been doing more and more AND stuff and having much more fun with Poppy. I am learning so much about patience and yet I can't beleive how quickly she understands things!! Then I got my sister interested and she has just as much fun with bj.
Then we took their shoes off and got some horse boots and her feet didn't crumble and they are pretty good now and she is comfy now in her paddock even though the ground is quite hard.

I love this forum so much and it has been so great reading through the information here. It is great how supportive and inspirational it is as well as making me think about and question everything I do.

Thank you every one and I wish you all a merry christmas and a happy new year.

I second what my siss said

_________________
*Zoe + BJ*

A year ago, I was in phase that I wanted to change my approach with horses, but how? Spending lots of time on the internet, I sort of ot lost in the amount of information there was and thought this might not be for me. Stick to what you know as I've been doing it for the last 20 years.
At that point I only had Ibran. He was and still is stabled at my aunts place. I've always wanted tried to keep my horses as natural as possible. Lots of turn-out and lots of hay. But my apporach was still "traditional". If I look back to it now, just not realizing what Ibran was trying to say.

Then due to circumstances Piarg crossed my path. ONly 4-years old and already troubled. I brought him home or he was going to be put down. So, me on foot, with a horse that was scared of people and we walked for about 3 hours to get home through the woods. Home he laid down and had a rest. Now, there I was with a horse that was scared of people and even though I had lots of experience with horses I didn't know where to start.

There my journey started. Joining the forum, doing courses on horse behaviour and language. Its all very new and sometimes difficult to set the ego aside. Also people keep asking me; "and when are you riding him". It shocks me that people can be very narrowminded and that for most people the relationship doesn't come first. If we can't ride it, what's the point of having a horse. At first I tried to share what I had learned. I never knew and I thought if I explained what I had learned these people may also change their minds. But unfortunately no. It angers me sometimes and I can't understand that when taking on an animal, that you don't love it, but see it as an objet But I now realise that you can't make people and that I can't change their opinions. They've got to want to change.

So I've still got a very long way to go. Learning and try to keep an open mind. The realtionship with my horse has changed enormously. And although other people might not see a difference (yet), I do. I've learned to pay attention to every little detail, learning to be happy with small (to others insignificant) things. We're on to something and the coming year will be great.

Warm regard and happy holidays to you all.

_________________
The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears. ~Arabian Proverb

- I've moved the topic to the Lifestyle section, otherwise it would drown between all the diaries! -

What a great idea, Barbara, to open this topic!

For me personally 2008 has been a year in which I learned to say 'no'. My problem is that I like doing almost anything and will therefore also say Yes to anything that sounds only remotely interesting. However, in 2008 no more!!!
This year I quit two of the three (wonderful) jobs I was doing, and closed down the business that I was running next to all that. Which when I look back, indeed was a bit too much..
So now I could focus on the best things: the pony's, my boyfriend, the natural dressage book I'm writing, and my great job. So even though it doesn't come naturally to me, saying no really does have it's benefits every now and then.

And suddenly I had time to play with the ponies! As we've been doing AND for over a year and a half now, it feels like the real big changes in what we did were in 2007, but it seemed like this year a lot of pieces of the puzzle gradually clicked together. The best thing for me though is that I've become less and less focused on achieving an exercise. That urge to find out if we could do travers at liberty is gone, and now we can just endlessly experience with it. And that has led to great things this year indeed - I'm actually suprised to think back now and see how much we actually did, as it felt like we did nothing really special! Both Blacky and Sjors mastered the travers and renvers, mainly in walk but Sjors is already nibbling at trot. And he has created himself such a wonderfully chique passage, I really start drooling when he trots like that (and he does that about all the time ). Blacky has shocked the world with his courbette and has a terre a terre and a piaffe that looks a bit more like a piaffe than before, and is now playing with levade. What I like most though is how Blacky is simply starting to collect his trot and canter, something that still was so difficult for him in 2007. And Sjors is just so wonderful whenever we play together. He really has discovered for himself how wonderful it is to move collected, and won't do anything else anymore. Whenever you ask for a trot, it's a collected trot to passage, with inner hindleg stepping under and a beautiful ramener. He has really started to believe in collection. When I look back, it feels like our transition to working at liberty with only rewards this year has really settled in with him, and it's just total bliss to play with him.

And then the forum... I love the fact that now we have green smileys that really fit with our green lay-out! We have grown out of our old account into a bigger size, crossed the 400 members-border, and have Romy and Karen strengthening the team as moderators and even with all of that growing going on, it's still the same super place to be.

And even after 1,5 year I'm still learning tons of what I read over here! I can't really pinpoint everything down, but a very nice example is that because of what somebody suggested over here, I started using trotting poles, jumps and cones in our training again. The ponies just love it and it really helped me to work equally on both sides and to be aware of my bodylanguage. So thanks for that! We made the first AND movies and had the first AND training day in which members went to Bianca and Josepha's place and also came over to meet Blacky and Sjors. It was so interesting to see Romy play with Blacky, and see how positive Blacky responded to that! That really put my brains to work, so I'm planning to drag her over in 2009 again.

And that is only one of the practical help I've had, not to mention all the ideas that have streamed into my head out of this forum, regrouping my thoughts and giving me new insights. That in itself has really helped me in understanding what I'm doing with the ponies (and what I should do differently).

So all I can say, is Thank You All For Such a Wonderful AND Year!

_________________

New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage