Hello everyone!
Well this forum is truly a breath of fresh air!
I have been struggling for some time now, with the strange (going on stranger
) tone of the NHE forum.
I've been saddened by the latest turn of events, the double standards, the zealots... It is such a briliant concept, but it is being drowned by personal agendas.
I have met some great people on the NHE forum (and I'm really excited to see quite a few here!!), so I would lie if I said I didn't learn from it.
But I think, like most here, I have a need for open-minded, objective, constructive discussions and not worry about whether my honesty is going to get me the boot!
I'm also not much of a gospel girl, I need facts to support arguments, not blind faith.
Miriam, I want to thank you for posting this:
Miriam wrote:
All the exercises in the pictures the ponies knew before coming to NHE - except for the travers Blacky shows on one of them. That one we only learned a couple of weeks ago, and that one is inspired by the way of Bent Branderup to teach the travers, it's not in NHE.
We learned all the other exercises from clicker training - a really punishment-free training system where quite a lot of people already were training horses with the clicker towards collection. The ramener, or standing (and moving) with a flexed poll I for example learned years ago from another clicker trainer.
That doesn't mean that we didn't learn anything from being in the School! Well, the ponies only learned two NHE exercises. I taught Sjors the pirouette with on frontleg stretched out - but stopped with that after 1/3 pirouette again because I felt that it put too much strain and torsion on the standing frontleg. And Alexander teaching his horse the back crunch you see on the dvd's inspired me to train that too, but in another way than Alexander does. But as only a few exercises were written down in the School anyway, most of the School lessons come down on following what your horse inspires you to do, so that's what I did.
Really the only one who learned from NHE, was me. It didn't teach me new exercises or collection, but it showed me that what I was dreaming of - collection at liberty - was really possible. And that I just had to follow the pony's, take off the halter and switch it for a cordeo. The second thing I learned was the importance of play and movement to establish collection. Up untill then our exercises had most been worked at in concentraded, slow gaits or halt, and faster movement took place most of all on the lunge-line. Not suprisingly, the ponies weren't really that inspired to speed up or collect. I therefore also couldn't expect them to run around me like crazy, like the horses of Alexander so beautifully do, but instead decided to move myself too - run together. That got the ponies minds awake again. So NHE most of all showed me what was possible, and that I should just follow my feelings instead of thinking that it was all impossible anyway.
That made everything crystal clear for me! I always believed in taking what you like and leaving the rest behind....All the great masters have something to offer, even if their method as a whole isn't the answer.
So anyway, I'm Ingrid!
I'm 33 and grew up in Belgium, then immigrated to the US after highschool. Hoping to move back to Europe soon, for a slightly more "laid back" lifestyle!:lol: I'm thinking Spain?!
I have a lovely, sometimes challenging (for me!), Arabian named "Sky", which I wouldn't trade for anything. Sometimes, the going gets tough, but we also get those really amazing moments....
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