The Art of Natural Dressage

Tom's statement was and is based on something totaly different as you think.... the idea of watch the other and do the opposite is based on this:
If you wanna have opinions about horses and what to do with them and how to do it ...go and ask anyone you want (trainers, books, riders, videos,etc. and if you like ask your Baker too, even by the way that he may be just able to distinct a horse from a cow)...you will have plenty of opinions about what and how to do with horses.
But if you look for facts on horses...go straight to the horse and ask him.

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My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature

www.equinebehaviour.com

Donald, I couldn´t agree more on what you said about asking the horse. Still I don´t understand how this relates to watching someone and doing the opposite? Could you explain that a bit more, please?

I agree in that it's very important that everything a person says about horses always is an interpretation, a personal approach that apparently works for him. For the real answers you can only study your horse.

However, I do believe that you can learn a lot from the interpretations of others. If only because the fact that there are more interpretations shows you that yours is only one of the many just as well - and that keeps you from becoming rigid and seeing your own truth as the only one. And as if that isn't enough, there are actually often still a lot of practical things you can learn from someone else, which might be very useful to your own ideas indeed.

So rather than state that people should do the opposite of what they learn from others, I would just advice them to talk with people, and listen to horses.

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

Hello Werner, very intersting posts and this is really an interesting thread.
When talking about trainers with regard to their interaction with horses, maybe we need to take personal opinions out of the equation and really look at what is going on. i.e what type of reinforcement are they using to achieve their results. If it is a combination of positive punishment, negative punishment and negative reinforcement then that does not interest me because I am interested in a relationship with my horses based on positive reinforcement. Most NH practitioners use plenty of positive punishment and negative reinforcement, (round pen work is just an example) and all conventional training is a combination of that.
Keeping a horse in a stable is ethologically unsound practice. That is not an opinion but a fact. The last thing I want to do is upset anyone who keeps their horse in a stable or critise anyone for it, I did it too. But if we can understand the ideal way of training/keeping/managing horses that is truly based on the nature of the horse then little by little we can get closer to the ideal. And knowing as much as we can about the horse and learning theory allows us to be able to see through a lot of the hype that surrounds so many of the so called gurus. That allows us to say, ok what Parelli (for example) is doing there is positive punishment, thats not for me, but the fact that he has really got people questioning what they do is great.
I do of course have emotions and opinions and was upset to learn of Nevzorovs policy of keeping horses in social isolation, but if we can start with facts before getting emotionally involved then it can avoid knee jerk reactions (need to take my own advice here ) and help us see more clearly what is really happening. And then we can form an opinion. I am not belittling the experiences of poeple who have had a hard time with certain trainers but maybe looking at facts before we get swept away with words can help us avoid falling through the ice in the first place.
All the best
Colette

I read this topic for some days, going to wright here my thoughts, but something allways stops me .
Of course, we discussed last Nevzorovs' ideas at our russians forums. You know now no one in Russia (I mean adults ) perceives Nevzorov as a serious person. He lookes like a joker, but evil joker. Becouse he done more harm then good for some people and horses - and it's not an empty phrase unfortunately.

Nevzorov was well known in Russia long before "Equestrian Encyclopedia" as a journalist, as a master of "black PR" (I don't know how do you call it in English). Crazy man, political gamer, and - of course - gifted person. But his gift is not of the good kind...

NHE-forum has became the Nevzorovs' fan-club when Lidia has given birth to their son. So Alexander managed his forum himself and conflictes begun . We understood then the main idea of the forum is advertising but not anymore. No! His fun too.

Becouse we live in Russia we can see many things very close . Nevzorov is a great spesialist in the turning of ones' brains .

I too have realy resisted posting here, NHE is something I too left behind, but that place is bad, through and through, I hope I don't cause any upset saying this, but the human cruelty in there is terrible. Why do so many feel that feeling of release, and liberation when they come here. These forums produce the very same emotional control on people that humans can do in reality. We do have to be very careful, and when we feel we are in a forum that just doesn't feel right, or we are being made to feel bad, we should just leave, it's not good. But so many stay in there hopeing to be excepted by this supposed amazing horsemen and his clan.

I know it's not easy for the moderators here and the site admin to deal with this thread as no one wants to be seen as putting another forum or training system down. But look at the people who arrive here from NHE, they are so emotionaly screwed up, we should care for them too, people should realise what happens in there, not everyone has the nonse to leave when they should!!

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We never stop learning

Thank you very very much for your post Purpur !

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My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature



www.equinebehaviour.com

People CAN talk about their experiences in NHE, no one will say they cannot. Having a few gentle guidelines to keep in mind does not negate the freedom to express oneself. All anyone is asked is that they choose words carefully.

This exercise alone can help anyone because it means you have to think more carefully about what happened before you put it into public words.

Having to think before I write something helps me be more analytical - not just about NHE, but about myself, what drives me, what makes ME tick, and how I deal with my own emotions. I do not have to say that the NHE forum is an evil place in order to say that it's effect on me was not generally good. But at the same time, good things happened to me there. I was inspired to take a different path. I was inspired to look through a horses' eye. I was inspired to take a harder look at myself - what I was lacking in myself.

The negative experiences there also inspired me though. I learned so much about myself...my weaknesses, my lack of self confidence, my lack of knowledge. It inspired me to be stronger in my own resolve, to trust my own judgment more, and to seek more understanding from a whole history of knowledge.

NHE brought me to AND. THAT alone was the biggest reward for the bit of pain I felt at NHE.

Having to be careful of what one writes is not a bad thing. I causes you to look deeper. I cannot blame NHE for the fact that I am weak. I am weak for a variety of reasons...the NHE forum simply brought the fact to the surface where I was able to recognize it and deal with it. Do I thank them for that? Well, no...I was perfectly happy not knowing how weak I was, but at the same time, I have to acknowledge that without that particular experience, I wouldn't be where I am right now...emotionally and on my present path with my horses.

So to say carte blanche that it is evil or to say,"stay away", or to say that it is not worth the heartache to go and have a look...I can't say that. I can relate my own personal experience, and what others take from what I write is up to them. I tend to want to believe that humans in general are pretty smart and can live through some pretty horrendous things and come shining through the other side of the experience.

I want to tell people to have faith in themselves, and make good use of the experiences in their lives. Think. Think deeper. Think deeper still.

There are far worse things that one human can do to another than to forcibly alter your perception of horse/human interaction. I actually feel like I got off pretty lightly in learning the lesson of who I give my trust to.

So this forum will NOT tell anyone not to relate their own personal feelings about what happened to them. But do so without personal attack on any other person.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Bravo !
makes perfect sense and is an excellent, even brillant idea !
You have to feel pain first before...! only by this way you grow strong...!
Funny, it something that a lot of riding teachers tell aswell..."that you have to smash on the ground [fall of the horse] for several times before you know how to ride".
Only the stronges survive... not the smartest but the strongest !

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My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature



www.equinebehaviour.com

Personally, I advise people to seek ALL knowledge. Not just what I personally find useful or what meager offerings I can give them. It is the universal seeking of knowledge - which would inevitably encompass both good and bad - that sets a person free of any encumbrances the world (or an individual) might place on them. That knowledge will set their imagination free and then has the possibility of enhancing the knowledge of the whole earth.

I would never, ever tell anyone not to seek knowledge of any kind. If it takes a touch on a hot stove to truly understand the meaning of pain, then so be it. One should seek to understand as much as is humanly possible in one lifetime. Both of the world around them, and the depths and mysteries of their own minds.

When you place limits on yourself, or allow others to place limits on you, then you rob yourself of life itself.

Any mistake that you make, that you can survive, has the potential to make you a better person.

What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

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"Ride reverently, as if each step is the axis on which the earth revolves"

Back then, when I joined the NHE forum well over a year ago, it was full of special people. Alexander did not partake really and Lydia was seen very rarely. I did get lots of inspiration from discussing with people on the NHE forum.

Now that place has changed so much and most of those special people, whose posts I did enjoy so much are now here on the AND forum

The NHE forum is not just Nevzorov, many more people have contributed.

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Andrea
http://www.youtube.com/user/FinhorsesAndPinscher
http://basichorsemanship.blogspot.com/

Brent Graef (Texas, USA, NH (sort of) clinician) said this to me about learning from horse people:

He said that regardless of who you are watching - a famous trainer, clinician, maybe some of your friends, watch them with the VOLUME turned off. You focus completely on what is happening and how the horse is reacting. If you like what you see, then turn the volume back up and listen to what they are saying.

He probably got this from one of his mentors - Ronnie Willis, Ray Hunt, Tom Dorrance and the like. I do think it is a great way to gather those gold nuggets that are out there from a great many sources.

I learned and appreciated much from NHE and am still able to pick and choose what I want to recreate in my own situation. I'm not at all sure that I've interpreted the NHE information correctly, but the way I have interpreted some of it has expanded my world with horses in ways I never would have thought possible. So, I go for the gold nuggets and leave the rest!

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Cheryl Jones

When I introduced myself into this forum, I told you how I got involved. When the first posts came in, I deeply regretted to have done so. I understood why it was wrong to point at the bad things instead of elaborating on the good things, not realizing that I contradicted myself.

As I was tempted to withdraw myself immediately, I am glad I was interrupted because as I saw more posts coming in, I realized that I had managed to evoke many deep and necessary postings which most probably wouldn't have been written without my own contribution, although they didn't even fall back on it.

I am deeply impressed about the scope and depth of the thoughts and insights developed here, but there is nothing for me to contribute so far, only to learn. Miriam reminded me in a very beautiful personal message to introduce myself in the appropriate forum, which I have done. This introduction developed into a reflection about my own history with horses, and at the end I discovered (so to say by chance, if you believe in chance) an interesting piece of information stemming from the person who sent me here. Isn't that surprising?

I don't know what you all know already, so maybe you don't know anything about what he told my readers in 2003: :arrow: Doma India (Indian taming) with subtitle "Domar es un acto de amor, sin ninguna duda." (Oscar Scarpati Schmid, "taming is an act of love, without doubt"). If you don't know about that and want me or him to translate the article, I guess you should say so. The pictures, of course, speak for themselves. This is only the first part of a series; the second part is called :arrow: Wohltäter des Pferdes (benefactor of the horse), the third part :arrow: Die Sanftheit des Pferdes (the gentleness of the horse).

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Werner

How interesting, Werner!

Just a quick question, I saw your on-line magazine is called pferdezeitung.com and I read somewhere in your posts that it has been on-line for ten years now - is it possible that this is the same as the pferdezeitung.de magazine?

I've been a member of that for quite a few years actually, and loved the scope of articles that was posted there, both on nh and classical dressage and all kinds of interesting German trainers.

If that is so; then a belated thank you for having inspired me for quite a few years!

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New horse book: Mandala horses!

Never stop making mistakes! Natural Dressage

I remember when you posted your first video it was discussed in the NHE school. People commented on how beautiful your relationship with Cam obviously is. And then some reps noted, that they did not like the message it gave to people on the open forum at all. Being: "Cheryl has such a great relationship with her horse and rides!" They actually felt threatened.

Later they felt somewhat the same about Kirsti's diary, by the way.

One can see that you have an excellent interpretation of the NHE information. It is just what Karen is talking about in this topic, if I understood her correctly.

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Andrea
http://www.youtube.com/user/FinhorsesAndPinscher
http://basichorsemanship.blogspot.com/