Thanks everyone for the support and suggestions!
I ran my first "orientation" workshop for the teachers, parents, supporters yesterday. 25 people in my living room! 75% of the workshop was theory, and no-horse practice, and 25% out with the horses. Felt it was easier to do well that way, with a large group of excited complete newbies, and language difficulties. I stayed up till 3 am the night before, inspired to create a flip-sheet interactive presentation to get them started on examining their preconceptions of what is a horse, and then looking at the realities, matching them together, and then blending that into instruction on safety issues, culminating in a discussion of what our role is in creating safety for the children. It was REAlLY successful!!!! "Oh, you're really a teacher!!"
YES! Funnily enough, I am!
My friends Jacki and Blacki were invaluable in their role, presenting much of the material first hand in chinese for them, and then translating when I felt the need to opine! It's wonderful to have people that I can trust to talk about ways of being and relating and understanding horses, who really understand me, and what we're doing here, so I don't have to agonize over what they're saying, trying to understand with my limited chinese, and jump in and correct misconceptions. HUGE thankyou to Jacki and Blacki for being wonderful horse people, wonderful supporters and wonderful friends!
Re videos!
Leigh, you must watch The Horseboy! Very interesting. I'm told that globally, now, one in 108 children in developed countries are born with some form of autism! We need to find a way of opening our society to them.
I hadn't seen the Camargue film before. I downloaded it and drooled over the beauty! Stunning cinematography!!!!
The story itself is pretty corny, the "horse behaviour" not at all accurate
, and the wild horses often reacting to the camera or chase, so not much "natural" behaviour and movement.. but OOOOOOOOHHHHHH so beautiful! Thanks! This will be watched and rewatched!!
For the kids, I think The Black Stallion is more useful, because, although trained and choreographed, it shows the horse's natural response to humans fairly accurately. This is a good model of how to befriend a horse, imo. And it's so joyous and free! Volker, I watched this movie when I was 13 when it first came out.. (you see, I'm a bit older than you!
) and it connected right in with my own dreams and fantasies. It's never let go of me! Finding this path with my horses again, as an adult, has connected me back to "the boy" in me again.
I've found a perfect video that someone has made of the highlights from part 4 and 5. Thanks!
Romy, I only have ten minutes or so, and my idea is to first introduce children to the horse itself, rather than to what people DO with horses. These are children who do not have horse lore and imagery in their culture, so their reactions to the horses will be very pure, innocent and fresh. I'm very interested to find out what comes from them, without too much input. Particularly because of the unique way that many autistic people have of connecting with animals directly, their emotions and thoughts. I'm making an exception with the "the boy" in the black stallion, because it shows the boy and horse responding naturally to each other, in freedom, rather than prescribed actions we do with a horse, like leading, (even when that leading is so free and beautiful as shown in your suggestion.) (well that's my excuse anyway!
)
Later, if the same children come back for future sessions, I will probably begin to introduce them to images of what other people do with horses.
Inge, your movie gave me a great laugh! I hadn't seen this before! Great stuff! I won't show it to the children, but I did show it to the teachers etc, because they also had the idea of letting the children make "hobby horses" on the first day, that the children can "ride" and play with. Their 'artists in residence" are thinking now of using noodles for that project. Thanks! Very timely!
I chose two more movies to suggest to the teachers for the children to watch.
One is clips from "The Silver Brumby" movie. (Once again, something from my childhood.. I'd read the whole series by the time I was nine I think!
Before I had a horse. These books were all told from the wild horse's perspective. Funny remembering back now, and realizing that these were the things that helped to shape me. Seems I owe thanks to some people!
The Brumby clip, I've just chosen for it's excellent filming of horses, being horses, in the wild. Lots of great movement, walking, trotting, cantering, jumping, doing family things, quite unaware of the camera on them.
And finally, because it's a dance school, this little bit from Appassionata.
When I watched this closely, I could see the huge smile on the dancer's face, reciprocated in the horse. And three distinct ways of achieving movement with horses. There is some straight out R+ Carrot work in there, which the horse responds to in typical CT form. There is some "natural horsemanship" type directed movement, where she uses her flower wand very subtly to direct him (but he seems to be responding to very joyously, as if he's been CT trained, not forced.) and there is some "play" where the horse is encouraged to express himself very freely in chase and mock attack. Pretty cool. All fairly subtle.
black stallion deluxe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Vfkz_DzdsBrumbys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpQ-bCWL9IQAppassionata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-CGESdnm0kI also showed the teachers some interactions with horses.
I showed them this one of Robin Gates (Carolyn Resnick protege)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQV6HwnO ... r_embeddedAnd interestingly they didn't like it. Said it looked too controlled. Didn't like the look of the long stick and rope. They felt that the horses response was motivated by threat. These are not "horse people" ... most have never touched a live horse.
However, they did like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KxTVcJ8jdMAnd they loved this old clip of our very own Claire, playing with Brodie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5XFEIzftJUThanks everyone, I'll let you know how the "camps" go.
_________________
I have not sought the horse of bits, bridles, saddles and shackles,
But the horse of the wind, the horse of freedom, the horse of the dream. [Robert Vavra]