The Art of Natural Dressage

Yay!!! Looking forward to it!

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

I do recognise the thought: I do not have to explain what I do or why, or anything at all really, because there is the AND forum.
But somehow that just is no answer for most of the interested people. People like ready made answers like video's and books or an online school.
And indeed why should they not? Not everyone is a forum person or finds what they need in such a vast environment, especially when one often does not have a clear concept of what one is looking for...

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www.equusuniversalis.com

Ever so often the thought comes that the knowledge accumulated here and the insights that were gained in the diaries should be collected for future reference. As we already see now, members come and go and new members will not be able to read through all the pages of the diaries of members who are not active anymore.
There will be members hopefully like Romy who help carry the wisdom over to new members, but something will be lost over time. Or evolve, or rewritten, or just added...

On the other hand, what so especially nice about this forum is that there is no written set of guidelines. Instead everything is in progress and every member has the chance of discovering the grandness that lies behind the general philosophy by himself. I know I did and I'm forever grateful for that. If I came here and had studied a given set of rules and exercises, I would have done everything quite differently, I guess.

I'm quite torn between wanting a well structured and organised reference on the one side, and open minded work in progress with all its group dynamics on the other. Maybe we can somehow have the best of both worlds?

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

You have so much insight and so much to offer and have been generous in your comments and help to others as well as teaching through your diaries.
Even so, write the book firstly for yourself, teaching others does make one clarify. It is fine if you "tell" others what you believe is in the horse and trainers best interests.
Most of us read widely and refer to a variety of equine text books, so may draw from The Horses Mind by Lucy Rees, books by Mark Rashid or Hemphling, or Susan McBane or Prof William Youatt etc. we may not adopt everything one author suggests and will probably devise programmes for an individual horse or our own individual abilities and available time which alter throughout life.
Enjoy the experience.xx

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Susie xx
http://www.flickr.com/photos/piepony/

A very belated thanks to you, Volker, Josepha and Susie!

So now two years after starting to talk about it, and one year after the last posts in this topic, it turns out that I am actually doing it... partly thanks to Volker and Anna who convinced me when they still said they would be interested despite knowing me and my work with horses.

I don't have a lot of time to spend on it, but for the first time I am working on it consistently, a little bit each time. If I continue in this way, it will take another two years until the first version will be ready, but that's just the way it is.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you whether there are certain topics that you would find particularly interesting. It will be a practical book, more about explaining how to actually do things and only a little bit of philosophical background, but at the same time I do not want it to be a cook book. But as at this point I am in the very early stages of it and a lot can be changed still, it would be nice if you could tell me what you would like me to put more emphasis on, or what you think is not necessary or boring.

I will post a preliminary table of contents soon, but at the moment it still is changing a lot.

Yay!!!

If I may brainstorm for topics incoherently:
leading, grazing, synchronising movements, hind- and forequarter movements, drawing and yielding, politeness/attentiveness, raising/lowering energy, combining movements, R+ for humans, soft focus, different meanings of food rewards

I think it's a good idea to go practical, as I believe that the underlying philosophy will shine through anyways.

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Thank you so much! Some of the things you mentioned are in there already (although at this point only as posts copied from the forum, which I have to rewrite properly), but some I did not think of yet, for example grazing or combining movements.

But also for the things I have written or planned already, your list gives me some new ideas. For example, I guess I never really thought about raising/lowering energy but just about energy variations. You are totally right though, thinking of it as a fluent process that is constantly shaped by the horse's feedback will bring very interesting new aspects into it.

I am not so sure about things like the different meanings of food rewards. They belong to my interaction with horses, but they are not that much about body language. So I feel I cannot leave them out but also don't know yet how I can include them and still tell a coherent story. For now I have placed these things into some sort of introductory first chapter, but I guess I have some more thinking to do before I will find the right mix or balance.

So here is the current table of contents. The chapter names will most certainly change several more times, it's just to give you a coarse overview of the topics that will be covered.


1. Introduction
1.1. The goal: Entrepreneur horses
1.2. Put into practice: Working with the horse’s initiative
1.3. Initiative and a horse who reacts: A paradox?

2. Technical aspects – Moving your body
2.1. Applying body language in an understandable way
2.2. How to actually do it
2.2.1. What is a body language cue?
2.2.2. Relevant body parts and movement parameters
2.2.3. Moving together – the joint aspects of body language
2.2.4. Developing a joint language

3. Applying body language in everyday situations
3.1. Cueing for exercises and movements
3.2. Encouraging politeness
3.3. Walking positions and their variation
3.4. Playing wild games
3.5. Going for walks
3.6. Dealing with difficult behaviours
3.6.1. Aggression and dangerous behaviour
3.6.2. Impatience and overenthusiastic horses
3.6.3. Slow and sleepy horses
3.6.4. Scared horses

...3.6.5 Scared humans

Sounds like a bestseller to me . No, honestly, I really like the table of contents! Excellent!

BTW, do you write it in German, or English?

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Volker

The horse owes us nothing.

Good idea! I was intending to write something about human emotions in 2.1., in the context of discussing why body language is automatically understandable and to what degree it is universal. There I also wanted to write about all these body and mind interaction things, say that body language reflects the human's state of mind and explain why this is a good thing actually, and in what way you would have to work on that, if necessary (that is, by working on the mental part instead of just trying to fix the body). But perhaps it should have its own chapter... I'll think about it, thanks!

Volker, thank you! I am writing in English. I had thought about writing it in German for a while, but then I did not get to know many German horse people who are like you or have similar interests to those of many peolpe here in the forum. And I absolutely do not want it to be a book that is adjusted to the interests of people who think I am thinking too much. Would bore me to death to write it.

I would love a book like that.
And concerning your food rewards/no food rewards, you can always explain in the biginning thats the way you have a conversation with your horse, and that the reader can do it without food, or with, depending where they are comfortable with.

I would definitely buy your book, or print it out to add it to my growing collection.

I just found this thread right now. Romy, a book would be great, I would definetely read it!
I'm so inspired and fascinated by your posts and pictures. I think I never got to know a person with such a great and special bodylanguage and association with horses. I'm sure that there are a lot of people around the world who would be interested in this book!

Nice post....

I would definetely be interested...