As a child getting bucked off happened every time I rode my horse. My mum bought me a book, "why does my horse...?" insert problem behaviour here and the question has plagued me ever since. In todays episode Sarah and I talk about my 20 year trip down the rabbit hole over this question and how the way we deal with this question continues to evolve in our holistic horse handling program. If you have ever ask "why does my horse...?" make sure you listen to this episode as we dig in to some of our foundational skills on creating happy, consenting, willing horses that enjoy learning and ask to be ridden. Love this episode and need to know more? Register for our holistic horse handling program here, opening again soon.
There are so many things that come up for us when working with our horses that make us feel unsure, unsafe, doubt whether we are good enough, or if we ever can be good enough. In this episode we go through these conversations and more with Sarah and how she navigates her own personal battles with this as an amateur rider. Check out our holistic horse handling program, expand your tool kit and become the trainer you've always dreamt you could be
How well do you think your relationship is going with your horse? I recently got back in to playing pokemon go and it reminded me of some super simple foundational skills of building rapport and connection with our horses. Check out this episode for some basic exercises to build better relationships with your horse if it feels like there's a bit of a disconnect. What are you doing with your horse to keep the quality of relationship strong and fresh? Keep the conversation going over in our stronger bond community. Click here to join
How can we be empathic towards are horses without making behaviours worse? In this podcast I go a little in to how I trouble shoot whether I'm assigning an unrelatable human experience to the behaviour my horse is showing or is there foundation here for what they might be feeling that needs to be addressed and supported. Just saying we can't assign human experiences means we can't show empathy for how our horse might be processing their experience. So it's a balancing act. And this is how I balance. If you want the work done for you so you don't have to figure it out, reach out to us. Our holistic horse handling program is going to be opening for enrolments April 14. You can check it out here. Lets keep the conversation over in the stronger bond community. What behaviours may you be anthropomorphising?
Join us in this episode as we chat to one of our stable hands Madie. Madie has had a crash course at the barn ready to take on the her competition career we thought it best she got thrown in the deep end and learnt how to swim. With only a year of riding weekly and working with horses under her belt we learnt that she had some very helpful transferable skills for dealing with challenges at the barn and improving her balance and riding quickly. I love transferrable skills. Having a reference point from to learn something new brings so much more depth, scope and colour to our foundations and the skills we already have been working hard to master. Jump over to the stronger bond community and keep the conversation going. What transferrable skills did you have that helped you learn how to ride or that you have from riding that has helped you with other things? https://www.facebook.com/groups/5dayimprovehorserelationship
Set aside some time to do some paddock chores and listen to this on because it is LONG! One of my stable hands Monique and I chat about her experience with her aggressive to the point of dangerous horse when she first got him and her experience working together with him as well as herd integration, working with a herd and how you know if your passion for horses is still alive and well. You can follow Monique and her dog training on her instagram page: Sit pretty training
Join us in this podcast as I share the experience of how I've seen pressure used in the industry evolve over the last 30 years. I am so happy to see the progress we are making in how we can more positively engage with and train our horses and look forward to keeping up with the research to see how it continues to evolve. Want to join the conversation? Jump over to our stronger bond community and share your experience with how we continue to evolve in training horses here.
Join us for this loaded question!!! Does your horse respect you? We would love you to continue this conversation with us in the stronger bond community. Come join us in the stronger bond community
Connection in the saddle is through our body. We need to make sure we are balanced and secure in the saddle and allowing our horse to travel. Connection and control don't work well together. Do you feel safe to let go of your horses mouth? Can you drop the bit walk, trot and canter and still tell the horse what you want? This is where connection in the saddle is. We want to smoothly move from no contact to in to contact and back again without interfering with our horses posture or balance. Check out our free stop drilling 20m circles training here Apply for our ridden membership here Check out some youtube trainings for a visual for these conversations: - Posture stacking for balance in the saddle - Hands our horse can trust - Communication with a young arab mare in on backing
In this episode we are taking our connection work from the ground and transferring it to the saddle. There are 2 big foundational skills that I work on with my students that are often skipped, especially in the riding school environment, that could be holding you back. If you started at a riding school you might need to revisit your foundations and see if these are gaps in your training Check out our free position training here Check out ready to ride physio here. Louise uploads a free pilates for equestrians training every week. Each training is only around 10 minutes and totally doable as a warm up before riding or mini daily work out session. Apply for our ridden membership trainings here
When we give the horses the power of consent and choice we unlock their true nature. This is what psychological safety is. We're not seeing the version of the horse that is scared and fears humans, fears for its life and fears threats in its environment. We're not seeing the version of the horse that is tense and braced because it lacks faith, trust and confidence in us. We're seeing the version of the horse that feels so safe around us they are prepared to bring down their boundaries, walls and armour and be vulnerable with us. What could your horses potential have been before life and humans happened to them? How can we unpack that armour and rewire psychological safety and vulnerability in to their learnt behaviours? There is a little caveat with choice and consent, once we give our horses a voice, we don't always like to hear what they have to say. Feel free to reach out if you need support. You can contact us via email here Want to see our consent and choice training in action? Check it out here Want to check out our membership training trainability? Start today here
Thanks for joining us for our connection series. Today we are talking about being a leader worth following. Does your horse look to you to take the lead? Do they have faith, trust and confidence in you and your skills to follow your lead? This has a lot to do with how we can strategically and intentionally structure our training sessions so that the horses build more confidence in us and themselves by creating small achievable challenges with an immense sense of satisfaction and reward on completion. If you feel like your training sessions are lacking organisation and purpose. If you go in to your training session asking what are we going to do today? If you're feeling lost in what you are trying to achieve in your training environment with your horse check out our membership where we help you strategically plan your training out with your horse in small bite size pieces to work towards your big goal. You can find the membership here Get the youtube training here Register for the free connection course here
In this episode we are learning about building relationships and communication with communication buttons. The two buttons in use are hugs and scratches and there are a couple of skill sets required. Do you know where your horse likes to be scratched? Do you know how your horse likes to be cuddled? Do you have a heart felt embrace you can ask your horse for and they can ask you for? We are in to week 3 of our connection series on the first do no harm podcast in which we are learning about what I call "the softening". Does your horse melt in to your touch or do they stand with tension and brace against it? If you have a horse that holds tension against your touch on the ground they will inevitably brace against you in the saddle. Softening and allowing them in to you and you in to them is part of relaxation and swing under saddle as well as connection based and holistic horse training Join our holistic horse training membership here Join our free connection course here Enjoying what you're learning and how your horse is responding? Join the stronger bond community and share your experiences here Get the training with the communication buttons here Get the training with the softening when backing a young arab mare here
Join us for episode 2 of our connection series where we share our second top tip for discovering how with you your horse is! Part of having a safe horse that wants to look after you is relaxation and our horses are super good at show us active signs of relaxation and tension. When working with our horses we want our horses to feel safe to relax and have a sleep with us. That means not only do they trust us and not see us as a threat but they also trust us to stand guard while we sleep. Join the stronger bond community where we are continuing this conversation here Get the free connection training here Join training trainability here Get the accompanying Youtube training of relaxation cues both on the ground and under saddle here
Join us over the next 8 episodes of our connection based training series as we become powerfully connected equestrians that don't feel conflicted about the tools that we us because we understand what our horses are trying to communicate when they don't respond to our aids the way we asked. In this episode we are sharing with you one of our first key identifiers for whether or not our horse is with us, eye contact! As humans, we kind of suck at reading body language. We have so heavily leaned in to using verbal communication with each other that we have lost the art of non verbal communication. This is what we learn from our horses. The number 1 way to recognise if your horse is with you and connected and consenting or if they're starting to feel uncomfortable with what you're asking them to do is their eye contact. This is one of the first places you are going to see your horse showing discomfort about the way you are trying to communicate with them and what you're trying to ask of them. Join our free online connection training here Join our membership training trainability here Watch the Youtube training here
The term connection is fast becoming a trending word within the industry but have you truly experienced it? Experiencing a word gives you a deeper meaning and understanding of what is trying to be communicated. In this episode I'm going to share with you some experiences that you may have had this quality of connection and what we are looking for in our horse to see if that connection is thriving or if there is a disconnect. Join us over the next 8 weeks for 8 exercises to implement to start building a deeper connection with your horse. You can get our free connection training here. Want to learn the process for how to incorporate connection and quality of relationship in your training? Sign up to training trainability here
This is one from the archives in our stronger bond facebook community and we have a bunch more there!!! Join the group here Get our free connection training here Join training trainability and start developing a stronger bond and a deeper connection with your horse through holistic horsemanship so that your horse enjoys learning and asks to be ridden here
Join us in this discussion as we break down the elements of riding well and not just creating an aesthetically pleasing picture. We discuss all types of topics like breaking through training blocks, how to use your body when your horse bolts or bucks and how to be less of a burden on your horses back in general. Check out Louises YouTube channel and run through her Pilates trainings here Want to work with Louise? You can contact her here Follow along on Instagram here Check out my training with stacking your posture on bricks on our youtube channel here
If your riding at the moment feels like pushing shit up hill in a leaky wheelbarrow chances are you are getting frustrated, pushing yourself harder, possibly close to burn out, wondering if you are every going to be good enough. In this episode I share with you the work I do with my students when they come to me feeling stuck and why pushing harder will only get you more stuck down the track. This is also the work I do with my beginner and intermediate students that prevents them from getting stuck where most riders get stuck and has them smashing road blocks without even knowing most people get stuck and frustrated at these points. Grab the Youtube training here: I guarantee this video will improve your position in the saddle
Join us as we talk to Jane about working with different practitioners and modalities to support and correct problem behaviours and optimise athletic potential. Jane's particular love is essential oils for emotional support that help us do our emotional self regulation, resilience and agility work. I share with you how Jane has helped us with a feisty little mare that is really good at biting, girthy and does occassionally take the bolt and buck for fun. You can find Jane at Evoke Aromatics.