Please explain NH to me.

["Tracey" <tracey@tbt.co.za>]

Hiya, again, Robyn,


>You don't make the horse do anything. You allow him the opportunity to make
a choice. The only way true leadership works is if it's a partnership.>


Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you.....


>For communication to happen, both parties have to be giving and receiving
information to and from each other. The horse can't be looking back up at
the barn or after his friends, and the human can't be thinking about work or
their friends. The two have to be mentally focused on each other and always
focused on what is happening at that moment.>


I agree with you 100%.  For this reason, I think it's important for each
person to look at their horse, and find out how best to communicate.  For PG
and me, it's in the arena, for Toc and me, it's out on the trail.  Neither
is wrong, neither is right : both are right for me and that horse.


>Few people understand how to be the biggest motivation in the horse's life
in a way which brings about partnership. When I say the biggest motivation,
I mean the most important thing for the horse to focus on. We simply draw
his attention. We become the leader, but we do so in a way which creates
both respect and eager responsiveness from the horse. Once we do this, the
horse desires to be with us instead of another horse. Then, the horse might
have enough confidence in us not to flee his fears. He becomes content,
willing to do what we direct. >

I think more people understand it than even they realise, they just don't
trust their instincts enough.


>Roundpen training the way I learned,  is simply just a (tool) or exercise
to teach the horse to focus on the human. Draw his attention. You don't
necessarily need a roundpen --- I have found that it just helps to get their
attention faster being in a smaller enclosure.>

Then by all means, use it.  I have found the opposite.  It may be me, it may
be my horses, but all three of us dislike the round pen (unless we're
lunging, when we reach a healthy tolerance level, get on with it, and then
get out of it!), and switch off each other.  When my horses need "fine
tuning" I do this by going out with them, usually in hand, but sometimes
riding.  Somehow, the communication lines are a bit more open for me, this
way.


As I've said, repeatedly (ad nauseam) round penning might work.  It might
not.


Just as dressage / SJ / endurance / eventing doesn't suit every horse or
rider, nor does each technique of NH.  I never said NH was prima facie wrong
: my argument has been against those who say their methods are the only
correct ones for a given situation.


And the insistence on calling it NH - which might be a semantic debate, but
I'm a bit bored with this thread already, so let's not go there :-)


Tracey