Horse Dance Horsemanship & Training

04/22/2024

Happy Earth Day - Kiss a Worm!

Me, I am one of those folks who worship the Creator more than His creation.

Book of Romans 1:25

04/05/2024

Reward the slightest try . . .

02/27/2024

Amazing painting being created by my friend.

02/12/2024

The essence of Horsemanship . . .

Imagine for a moment that the Horse knows more about being a Horse than you do.

Then what . . .?

It's not about the human, it's always about the Horse.

Start there, and it will become a relationship.

Don't start there, and it's a wreck in the making, or a ruined equine soul.

11/12/2023

Now accepting applicants for Spring of 2024

Note: Also offering an internship for the Spring of 2024. This individual would learn everything that I know, ride my horses, and eventually take over the training. This position would be a partial paid position as I would pay for the additional exercise being provided to my horses.

If interested in the internship, please contact at: [email protected] and provide a description of your Horsemanship experiences.

11/02/2023

It has been said that the Horse has 3 eyes.

There are practical and metaphysical (Spiritual) applications to this truth.

It begins with observation:

When a Horse has its head down the eyes are microscopic, seeing images very close up, and while there has very little peripheral vision.

When a Horse's head is centered and even with its body, its peripheral vision is dominate and that is approximately 340 degrees. (Hence the ability to execute expert level cow kick marksmanship.) Hahaha

When the Horse holds its head upwards (slightly or exaggerated), the long-distance vision focus is predominantly engaged, (telescopic vision.)

IMPORTANT - Keep in mind that there is a significant time delay in the Horses ability to re-focus its lenses when confronted with a new situation at any given time. This is when the shift into flight mode will be at its most pronounced.

Understanding these simple facts will completely change your understanding (and reaction to) how the Horse reacts to you in any given moment.

Practically speaking, these facts should dominate our every interaction with the Horse both on the ground and in the saddle.

As Tom Dorrance said over and over again, "observation" is key. Because observation leads to understanding and understanding leads to empathy and ultimately to the enhancement of our "approach."

This truth should be allowed to affect every aspect of our lives, and interpersonal interactions. Hence Buck Brannaman's quote, "Horses and Life, it's all the same to me."

On a Spiritual level, the mere fact that the Horse can see on so many levels and so much better than we can, should at the very least open us up to the possibility that the Horses Spirit and "Presence" needs to be approached on the Horses terms ("Language.")

Everything about the Horse forces the Human to "Slow Down." It's the first step towards understanding, and the gateway to learning how to Live in the Moment.

Whether one chooses to believe in a spiritual connection between human and horse is an individual preference. Certainly, it’s possible to achieve a high level of horsemanship and riding ability without it.

I have found that once I allowed myself to accept the possibility that the invisible connected consciousness, I felt between me and my horses was real, our relationships improved, it went to a deeper level, and perhaps most importantly, I became more humble and more teachable.

For me, that is more than enough.

12/12/2022

Mechanics aren't Heart & Technique's ain't Soul.

The Lessons are in the Eye's.

Eternal and Forgiving.

It's the Essence of the Soft Feel.

With the Horse & Life...

12/03/2022

Just Married again!

10/11/2022

Traditions -

Horsemanship is not about "Tradition" absent an "In the Moment" connection with each individual Horse.

"Tradition" is essentially the handing down of information, customs, and beliefs.

All traditions have their roots in a Visionary.

If you miss what the Visionary was inspired by and only embrace the information and customs, you have already missed the boat entirely.

If you try to grasp the beliefs absent any understanding that they were grounded in the "Present" at that time;

And you miss the truth that those same beliefs will grow and produce new iterations of fruit in your "Present,"

Then you have missed it again.

Horses are living souls, created by God and mentioned many times in His Word as examples to us.

If you think for one second that they deserve anything less that your best efforts at transparency and humility in the "Moment,"

And that if you look the part, use the same equipment, train in the exact same way, and talk the same talk;

Absent any deep commitment to learn how to listen to, hear and grasp your equines Spirit, as manifested in his or her expressions;

Get a pet rock.

10/03/2022

You can move from the inside of the Horse out, or you can move from the outside of the Horse out.

You cannot substitute mechanics for heart, nor techniques for feel.

It's not about equipment, or your masterey thereof,

It's Soul Connections in the Moment. Nothing else, ever.

09/10/2022

David Landerville: A modern master.

09/06/2022

My teaching communication process follows this progression. In descending order starting with the end of the journey: (i.e.) Thoughts.

Before each exercise, we get centered and are ideally sitting ba****ck upon our equine partners.

Try and empty your mind of everything else and form a single clear thought towards the direction of travel. We are looking for the slightest sensation of release.

Eyes in sockets (closed) move towards the direction of travel. We are looking for the slightest sensation of release.

Eyes in sockets (opened) move towards the direction of travel. We are looking for the slightest sensation of release.

Head slowly turning towards the direction of travel. (Stop turning at the first sense of movement.) That becomes the baseline.

Shoulder turning slowly towards the direction of travel. (Stop turning at the first sense of movement.) That becomes the baseline.)

Belly Button turning slowly towards the direction of travel. (Stop turning at the first sense of movement.) That becomes the baseline.)

Legs Pressure towards the direction & Leg release away from the direction of travel. (Experiment with the least amount of pressure that will get the first impression of release / movement.)

Reins are last, and an entirely different set of studies.

09/04/2022

Now accepting applicants for Spring of 2023.

Please contact at: [email protected]

09/04/2022

Mowing, digging dirt, dragging pastures, and riding my Remuda.

This song is my head today.

I am thinking about all the "famous" folks that learned a thing or two from Tom and Bill Dorrance or Ray Hunt, who now describe themselves as "Legends."

What the masters taught came from and ended up with humility as reflected by the Soul of the Horse.

The human needs to get the hell out of the way and offer the horse the opportunity to embrace.
Not the other way around.

It has always been, and will always be, about a half perfect human trying to communicate with a perfect horse.

Even the naughty horses learned how to outsmart the human from a human somewhere down the line.

Humility is the key, listening with your heart is the door.

I don't care what you know from a technical perspective, if you have lost your humility, your ego will influence your approach, and damage the soul of the Horse.

How can YOU be a "Legend" if you can't even perfectly replicate the truths from the Master's who tried to teach you?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjy6EuMPGA&feature=youtu.be

The official music video for “Famous In A Small Town” by Miranda Lambert. Purchase/Stream Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: http://smarturl.it/CrazyExGirlfriend?IQid=yout...

08/30/2022

I am a lot like my first wild horse, a mistreated Mustang.

He was very opinionated and willful. He had a hard past and was worthless as far as everyone thought. But he and I bonded because so called losers like us are always underestimated.

Together we overcame and bonded deeply. He was my best horse and best friend. Today I live every day with the hope that I can honor him with my heart, steadfastness and Horsemanship.

I called him Dante'. I miss him every day.

08/24/2022

A Rose by any other name.

Once you have met the Creator you will begin to realize that even Chaos is design not bound by time.

God's artistry is endless, and overwhelming in perfection and beauty.

Who else could frame it all in the eye's of a Horse?

08/22/2022

The older I get, the more I listen, the more I hear, and the more I appreciate the wisdom that only reveals itself in kindness.

08/20/2022

The thing about the Horse is that they live in the "Moment."

Liars can't exist in that space. Because Liars need to justify their actions, good, bad, or indifferent".

To become true Horseman or Horsewoman, you need to empty yourself of you, and be willing to hear what the horse has to say.

Not with words, not with movement, but with "Presence."

To be present is a difficult journey for the human. Yet if you truly want to join up, you will need to leave yourself at the gate, and enter with an open heart, spirit and mind.

The Horse will pick up the slack and meet you in the middle.

Giddy.

08/20/2022

Another fine writing by Ross Jacob's of Good Horsemanship

TIMING OF RELEASE OF PRESSURE

We all know that horses learn from the release of pressure. Pressure is applied to motivate a horse to search for a response and when the horse offers the response we want we remove the pressure as a reward to indicate he did the right thing. If we repeat this enough times the horse learns how to respond to the pressure.

We all know this.

If I have said it once I have said it a thousand times that the response we should be looking for and releasing for is a change of thought in the horse. When we ask a horse to do something, it can only learn from this IF it changes its idea from the thing it was doing to the thing we are using the pressure to convince it to do. Without a change of thought, a horse has learned nothing worthwhile.

If we want a horse to turn left when we apply pressure we should only release the pressure when the horse is thinking to the left and not just because it moves to the left. There is no point releasing when the horse moves to the left IF it is still thinking to the right because it will instill resistance and crookedness in the way the horse responds.

We must always wait for a change of thought before releasing the pressure.

If you don’t understand this concept you won’t understand the rest of this essay. So please give it some serious thought.

Let's now talk about the timing of the release.

Most of us are taught that the moment a horse responds in the way you want it to the pressure should be removed. This is to mark the moment the horse did the right thing and it will learn from this what the right thing was. There is a widely held belief that the sooner we release the pressure when a horse offers the right response, the clearer it will be to the horse.

I’m going to ask you to rethink this bit of wisdom.

I don’t believe it is necessarily true that the pressure needs to be released the instant the horse does what we want.

Here is why.

The release of pressure rewards a horse for the thought that occupies its mind at that moment. For instance, if you ask a horse to back up and it moves back while it is thinking to bear down heavily on the rein, releasing the pressure at that time will teach the horse that backing up with resistance is its best option and the right thing to do. Instead of releasing because the horse moved back, we should release because the horse thought back.

But it is even a little more complicated than that.

A horse learns that the idea that occupies its mind at the moment we release the pressure is its most comfortable choice. Therefore, we can release the pressure at any time as long as the idea we want the horse to have is at the forefront of its mind. In other words, we don’t have to release the pressure the instant the horse has a change of thought. We only have to release the pressure while the horse holds onto the thought we want.

For example, if we ask a horse to turn left by applying the left rein and he then thinks to the left as his feet move to the left we have from that moment to however long it is before another thought enters his mind to release for him to associate the release of pressure with thinking and turning to the left.

If the idea to turn left lasts 1/10th of a second, we have a 1/10th of a second to release the pressure. But if it lasts 10 seconds or 10 minutes or 10 weeks we have 10 seconds, or 10 minutes or 10 weeks to release the pressure before we have missed the chance for the horse to learn from the relaxation of the left rein.

As long as we release the pressure within the time the horse has the same thought we want him to have, we are okay with our timing.

There is a reason why I want you to think about this.

It’s because when you are working at releasing the pressure the instant a horse gives to the pressure, it tends to encourage most people to release the pressure abruptly. To avoid being late with their release, most people suddenly drop the feel of the pressure in a flash. This can often surprise a horse and even worry them.

We should never be abrupt or sudden in the way we either apply pressure or release pressure. We should always be working to be smooth to avoid adding another layer of worry to the horse. So realizing that we have as much time to release the pressure as the horse holds onto the new thought we want him to have, takes the need for us to release the pressure abruptly which avoids adding more anxiety and thereby helps the horse associate the release of pressure with the thought we want it to have.

08/20/2022

I did not pen this, but I agree with every word. - Written by Ross Jacobs an Australian Horseman.

I want to say something about a subject I have been tempted to write about for a long time but feel a little fearful opening the conversation. I know this is going to cause considerable anger among some of you. However, it needs to be said irrespective of whom it offends or upsets.

In recent years there has been a growing public backlash against some of the less attractive aspects of the horse world.
For example, the horse-loving public has begun to rage against some extreme practices used in various horse competitions. In the Tennessee Walker world, the use of soring of legs and weighted shoes has rightly caused outrage.

Similarly, in the world of dressage, the public has been very vocal against the practice of hyperflexion or rolkur, where a horse’s neck is vertically over bent to induce submission and suppleness. There have been numerous articles published in prestigious dressage magazines and petitions to the Fédération Equestrian International demanding the practice be stopped. The three-day eventers have done away with the roads and tracks section of the competition.

In the horsemanship and clinic world, we have our own practices, some of which in my view should no longer be a part of our community. I am speaking about commercial c**t starting clinics and competitions, a classic example of which would be the "Road to the Horse" events.

It is time this practice was re-examined, and its ethics questioned in the light of what is best for the horses. I believe a good argument can be made that the c**t starting clinics contradicts one of the most important principles of good horsemanship, i.e., take the time it takes.

Before you burn an effigy of me and come to my home with pitchforks in hand, let me explain.

C**t starting clinics grew out of the practice of starting horses on commercial ranches (in the USA) or stations (in Australia) in just a few days. On a ranch, there was an economic necessity to take as short a time as possible to get a horse ride-able enough to perform the barebones of ranch work.

Then they would continue their education every day while on the job. Ranchers needed their horses to start in just a few days instead of a few weeks because they could not afford to have horses and labor tied up training horses for exceptionally long. It was an economic decision, not a decision based on what was best for the horses.

However, people that started those horses also worked with them every day while on the job. The process of turning those horses into good riding horses continued for days, weeks and months after they were ready to accept a rider.

Yet, at commercial c**t starting clinics, most riders are weekend or amateur riders who can only work with their horse as time allows between their real life and their jobs. They are not professional horse people who can work with the horse daily and carry on just where the clinic left off.

I know some of you who have started your horses at clinics run by your favorite guru will be screaming at your computer displays that the c**t starting clinic was the best experience of your life and your horse is brilliant because of it. But I bet nobody can claim that either their horse or themselves would not have been better served by spending a few weeks with a good trainer.

Nobody really believes they can do just as excellent a job of starting a horse in 4 days than they can in 4 weeks. These days almost no trainer would spend only 3 or 4 days breaking in their own horse and then claim it was even close to being ready for the average rider. Yet, people pay large sums of money to take their horse to a c**t starting clinic and pretend there is something more valuable to be gained from it by horse and rider than 4 weeks work with a good trainer.

If a person and their horse went to a trainer for starting and after 4 days the trainer said the horse was ready for them to take home and ride and it cost them $800-$1000, they would be furious. And they should be. Yet, they still go to c**t starting clinics where they are only 1 out of a dozen or more participants and receive almost no individual attention.

I am not so concerned about people choosing to spend their time and money with c**t starting clinics. That is their business. But I am concerned about the damage I see done to their horses at such clinics. Starting clinics at C**t are more about the people and getting a horse to be obedient. They have extraordinarily little to do with good horsemanship or what is best for the horses.

I have attended many commercial c**t starting clinics, including those run by the most talented and revered clinicians in the industry. Yet almost never did I see horses that were ready to go home and be ridden by their owners with a good understanding of the basics at the end. Virtually all of them would require going back and filling in the holes left by the hurried job. They were sneaking rides on a confused and uneducated horse.

I believe the two most stressful experiences a horse undergoes in life are weaning and starting under saddle. Both are life-changing for a horse and require a massive shift in their view of how to get along in the world. Yet, it is the nature of c**t starting clinics that horses are pushed very quickly to make that shift. They are not given the time and repetition to understand and absorb each lesson that would enable them to feel okay inside. Instead, starting horses in 3 or 4 days exploits the submissive nature of a horse that allows people to forcefully impose their will.

Most of the training seen at commercial c**t starting clinics involves a reliance on flooding techniques. I do not care who you want to name, every single trainer who starts a bunch of horses in 3 or 4 days for the public, overwhelms horses by flooding them with pressure. It is universal and the only way to get a horse so submissive in such a brief time. Instead of a horse learning and understanding what is happening and feeling comfortable with the process, it learns the futility of arguing and gives up. Commercial C**t starting clinics exploit the amazing nature of horses to want to get along.

Commercial C**t starting clinics may benefit people, but it costs horses.

In addition, there is the safety factor to be considered. If you have ever ridden or watched a c**t starting clinic, you will have witnessed a dozen or more stressed horses loose in a round yard. You will have seen people getting bucked off or nearly bucked off and horses running into each other, kicking at each other, etc. When there are several horses in a round yard together and one breaks loose, there is sure to be an elevated level of danger for horses and humans.

The bottom line is that today’s commercial c**t starting clinics are a bad idea – full stop. Attempting to start a horse in a few days had been a purpose on a commercial ranch, but there is no need for it for the average rider who can take things at a pace that best suits the horse. Trainers are always saying, “take the time it takes.”

It is up to owners to stop enrolling in these clinics. If people cared more about their horse than they do about the prestige of saying they rode with their favorite c**t starting supremo, they would stop this abusive form of horsemanship by refusing to attend them any longer.

03/11/2021

Our Focus

At Horse Dance our focus is upon working with individuals who desire to refine their Horsemanship skills. We seek students who already possess a basic set of abilities under saddle, and wish to grow in the following areas:

1) A deeper understanding of the criticality and practical application of Timing, Pressure and Release.

2) Enhancing their ability to communicate under saddle using the principals contained in the sequence of Eyes, Bellybuttons, Leg’s, then Reins.

Our Program

Our program begins each year on the first Saturday in June and ends on the last Saturday in September. We train every other Saturday, with each session lasting 2 hours.

The first 2 months we spend the full session in the round-pen and arena riding my horses.

The last 2 months we will spend 1 hour in the arena and 1 hour out in the National Forest in real-world circumstances.

Equipment

We will allow our students to train in either a snaffle bit or a Hackamore. Our horses ride in Hackamore’s so we will train to the Hackamore in those sessions. Spurs will not be allowed.

Students

We will now accept 3 students each year. We will pre-qualify each student to make certain that their existing skills, and their horses are prepared for the training that we will introduce.

You can apply anytime. We finalize our student selection process in May.

Cost

The cost of the course is $600.00 payable upon the first day of training, and the balance on the first day of the last remaining month. .