In my never ending quest to explore horses, Today was our first workshop with Bonnie Roy of the Horses at Alderlore. Her workshops consists of Klaus Hempfling, Linda Kohanov and others in that vein inspired work. Working on true connection and spiritual growth through and with horses. She uses her own herd including her stallion Khemancho at her place to do workshops for horseman and non horseman alike. Her work encompasses all different areas and I encourage people to go to her site to see the scope.
Our particular workshop involved working with our own horses and observing non-judgementally, our relationship with them. We did this by doing a series of exercises at liberty one at a time while we watched each other.
We had an extremely interesting mix of horses and people ranging from a Morgan, Belgium, Quarter Horse, Freisian and Dutch warmblood! Also, with very different circumstances.
I was particularly intrigued by her work with the barn manager and her belgium mare that had agression and abuse issues. This mare was a force to be reconed with and intimidated us all. I knew somehow this work would be helpful to her but I didn't know how. She just let the mare tell her how much she could handle and Bonnie listened. Bonnie worked with her owner as a team and the mare became soft and happy before our eyes. It was great to watch. It gave her owner new tools to work with to build there relationship beyond one based on fear of this formidable mare.
As for myself, I worked with my Warmblood. He is an extremely sensitive extremely smart horse. I raised him from a yearling and as you can imagine we have a great rapport with each other. But here is what I learned. My horse is so smart he is an overachiever. I also had found that lately, He would so over anticipate tasks, that I could not get him to stand still and wait for me. I saw that this was out of balance and was in the process of working on this area of our relationship. Bonnie helped me see this more clearly. Slow down she said, be more aware of my body language. I was sending unintentional cues to him I didn't even notice. And because he is THAT sensitive I need to be more aware. That's why we all need eyes on us.
Upon further reflection later in the day, I realized I had created this learning monster because I kept saying to myself "he is so smart I have to keep giving him tasks to keep him challenged" we forgot how to do nothing. I also saw in myself that I am quick minded and fast learning and I need to SLOW DOWN. And even though I thought I had mentally slowed down, It wasn't enough. I have been working on this for some time now and Mercury mirrored to me exactly that. And that no matter how aware I THOUGHT I was, he was telling me I was not paying attention to my own energy. Which is the caveat of being a trainer. We ofter pay more attention to the horse then ourselves. And that's why I knew this workshop was perfect for me! I highly recommend her and look forward to the next one on the 22nd of february.
FDT
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