You know in horse movies how the girl “tames the wild beast” by eye contact, then bareback riding, then dancing around? By the end of that movie, bam. The horse is magically trained to perfection.
Well, I am here to tell you that is basically the opposite of what happens when you attempt to train a horse. It takes hours upon hours of hard work, usually consisting of lots of repetition, corrections, and trial and error. The horse, however, only contributes to about half of it. Really, when training a horse, what you are doing is training the human to speak horse.
My ELI is on Natural Horsemanship training. This particular training style is almost the opposite of “breaking a horse to ride” and “cowboying your horse,” which were the methods once popular to train horses, involving a lot of fighting and violence. Natural Horsemanship is working with the horse to communicate in their own way.
Basically, what this style is centered around is pressure and release. Pressure and release is a way of moving the horse around you, the trainer. In herds, horses create dominance by controlling the feet of their subordinates. This method creates the air of dominance around you; they know you're the lead mare in their little herd.
Pressure and release is when, say, I push on the horse’s shoulder. He should move his shoulder away from me, and as soon as he moves, I release. This gives him the idea that when he moves away, the pressure is released, which he likes. He now understands that the faster he moves away, the faster the pressure is released.
Well, I won't give too much away just now! More updates to come!
~Kristina
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