Natural Dressage Forum Trainer Questions

Featured in Karen’s May 2008 Newsletter

Discuss in General Chat here:

http://www.createforum.com/naturaldressage/viewtopic.php?p=6977

Q: We muddled over our question this month for awhile, but everything we came up with we ended up finding the book once we started looking!
So we’d like to ask a question of a slightly different nature this month. We want to know about ‘day in the life of Karen’ s horses.’ We realize you teach people and probably train other horses, but what do you do with your horses? How do you find time to balances the different skills of online, liberty, freestyle finesse? Many of us find once we have played with liberty, for example, there is no time or energy left for freestyle.
Maybe we should ask about a Day In the Life of Ovation! Since where you are with him is probably closer to where most of our members are with our horses, we thought he would be a good horse with whom many of us could relate. How old was he when she got him and what was
his training background? What kind of stuff did you do first? How was a typical day with him the first 30 days? Did you formally bring him through L1-3 first, at least in the areas of online, liberty and freestyle? Did you mix that with your early exercises or alignment and balance? We’d like to focus not necessarily on a how to, rather inspiration and ideas on how to creatively balance all we are trying to achieve.

Thanks Karen, and we’re loving the book/ DVD!
-Members of the Natural Dressage Forum

A: Wow, this needs a long answer! How about I give a sort of generalized answer first… (By the way, I am so happy to hear you are finding answers to lots of your questions in my book!)

Currently I have 3 horses personal horses that i am playing with. I also have set up my life so there is almost no pressure on them… no owners looking over my shoulder for a result, no competition to enter… no schedule beyond my own obsession. After so many years of having a lot of those pressures, it has been really interesting to see how things are going, and how much progress I still make even though it rarely feels like I am working. (Take this in the context of I am a highly motivated, focused rider, so my version of ‘not working’ may be different than an-
other’s).

I guess with each horse I want to keep a really keen awareness of where they are… what is the range of communication, partnership, skills and talents.

Then I want to have a good visualization of what I would like them to be like… in the end, but also at the next stage from where they are now. The I keep the awareness of what they as individuals, like to do and what causes them stress. I also try to think of the general theme with the horse… what is the underlying generalization about the horse (is he confident, but uncoordinated (Ovation), or athletic, smart and sensitive, but with fear that manifests as aggression (Atomic), or athletic and smart but emotional if he thinks he isn’t perfect (Monty)… because these are the themes I need to take care of in everything I do.

I can afford to leave Atomic a little dull one day in order to calm him because athleticism is easy to get back on him, I can afford to challenge Ovation in order to increase his coordination because he doesn’t brood about it. He recovers really well, emotionally. I can afford to not practice the difficult stuff everyday with Monty, because it is his regained confidence that will carry him through the hard stuff.

But… leave Monty feeling like a failure and I lose everything with him. Leave Atomic in reaction and I’ve got an dangerous horse, and leave Ovation standing around uninspired/challenged to try new things and I’ve got a very pretty blob that just sits around eating stuff!

So I know I just listed a lot of things that are swimming around in my consciousness… But I do my best to trust that if they are there, they will help me make the decisions in the moment that are best. These themes apply whether I am doing liberty, online, freestyle or dressage!

Do I go through every savvy every day with every horse? NO! Sometimes I do, but not necessarily. Beyond just the idea of: “we need to practice this skill” I think of what can be gained from each savvy… if I want to really help Ovation get excited about moving on his own… would liberty perhaps be the best way to do it? If I want to really impress Monty about how much I trust him and how perfect he is… would bridle-less be the best was? If I want to leave Atomic feeling really confident would On-line games be the best? Or maybe my leadership would be better in a different savvy…. Maybe concentrated precise riding will give Monty confidence, maybe doing suppling and alignment exercises would free up Ovation, and maybe Liberty will be best for Atomic, because he will not feel trapped.

If you and your horse are just learning the skills, then you need to practice them all, and allow a certain amount of time for each so you improve.. Then when you have this skill, this tool, and can make decisions about when to use it; what the cause and effect is for this particular horse. The notice also things like: ‘hmmm, I did a bunch of liberty this week and now I notice my finesse got better (or worse)”…more pieces of the puzzle start to arise.

Pay attention to your horse, put out your radar and see if you are on course towards making you and your horse the best you can be as a team… enjoy the things that are going well, and investigate the missing pieces.

It is all about keeping the balance in general, but on any given day, perhaps you do all liberty, or just some freestyle, or even you get on and do finesse the whole time, and that can be totally OK… but when you look back on the past couple weeks, or month… I hope it feels more
balanced than that. Especially if there are missing pieces… many times those missing pieces can be solved in a less direct way, i.e.: some issues that show up in finesses can actually be best solved freestyle, or liberty or on-line.

To review, remember to notice:
•where your horse is now
•where you want to go
•what is the next stage to go through in getting there?
•what does your horse enjoy?
•what is the general theme with the horse?
•Cause and effect of your playing
•What do you have already that you don’t need to drill, but you can enjoy?

I think this will help you a lot in deciding how to spend your time.

I do have plans to start some projects where you will see me play with some specific subjects with specific horses… but for now I hope this will do!
~Karen

One more thing… I actually now have one more horse. The horse, Jedi who I was trying to sell for a customer never sold, so I decided to keep him! I feel bad for all the people who he would have been perfect for, but I am happy because he is just a wonderful horse to have around. He and Tiffany are learning dressage together and are doing great!