Books with Spirit – Joyfulness between horses and people

Have you ever wished that you could just magically have a really good “feel” for your horse.  

You can.  Well… not magically, but it seems a bit like that sometimes. 

I had this fabulous instructor who used to yell at me across the arena “stop pulling on that horse.”  And I would swear that I wasn’t pulling at all.  You can fix that one with “feel” too. 

Zen Connection with Horses is not a method of “training” your horse.  The inverted commas are around the word “training”, because if you are a serious rider I expect that you will pretty soon question who is training whom – if you aren’t questioning that already. 

I was going to write an article about “feel”, but very soon realised that it was too big for a short blog – too big for even a long blog. 

“Zen Connection with Horses”, the book with 8 simple audio lessons on an attached CD in MP3 format, is a step by step way of developing “feel” for your horse – exploring and developing how you experience connection with your horse, thus developing how you experience “feel”.  

Then you get to apply that connection – that feel, to whatever it is that you do with your horse.

Click here to rush off to the shop right now, with my personal “love this book or get your money back” guarantee. Or if you need more inspiration, browse around through “readers letters” and “people’s stories” - the buttons are on the right hand side of this page.

Did you know that 80 % of those who buy a horse have either sold it or are thinking of selling it within the first year?  

Why is this so?

I believe that it is because of a lack of happiness with their horse. 

So what is the cause of this “lack of happiness” with our horse?  And more importantly, what can you do to change it? 

Lack of happiness comes from not dealing with, or not knowing how to deal with, the feelings that come up when we are around our horse – feelings of nervousness, anxiety or plain old fear – or anger or frustration or sadness or whatever.   And not understanding how we can change those feelings. 

“What?” you say, “Do you mean other people feel like that around horses too?”  

You betcha!  (That’s an Aussie expression for a very big YES!)  To varying degrees, all those emotions are a very common experience – mixed up with some of the most amazingly wonderful moments that you could ever imagine. (There has to be some reason that we are not breeding budgies!) 

But mostly our lack of happiness comes from not being safe and not feeling safe.  That is what is causing those emotions in us that seem to be getting in the road of our happiness with our horse. 

Happiness with your horse comes from both horse and person feeling safe, both of you feeling safe, so that you can both enjoy the relationship.     

Now I don’t know if you realise it yet, but I have just given you THE key to really enjoying your horse – the absolutely fundamental key to happiness with your horse and the key also to good horsemanship.  

The people who realise this are enjoying their horses in ways that the rest of the horse world just don’t get yet. 

Well here’s some even better news.  You don’t have to be a great horse man or woman to be able to help you and your horse to be safe and to feel safe.  You don’t have to be a great horse man or woman to have happiness with your horse.  

There are some great people, and programs out there to help you.  I talk about some of them here on this website.  The book and audio lesson set, Zen Connection with Horses, is one of them.  It’s been getting rave reviews from world class horsemen and women and even beginners are getting awesome results – having learned how to find happiness with their horses. 

All my books come with my personal “love this book or get your money back” guarantee.  Browse around the website to People’s Stories and Readers Stories for more inspiration or click here to go to the bookshop now.

Yesterday, in a meeting in Lausanne, the FEI announced their decision that Rollkur and all other forms of aggressive riding is absolutely unacceptable and will be sanctioned from now on.  They said specifically that Rollkur and hyperflexion IS aggressive riding and they said specifically that Rollkur is absolutely unacceptable. 

Like most of the horse world, I was cheering and excited.  So why was I only ecstatic for a short time?  First of all, a friend pointed out that we’ve been at this name change place before, where the FEI just changed the name from rollkur to hyperflexion, and defused the outrage but changed nothing at all for the horses. 

So we are yet to see whether using the words Low Deep and Round will change anything at all for the horses either – or whether it is just a politically astute way to defuse everyone’s outrage. 

Then I realised that something incredibly important was missing from that announcement and because of the missing element, I realised that the FEI has only swept the problem of systematic horse abuse in training under the rug and out of the public eye. 

The FEI did not say a word about changing the way that they judge a dressage test. 

They have the ability to change systematic abuse of horses in training for dressage and they didn’t do it. 

The outrage over the blue tongued horse video happened because what was considered normal in training at home, was filmed in public and posted in public all over the world.  

Now is that good enough for you?  Are you happy for the blue tongued horse to be blue tongued at home out of your sight?  Is out of sight, out of mind OK by you? 

“Goodness me, how can you change what happens out of the public eye?” you ask.  Well if that thought didn’t cross your mind, I’m going to tell you anyway… 

Right now, in dressage, the FEI controlled judges award high competition test scores to horses who move their legs extravagantly but who are not in collection and in fact, cannot even walk properly any more because of the systematic muscular–skeletal damage caused by the training methods that are used both at home and warming up for a competition. 

And the FEI didn’t change that.  They made absolutely no mention at all of changing the method of judging, bringing the judging back into line with their own rulebook.  

So the reality is, that while they reward crippled horses who can no longer walk, with high scores, and horses who have extravagant leg movement but are no longer physically able to hold real collection for longer than moments at a time, then the FEI are rewarding the systematic abuse of horses, even if most of the people using this technique don’t even realise how abusive it really is.  

The abuse just won’t happen so publicly any more. 

I don’t know about you, but at this reality I got all depressed.  So what can we do to change that systematic abuse of horses in dressage then? 

So here’s the big deal, folks -  the anti-rollkur campaign needs to die.  

Don’t have a fit, I am not suggesting that we give up.  Not in the slightest.   I believe that there are times when we have to get passionate about what we DON’T want, in order to change to what we DO want. 

The trouble is, the very nature of the anti-rollkur campaign makes the people who are using rollkur defensive.  And defensive people rarely change the way that you want them to change.

The “anti” nature of the rollkur horse abuse campaign has served its purpose in identifying very clearly for more than 41,000 people, in just a few weeks, what we DON’T want.  So now it’s time to identify what we DO want and work towards that in an exciting and much more powerful way.  

Being “anti” something is not a useful way to change things.  Just like in our work with our horses, when we fight something, whether we “win” or “lose”, we are creating a resistance somewhere else.  In our horse training, when we resist our horse, we simply create a new problem that pops up somewhere else.  

Everywhere in horses and in life generally, when we resist something, when we fight something, when we are “anti” something – then we simply create a new problem that pops up somewhere else.  

Well guess what, folks, in the midst of all that reality that we’ve just been exposed to, I have some seriously good news – good news that has completely lifted up my spirits and I hope it lifts up your spirits too. 

Just like we can do it differently with our horses, we can do it differently here and make it possible for a world-wide movement of beautiful dressage to blossom – beautiful dressage that we DO want to see.  

A bunch of amazing people are working behind the scenes – right now, as I write this article – to bring you an exciting and incredibly positive project that will help us bring about the changes that we would like to see in dressage or in the horse world generally.  

Instead of focussing on what we “don’t want”, this project will be about focussing on what we DO want – focussing on what inspires us, focussing on our own personal ideas of the beauty that horses and people can be together. 

41,000 people, in just a few weeks of action, signed the petition that went to the FEI to change rollkur.   So in the midst of the reality of the decision made in Lausanne, use the power of what you DON’T want, to think about what it will be like to have more than 41,000  people working in a positive way to spread the beauty of what dressage can be.  

Wow, what a thought… 

So watch this space!!!! 

Article by Jenny Pearce and published in Horses For Life magazine Feb 2010.

This article has been re-written -  see the  following post.   I apologise for my energy being off!

Yeah, yeah, sorry everyone, I wasn’t around last time the FEI pulled this re-naming Rollkur stunt. 

Apparently, last time the FEI looked at Rollkur, a few years ago, they changed the name of what the riders were doing, called it “hyperflexion” and said that the most famous horse trained like this at the time was a ”happy athlete”.  Gee, I wonder what video of  crippled horses they were looking at to think that any Rollkured horse is a happy athlete?

If they think that re-naming Rollkur and hyperflexion AGAIN and calling it Low Deep and Round will satisfy 41,000  people who are outraged about Rollkur, I think the FEI might be in for a bit of a surprise.   Renaming it defused the outrage last time, but since nothing changed, I don’t think that tactic will work twice.  We might be naive (yeah well.. it’s really me… I might be naive… in fact sometimes I even enjoy being naive…) but we are not stupid.

The FEI are hoping to defuse 41,000 people’s outrage by eliminating the abuse that we see have been seeing in public in the warm up arenas.   By eliminating the PUBLICLY seen abuse, they are hoping to defuse this public relations nightmare. 

So how can the FEI be responsible for horse abuse that is not in public, abuse that goes on at home in training? Is it unreasonable for me to ask them to take that responsibility?

I believe that the FEI are responsible, when their judges systematically reward horses with high competition scores, who are showing signs of Rollkur abuse – the very thing that they have described as absolutely unacceptable.  And they have the ability to dramatically reduce that abuse by not rewarding the results of that abuse in the competition arena.   

I believe that the FEI have both the ability and the responsibility to change horse abuse wherever they see it.

But the big key that this is all just a public relations excercise to a public relations nightmare, is that there was absolutely no mention whatsoever of educating judges to look for the physically obvious signs of the horses being abused at home – the horses with extravagant leg movement who cannot walk or hold collection for more than a few moments at a time.  This is Grand Prix and so many of the top scoring horses are getting around with hollow backs and are not collected? 

Hollow backs are painful, physically damaging to the horse and shout out that we need to make our horse more comfortable and less fearful about what we are doing – not at all what I expect from world class competition.

It’s a little difficult to go from this let down to the new project that we think will make wonderful things possible in dressage and horses generally.  But I know that this let down makes this new project even more important.  It won’t be long now, so keep watching this space for details…

Today, in a meeting in Lausanne, the FEI announced their decision that Rollkur and all other forms of aggressive riding is absolutely unacceptable and will be sanctioned from now on.  They said specifically that Rollkur and hyperflexion IS aggressive riding and they said specifically that Rollkur is absolutely unacceptable.

The decision was unanimous. 

41,000 signatures were on Gerd Heuschman’s petition presented to Princess Haya – what a great effort! 

Well done everyone, Power to the People.  Power to the Horse. 

There may well be some wounds to heal from such a vigorous campaign with very strong opinions on both sides.

Watch this space for news about a lovely and very exciting collaborative project that will harness all that energy into something wonderful and positive.

Congratulations everyone!

Click here for the Youtube link to the FEI’s announcement.

Do you think it’s a full feed bin?  Or a lush paddock or a field full of long grass?  Is it a pocket full of carrots or a piece of apple?

Sure he likes all those things.  He also likes plenty of space to move around for vigorous expression of joyfulness and good health and feet that are comfortable and good companions and a whole host of other things.

But for horses living in our world, the relationship with us is the one thing that has the capacity to bring them happiness – or to bring that happiness undone.  Whatever reservations there are within our relationship,  adversely affect both us and our horses.

And reservations with each other’s relationship can be coming from stuff that happened to them before we even met each other (although in my case a lot of my horse’s reservations were coming from our time together!)

I made a commitment a while ago now, to notice and “fix” any areas in my horse relationship that were getting in the road of our happiness together and our enjoyment of each other.

I wrote a book about those insights and ways of being with our horses and laid down some simple, practical lessons on an audio track that will take you step by step to how you can get the awesome co-operation from your horse that comes from getting rid of all that old crappy “stuff”.

Zen Connection with Horses is a book and audio lesson set that takes you step by step through a very unusual process of deeply connecting with your horse, understanding that connection and then using that connection to bring happiness to you and your horse.

It’s simple and practical and you can apply the lessons and way of being with your horse to any way of riding or horsemanship.

And, do you know, when your horse is happy – it rubs off on you!

What can you do today that brings happiness to your horse?   Cheers, Jenny Pearce  Click here for the bookshop.

We’ve been with the wwoof program (willing workers on organic farms) for some time now, working with the most amazing bunch of young people from all over the world – turning out confident and competent students who understand their connection to the horses and to other people. 

We’ve decided to expand this program as an opportunity for paying students to come here to Tanjil South and pick and choose which aspects of what I have to teach that they want to learn.

This is a tailor made program of mostly private tuition for each individual, whether you are a complete beginner or an advanced rider.  You may focus on just the horse skills on the ground, at liberty and in the saddle when appropriate – everything that you read about here on the website.  Or you can eat, sleep and breathe every aspect of horses, from the communication to the riding to the healing work. 

Browse around the “clinic” section, click here - you can pick and choose and learn any or all of those skills, with the opportunity to become an amazing all round horseman or woman.

You live in with us, sharing family life while you soak up what I have to teach.  Learning in this environment is relaxed and informal and, like all my teaching – at your own pace.

The cost for a live in student is $1000 per week, which includes organic and chemical free board and keep, access to my herd of horses or paddock room for yours.  The student lives in the house, here with the family, receives some private tuition every day, goes to any clinics that are happening and stays for as long as is mutually perfect.

What an opportunity!  Email me jenny@bookspwithspirit. com (take out the space when you email me) or phone on Australia 03 5160 1481 to apply.

This episode happened some months ago, but today I was given the photo you will see in this article, so I decided to write a post about the insights about horses, that I gained from my deliberate encounter with a snake.

I used to be snake phobic – so bad that I couldn’t watch them on TV without having nightmares.  I had gotten rid of the outright phobia with my healing work, but was still pretty afraid of them when someone suggested that “knowledge is power, perhaps I ought to find out more about snakes.” 

Coincidentally, (yeah right!)  a couple of days later I saw an advertisement in the local paper that a snake expert was giving a talk locally.  So I went along and met Syd Cook, the local and mad as a meat axe, snake catcher.  (”Mad as a meat axe” is an Aussie expression to decribe someone who is completely nuts!  Just kidding Syd!)  

Syd generously allowed me to make an appointment to come and see his reptile collection and work on my fear of snakes the same way as I work on horses’ fears.  My offer to make him some homeopathic anti-venine for his poisonous snakes amy have piqued his interest! 

Click here for the rest of my wonderful snake story

This may seem silly to some, but this morning I picked up my own book Zen Connection with Horses and was touched again by the feelings that I had as I was writing it.  It was a profound and exciting book to write.

For those who haven’t read it yet, I thought that I would print the introduction here, so that you could have a “taste” of the treat that I think you are in for when you read it.

Here it is.

You know, if you were here with me, here in my house right now, we’d maybe have a cuppa’ while I talked about this stuff and you’d see the look on my face and be touched by me when I’d laugh a bit and cry a bit when I tell you about the wonder of the things that I’ve experienced and seen other people experience when they experience this mind connection and communication with their horse.   

Some of the things people have experienced with this extraordinary communication have been practical achievements like riders dancing with their horses in just days or a rider becoming a better rider or a “problem”, even dangerous horse co-operating kindly and happily. Others have been emotional achievements where a frightened horse or a frightened person has found a freedom from fear.  One of my most beautiful clinic experiences was being privileged to help a wonderful guy who was beating up on his horses discover how to get a handle on his rage. 

I’d tell you about the healing work I’ve been doing with horses and people for the last fourteen years, about how much I’ve grown in that time, about the other books I’ve written and the five day camps where I show people how to get an extraordinary connection with their horse and how to use that connection to work beautifully together and even bigger, how to experience pure joy with their horse. 

And if you had experienced the pleasure of reading and using “Bobby’s Diaries”, a book that I’ve already published, then I’d be shaking my head and telling you that you’re in for a serious treat because “Zen Connection with Horses” is so much deeper and bigger and more comprehensive – that you’ll feel like “Bobby’s Diaries” was kindergarten. 

Then we’d go outside and I’d introduce you to the horses (we have 11 at the moment).  And because they’re used to being heard, they would quickly give you the validation that you’ll probably need before you can really accept what I’m telling you.  If you’d been here and known these horses before, you’d notice the difference in some of them – even in just the last few months as I’ve come to understand just how deep and how big this is. 

Maybe you’d still be here when my three year old granddaughter came in to play with the horses and maybe you’d notice how even though she’s only just turned three years old, she makes herself safe and has fun moving the horses around.  Or maybe you’d watch someone here for a lesson and you would envy them for the beauty of what they’re getting with their horse. 

And you couldn’t help but wonder if you could have a bit of that for you and your horse. 

Well, not only can you have a bit of that, you can have all of that. 

We present to you this book – “Zen Connection with Horses” which draws together threads from everything I know and everything that I am and brings it all together to give you “all of that”, in a way that makes me laugh and cry at the same time. 

Click here to go to the shop if you want that too…

My heartfelt gratitude goes to my horse Bobby who had (and still has) the courage to hold out for the best that we can be, to Matt and Celtic Peace who showed me how big this is, to Desert Moon who is increasing my practical and theoretical skills exponentially and last but not least, to all those students and their horses who brought pieces of the puzzle to me.

Click here to have a look at the 3 day, five day and 12 day super clinics clinics available