The New Zealand clinic
There were a bunch of threads that wove together to create a joyous experience for me in New Zealand.
The eight clinic participants worked together in the most amazing way to create a learning space together where they could share their experiences, their frustrations and their triumphs and encourage and support each other in a beautiful way. Mere words are not going to be able to give to you the feeling that was in that clinic, but maybe the emotion behind my words will give at least a bit of a reflection.
One of the things that comes through quite strongly in the book “Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horses’s Mouth To You” (that’s the book that the Spirit of Horse clinic is based on) is that the philosophy and approach in Bobby’s Diaries can be applied to all horse relationships without getting hung up about how you go about it. That framework was for Bobby and me and anybody else that would like to use it – but it’s neither necessary nor productive for everyone to do it like that.
In New Zealand, prompted by Tracey’s early frustration, we brought a new format to the Spirit of Horse clinic that adds a wonderful dimension to Bobby’s Way of doing things. At the beginning of every clinic, I ask “What would you like to get out of this clinic?” And then I try to make sure that they get that.
In this clinic, I we did that too, but on day 2, we wrote down what our dreams were with our horse. Then we worked out what ingredients had to be in place in order to reach that dream. And then identified one by one the baby steps necessary to get each ingredient happening. It was a common theme for people to be surprised at how small some of the baby steps needed to be to get really productive, really fast.
This was an incredibly powerful excercise that had people work out their own “Way” (rather than “Bobby’s Way”) to get what THEY and THEIR horse wanted, rather than what Bobby wanted from me, or what I thought people and horses wanted. The mind connection with their own horse was an incredible important part of that. And Bobby’s Way of doing things was available at any time for additional ideas and inspiration. Wow, what a process and what fabulous results it got. Every single person got what they asked for from their clinic and sometimes in quite extraordinary ways.
Photos are coming soon to go with this article.
Each of the people in the clinic has their own lovely story. So that it doesn’t take too much time to load with the photos, I’ve put them on separate pages, so don’t forget to click through and look at each story.
Click here to read about Raewyn and her “eye candy” horse Zoe.
Click here to read aboiut Tracey bringing her lovely warnblood Sassy, out of shut down mode.
Click here to read about Jackie and her wonderful focus on breathing
Click here to read about Deb and “catching, saddling and mounting up”.
Click here to read about Whisky, the local rogue turned pussy cat.
Click here to read about my experience hearing a wild seal “talk” to me.
