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A Review of Improve Everything You Do with Your Horse by Karen Rohlf

An Outstanding Foundation for All Types of Riding

Click to Purchase the Book

So many books and videos and clinics are about the techniques for a specific type of riding — eventing, dressage, Western pleasure, and so on. Improve Everything describes how to build a foundation of happiness, harmony, and communication that will make those techniques much easier for you and your horse. Karen is a dressage rider, but this book is applicable to riders and horses in all disciplines. I read Improve Everything as an audio book, but it’s also available as a Kindle book.

Learn to build a relationship built on trust, be in the moment with your horse, and learn to give feedback and be in communication with him. without judgement, without hesitation.  Trust your instincts.

Karen Rohlf, Improve Everything You Do with Your Horse

Karen introduces a Training Pyramid with Happiness, Harmony and Communication as the Foundation levels. Techniques and the discipline of Dressage are the next levels — and Dressage success depends on building a good foundation at lower levels of the Pyramid.

According to Improve Everything, you and horse’s understanding of one another has to comes first. If your horse regards you as a threat, it really doesn’t matter whether your aids are correct. If your horse doesn’t trust you, you’ll always have problems communicating your wishes to your horse. The aids that will work with your horse will depend on your relationship with your horse.

A half halt is whatever the set of aids … rebalances your horse.

Karen Rohlf, Improve Everything You Do with Your Horse

One of Karen’s examples is a dressage horse named Phoenix, owned by a friend. The story of Phoenix led down a road that combined performing at higher levels of dressage with increasing behavioral and physical problems. Karen’s friend had owned Phoenix as a foal, and the friend was shocked when she met him again. So the friend bought Phoenix back and asked Karen for help.

Karen’s first priority was to make Phoenix a happy horse, so she worked on partnership and harmony. It was a slow, incremental process to become a partner in Phoenix’s eyes. Nine months later Phoenix was happily schooling in every aspect of dressage that he knew how to do.

It’s a short audiobook, and that’s all the better because it’s easy to listen to again and again. I listened the first time while stacking hay in my barn, but I wanted to listen to it again a week later so I could take notes. I know this is an audiobook I’ll return to regularly for new infusions of clarity and inspiration.

I wish I’d read this 20 years ago — assuming that Karen could have written it 20 years ago. I’d have avoided broken ribs, a bruised lung and a concussion, and my horses and I would have been much happier working together.
Thanks Karen!

How to Do a Better Horse Adoption Video for Rescues

Time needed:?1 hour.

Most horse adoption videos don’t rank well in Google search results for keyword phrases like, “horses for adoption” or “horses to adopt”. They also don’t include clickable links to the rescue organization for adoption information. Foster homes, rescue horse trainers and rescue organizations can make simple changes to create better adoption videos.

  1. Make SEO work for your videos by narrating them.

    There are two ways that help videos reach large audiences, one is viral content and the other is because the video is optimized for Google and YouTube search. Viral content is cute puppies and people getting hurt in stunts. I”m talking about optimizing for Google and YouTube search. That’s called search engine optimization or SEO. Google and YouTube understand what a video is about by trying to understand the voice narration. They are good at it. No narration will mean that your horse adoption video will not do well in search results. Cut out the loud music.

  2. Use keywords in your narration related to horse adoption.

    The narration must use the keywords that people use to find horses to adopt. So you have to say “horse is available for adoption” or “adopt this horse” or other variations of the words “adopt” and “horse”.

  3. Describe the horse in your narration.

    Include details like age, sex, height, level of training and a description of the horse’s temperament and personality in your horse adoption video. Try to include selling points that emphasize what’s special about the horse. Include mentions of the rescue organization’s website, and make them clickable in the video description by adding the HTTP or HTTPS in front of the domain name. For example, http://www.bluebonnetequine.org/ is clickable and www.bluebonnetequine.org is not.

  4. Pause between sections of your video.

    When you’re doing your horse adoption video, pause for several seconds between sections while facing the camera. If you want to look at notes, pause while looking at the camera, look your notes, look up and pause, then start talking again. You want to make it easy to edit out do-overs and notes pauses. You can also combine video clips and photos, taken at different times and places, into one video and then do a voice-over narration of the composite video.

  5. Talk about the rescue organization.

    Include references to the rescue organization in the narration of your video, and make sure you include the website address.Jodi Brassard and Creek at the 2017 Bluebonnet Training Challenge

  6. Edit the automatic captions that YouTube generates.

    Google and YouTube index those captions to understand what your horse adoption video is about. The automatic captioning systems from YouTube and Facebook often misunderstands specialized words — like those associated with horses. So create captions, edit them and update the automatic captions on Facebook or replace the automatic captions on YouTube to ensure that search engines properly index and rank your video. You can purchase captions for your videos using https://www.rev.com/ for $1.25 per minute of video. Rev also provides easy tools for editing your video and downloading in formats for Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook and in text files for blog post content.

  7. Qualify your rescue organization for non-profit benefits from Google and YouTube.

    If you qualify your rescue organization as a non-profit with YouTube you can add clickable links to your video. You should also add clickable links to the video description — you make them clickable by including the http or https portions of the domain name. There are many other benefits as well, and I’ve included links to YouTube’s information page in the video description.

Even on the hard days, try to remember what you have accomplished. Try to remember why you do the hard work. For me, that means somedays I walk out and hug one of those horses we help. It makes the rest of the problems fade away.

Jennifer Williams, PhD, Executive Director, Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society

Different Ways to Create an Adoption Video

There are lots of ways to put together a great horse adoption video. I’ve described recording video at one session with pauses between each section of the video. But you can also record video clips or take photos of your horse in various situations and doing different things. For example you can create a horse adoption video by combining video clips of your foster horse working in a round pen, walking down a trail, and jumping cross rails with photos of your foster horse having hooves trimmed and being saddled. Then add your narration by doing a voice-over of that video.

You can also use Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote to put together a slide show and then export the slide show as a video. I don’t use PowerPoint, but with Keynote you can add audio narration to each slide before you export to a video. I assume that PowerPoint has a similar feature.

Sample Adoption Video for Lucera of Bluebonnet Equine Humane Society

More Information about the Google and YouTube Non-Profit Support Programs

For information about becoming a Google and YouTube recognized non-profit organization, please visit this link — https://www.google.com/nonprofits/offerings/youtube-nonprofit-program/ . Here’s information from YouTube related to non-profit support — https://socialimpact.youtube.com/about/ and https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3545195?hl=en.

Please Leave a Comment with Questions and Information

If you have questions or comments, you can add them to this post. You can also use the contact form to send me an email.

My Version of 10 Year Old Girl Training

Here’s my “10 year old boy” version of the “10 year old girl training” that was mentioned in last week’s horse-human relationship video.? If this gets you thinking about your own horse training, please sign up to be notified of updates.

Summary of the My Version of 10 Year Old Girl Training Video

– Howdy, friends, my name is Paul Sherland with SaddleUpAgain.com. Last week, I talked a little bit about a change in the horse-human relationship with my horse and with all my horses. I mentioned a video titled “10-Year-Old Girl Training” by Warwick Schiller. I wanted to talk a little bit more about that video, “10-Year-Old Girl Training,” and how it kind of helped me change course with my horse and where I went from there and also what is my version of 10-year-old girl training.

What Does Warwick’s Video Cover?

The video, as I say, is by Warwick Schiller. He’s an international equine clinician. He was, I guess, at an event called Equidays in New Zealand. He was part of the program. He was supposed to do a program on problem solving under saddle. They brought a horse in. There was no saddle on the horse. He asked about the horse. He was told that it was owned by a 10-year-old girl. She rode the horse bareback. He figured, “No problem.”

So, he climbed on the horse bareback, and the horse almost threw him. If you watch the video, you’ll see some pretty impressive pictures of the horse doing acrobatics with Warwick on his back. Warwick worked with the horse for awhile and was able to kind of get some turns in but came away from it with the idea that the horse was maybe half-trained, didn’t have much training at all.

Later on that day, he was part of a judging panel for a kid’s class. The kids performed with their horses. He saw this horse come in to compete with the 10-year-old girl. The horse was amazing. The team was amazing. One of the things that Warwick said the girl and her horse were able to do is first, they rode across about a 10-foot long balance beam, a real narrow board, and through some other obstacles, I guess. Then she performed with her horse at liberty, and the horse walked down the balance beam at liberty. This is putting one foot in front of the other to stay on the beam. So, it was an amazing demonstration of training by this young lady.

Warwick, I got to give him a lot of credit because he was humble enough to talk about this and to say, “My evaluation was that this horse “was half-trained, but with this young lady, “this horse really seemed to be well-trained “and worked really well with this young lady.” Watch the video.

How Does My Experience as a 10 Year Old Boy Relate?

10 Year Old Girl Training was 10 Year Old Boy Training
10 Year Old Girl Training was 10 Year Old Boy Training

It got me thinking about my 10-year-old boy experience. I got a horse when I was 10. I was a horse-crazy kid. My version of 10-year-old boy training was to work with this horse. The horse was a bucker. He bucked me off a bunch of times. He bucked my father off. My father rode him once, and the ride lasted about 100 yards. My father got bucked off; never rode him again.

This was not a beginner-gentle horse, but we turned into a great team. I barrel raced him; I did all kinds of gymkhana events with him. I rode him in the trails. We had a state park near our house. He was a great horse. I didn’t have a lot of instruction at the time. My main instruction was this book called “Horse Fever.” I also got books from “Western Horseman” magazine. This was about it. I also took six lessons from a local riding stable.

Other than that, it was pretty much me and the horse working to form a partnership. I took care of him, I fed him, I groomed him, I picked his feet, I checked on him. I spent a lot of time with the horse. That time, I think, was the crucial ingredient.

What is 10-year-old girl training or 10-year-old boy training? From my perspective, from my experience, and after thinking about it over a series of months, I came away with the idea and with the memories of spending a lot of time with my horse. It was focused time. My attention was on the horse.

The Benefit of Undemanding Time with Your Attention on Your Horse

We didn’t have cell phones back then. We didn’t even have portable… Maybe there were portable radios. I didn’t have one. There were very few distractions. No distractions, really. So, I spent a lot of time just working with this horse. It paid off. That’s what I think the 10-year-old girl or 10-year-old boy training actually is. That’s my idea of 10-year-old girl training, 10-year-old boy training.

You spend a lot of time with a horse, but it’s attention time. Your attention is on the horse. It’s not, well, you’re there but you’re thinking about something else, or you’re on a tight schedule and you’re thinking about something else. You’re not really watching the horse. This is attention on the horse.

It’s also not demanding time. So, it’s not doing exercises. It’s not in the arena. It’s not doing ground work. It’s not doing riding exercises. It might be scratching the horse. It might be grooming the horse. Maybe it’s picking the horse’s feet, feeding the horse, maybe pasture grazing but with your attention on the horse. It may be taking the horse for a walk, but it’s not demanding. It’s not structured, but there is attention. You’re paying attention to the horse.

Undemanding Time with Attention Helps You Build Trust and Confidence with Your Horse

I started doing that with that gray horse that was in the video last week. It just paid huge dividends. It’s a different horse. I’ll do another video talking about some of the things that happened with us before the change because he’s a dramatically different horse, and I’m a dramatically, I think, different rider with him. It’s changed my relationship with the other horses, too.

I urge you to take a look at the “10-Year-Old Girl Training” video. You can google it. I’ve got it on another page in my website, too. Take a look at it. Think about it. What does it mean to have undemanding time with your horse? But undemanding time, formless time, perhaps, but with your attention on the horse, not thinking about other things. You’re leaving your stuff at the door when you enter the stall. Your attention is on the horse. You’re not thinking about work, Facebook, or whatever.

Hope this is useful to you. This is Paul Sherland from SaddleUpAgain.com. Thanks for watching the video, folks, and please sign up for our weekly updates. Thank you very much.

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The Horse Human Relationship

How much of your horse’s behavior is caused by your relationship — good or bad?? I’ve found that the horse human relationship is incredibly important for effective training and safe riding.? If you’ve had a good relationship with your horse or a bad one, please share your experiences in the comments.

Summary of the Horse-Human Relationship Video

– Howdy friends. My name is Paul Sherland from SaddleUpAgain.com. And I want to talk a little bit today about the horse-human relationship. I want to start by telling a couple of stories about buying a horse.

Imagine that you’re thinking about buying a horse, and you talk to the prior owner to ask ’em about the horse. So I’m going to talk about two different prior owners for a horse I was considering. The first one was telling me that this horse was a great horse and was used as a ranch horse.? I asked if the horse had ever bucked with her.? ?She told me he’d bucked only once in seven years of riding.? She said she’d gotten into some sort of wreck, after she’d roped a cow and the horse had to jump the cow that she had roped to get out of this wreck.? That was too much for him to take and he bucked. But she also told me about a situation where she roped another cow, and she’d forgotten to tighten the cinch on the saddle. The saddle slid up the horse’s neck, and the horse still held the cow. And that’s pretty amazing.

Another horse, another story, I was talking to the owner and he said that the horse was a jug head and wasn’t really good for that much. He said that he used him as a team-roping horse but he was only a heading horse and not a healer.? He also said you really needed to work him up to a sweat before you took him into the arena, because he just didn’t behave very well in the arena. I asked if the horse bucked him off, and he said several times.? He told me about a time when the horse was mad and he was mad.? He tightened up the cinch and climbed aboard ready for a fight and the horse still bucked him off.? And then he said, “Well of course I’m no bronc rider.” and I was thinking to myself, I’m no bronc rider either.

So, which horse would you buy? I think the first horse would be the one that most people would go for. The funny thing was that it was the same horse, and it was this horse. And those stories came after I purchased this horse, and it was after he bucked me off the first time, or actually the second time. I had gotten his papers, called the folks who had owned him for most of his life, and those two people were husband and wife. So there was no difference in horse care, he was getting the same food, when being ridden by both people. The difference was in the relationship. The difference was in the horse-human relationship. And obviously the woman, the wife had a great relationship with this horse, this horse took care of her, and filled in for her when the going got tough. The horse, this horse, did not have a good relationship with the husband. When the husband rode this horse, there was a fight.

So, I think that happens a lot of times. I think people might purchase a horse and things go either really well, or things don’t go well at all and they blame the horse.? I think a lot of times it’s more the human that’s to blame. I know that’s true with this horse.

After he bucked me off, our relationship deteriorated with every new buck off.? What I ended up doing was more and more ground work. More and more drilling, and that made him more tense, and that hurt our relationship.? Actually, he was tense any time he was around me, you can see he’s not tense now.? And I took him to clinics with some really well-known clinicians, that didn’t help, because the clinics really aren’t designed to fix the relationship.

So the fix, or the turning point, started after I watched a video by Warwick Schiller called “10 Year Old Girl Training”.? I’ve got another blog post about that but that got me thinking about the importance of connection, the connection that I had with horses when I was a kid, that I obviously didn’t have with him.

So I changed what I did, and the turning point day was when I took him into the round pen, which had been the scene of a lot of drilling.? He could do the exercises in Buck Brannaman’s groundwork DVD, automatically. We’d go into the round pen, he’d start doing the exercises.

But the difference, the change in our horse-human relationship was when I went into the round pen, took off his halter, and I sat on the mounting block, and didn’t do anything. And he automatically just started to go to the fence, because I normally worked him at liberty, and he’d just start running around the pen, and start bucking.

The Horse Human Relationship
The Horse Human Relationship

I had talked with some clinicians, and they had advised, “don’t let him get away with it”. So they had advised, when he started bucking to stop him, turn him, get him in the other direction — that made him more tense. That was not working.

So on that day, I just sat on the mounting block and didn’t do anything. And he started to the fence, and looked at me, and stopped, and then gradually over about 10 or 15 minutes he walked up to me and he lowered his head, and he just exhaled, and his eyes were half closed, and he stood there. Not grazing, not wondering off, just stood there next to me with his eyes half closed. And it was a moving moment.

That was the turning point, and since then, I’ve really changed the way I work with him, and with my other horses. And it’s made all the difference in the world. So if you’ve got a horse that you’re having problems with take a look at your relationship.

It’s not only the relationship you have while you’re riding your horse, it’s how you handle the horse when you’re working with him in the barn — it’s when you’re working with a horse at all.? ?There’s a saying on the feed room door at my barn, and it says, “leave your stuff at the door”. If you’ve got frustrations, you’ve got anger, you’ve got worry, whatever it is you’re dealing with, away from the barn, leave it at the door, and you and your horse will be better for it.

If you’re having problems with your horse, please think about that, and take a look at your relationship, and you may find that you have a different horse if your relationship with your horse improves. That horse-human relationship is incredibly important, and I hope that maybe this story helps you out a little bit. So, this is SaddleUpAgain, I’m Paul Sherland, thank you for watching.

Articles Related to the Horse Human Relationship

How to Be a Good Rider

The Good Rider May Not Be the Most Educated Rider

Who is the good rider?

A Moment of Good Riding?
A Moment of Good Riding?

When I was in elementary school, my family lived near a state park with bridle trails, and my brother and I had horses.? Several days a week we’d meet some of our classmates in the state park and and go riding together.? I remember one classmate named Corrine who had a tall Palomino and Corrine had an unusual method for climbing aboard her horse.? She’d get him to lower his head, then she’d step across his neck behind his head and when she was ready her horse would raise his head and Corrine would slide down the neck to his back.? She rode bareback as I recall and her horse took good care of her.? Corrine never rode in the shows held by the local saddle club — she just enjoyed trail riding with her horse.? Was Corrine a “good” rider?

Many years later I audited a jumping clinic held by an Olympic rider.? There were several horses refusing at the small practice jump and the instructor’s solution was to step out behind each refusing horse and use a lunge whip on the horse’s hind legs until it went over the jump.? Was this Olympian a “good” rider?

Karen Rohlf’s Traits of a Good Rider

There are plenty of educated and experienced riders who I would not call ‘good riders’ and there are plenty of ‘good riders’ that are not that educated or experienced.? Karen Rohlf, Dressage Naturally

What are the traits of a good rider?? Karen Rolf defines the following qualities of a good rider in her blog post, “What Makes a Good Rider”, and I’ve never seen a better definition.

  1. Your horse understands you; your priority is clear communication
  2. You do your best to see things from your horse’s perspective
  3. You don’t act from ego
  4. You don’t take your frustrations out on your horse
  5. You are able to follow that which you asked your horse to do
  6. Your horse sees you as trust-worthy

Karen also cites the Object of Dressage as a riding goal.

The object of dressage is the development of the horse into a happy athlete through harmonious education resulting in a horse that is calm, loose, supple, and flexible, but also confident, attentive, and keen, thus achieving perfect understanding with his rider.

She says that the object of dressage can be met by a lower level horse working with a good rider.? The object of dressage might not be met by a Grand Prix dressage horse with an educated and experienced rider who is not a good rider by Karen’s list of traits.

She cautions riders against adopting a single-minded focus on achieving a riding goal, and reminds us that “the most important judge of your riding is your horse.”? If you’re acting from your ego — acting from anger, frustration, impatience — you won’t be making progress toward building a confident, calm horse with a perfect understanding with his rider.

A Level of Physical Preparation is Necessary

Later in the article Karen makes the point that horseback riding is a physical skill.? She says, ‘[c]onflicting aids due to lack of balance or physical awareness can be just as devastating to the relationship as getting mad and frustrated.”? I understand her to mean that you might have all of the traits of a good rider, but if you aren’t physically prepared for riding well, your won’t be one.? A poor seat, an inability to give clear direction to your horse and a lack of balance can cause confusion and resentment even if the six traits are working in your favor.

As we get older, it’s harder to stay in shape and it’s easier to gain weight.? If your weight or physical fitness are keeping you from having the body awareness you need, you won’t be a good rider.

A Saddle Up Again Version of Karen’s Traits

In looking back over the years, I think I’ve been a good rider with some horses at some times and not so good with other horses and in other times.? These are the riding goals I’m working toward to be a good rider on a good horse.

  1. Focus on Communication.? In everything you do with your horse from grooming, to groundwork, to riding you understand that communication is two-way.? You’re watching your horse’s reactions to your aids, your body language and other signals and you patiently help your horse understand what you’re asking if there’s confusion.? If your horse is telling you that something’s not right, you pay attention to it and find out what’s bothering him.
  2. Build a Trusting Partnership.? You don’t ask your horse to do things you haven’t prepared your horse to do.? You understand that progress is incremental and setbacks are inevitable.? Your horse understands that you are someone he can trust if he’s troubled, he had doubts or he’s hurt.
  3. Leave Your Ego at the Barn Door.? My horse doesn’t understand that I’m tense because I have a horse show to prepare for next week, or a big business assignment due tomorrow.? He doesn’t understand why I might be angry over something I read on Facebook.? He doesn’t understand my aspiration to be the star at the next Buck Brannaman Clinic.? He’s looking for a rider without anger, fear, or frustration whose ambitions for the horse are tied to the welfare of the horse.
  4. Be Physically Prepared to Ride.? This is tough for many Saddle Up Again riders, but it is absolutely required to be a good rider.? As you get older, you have to work harder to maintain your fitness and your weight.? You maintain a balanced seat and ride with stirrups short enough to allow you to get out of the saddle when needed.

As Saddle Up Again riders, we hopefully have the time and the awareness to build communication with our horses.? We’ve become aware of our egos, and we can set them aside when we’re working with our horses.? We’ve developed a fitness routine that maintains our leg and core strength and keeps us at a weight proportionate to our height.? These are my goals.? What are yours?? Do you agree with Karen’s definition of a good rider?? With my definition?? Please let me know in the comments.

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Masterson Method Review — Weekend Seminar and Workshop

Looking for a review of the Masterson Method Weekend Seminar?? I completed the Masterson Method Beyond Horse Massage Weekend Seminar and Workshop a few weeks ago, and it was a fantastic experience.? If you’re looking for a way to work with your horse to relieve tension and build a stronger connection this is for you!? Here’s a post-seminar video interview with Becky Tenges, the Lead Instructor for the seminar.

Summary of My Masterson Method Review Video

Masterson Method Beyond Horse Massage Weekend Seminar - Beasley TX
Masterson Method Beyond Horse Massage Weekend Seminar – Beasley TX

The Weekend Seminar I attended was held in Beasley, Texas, which is about 40 miles southwest of Houston.? Our instructors came from as far away as Wisconsin, and several of our students came from other states.? If you’re thinking of attending the Weekend Seminar, it would be a good idea to register early because they fill up quickly.? Here are my comments about my Masterson Method experience.

  1. The Weekend Seminar is very hands on so you get lots of opportunity to practice the techniques described in the Beyond Horse Massage video and the Beyond Horse Massage book.
  2. There’s lots of instructor help during the hands-on sessions working with horses.? Our lead instructor, Becky, would demonstrate a technique with a student and then we’d pair with another student to practice the techniques on horses.? Our instructors would rotate around to observe us and offer help.
  3. Our practice horses were accustomed to handling and our instructors were very conscious of safe handling practices, but you should be comfortable handling horses before you start the course.? Horses can certainly sense nervousness and if you’re nervous your ability to benefit from the course would be impaired.? Most of the students had been handling horses for years, but there was one student who had about six months experience handling horses.? You should have some basic horse handling skills and be comfortable around horses before you start the course.
  4. There were all ages in the Weekend Seminar with me the oldest in my late 60s and some students in their 20s.? You’re on your feet much of two days during your practice sessions with the horses.
  5. The Masterson Method offers you and your horse a way to build trust and strengthen your connection, even though you’re not riding or working on the lunge or in the round pen.? In every aspect of the Masterson Method, you have to watch your horse very closely to look for reactions to your touch and your movements.? Your horse is communicating with you through his reactions and you’re communicating back through what you do in response.? This training and practice in watching your horse closely can benefit your riding and training IF you carry it over into those activities.
  6. Becky always started the practice sessions with a reminder to leave our “stuff” at the door.? Here’s what she meant by that.

    One of the big things about this weekend is helping you to see that the horses feel. And they feel your touch and they feel your expectation, and they feel your energy, and they feel your baggage and your anger. And it’s interesting to know that. And so, we want to really leave our “stuff” at the door. Check our “stuff” at the door and be present. And then focus on this process of having a conversation about the horse. Really, we’re ministering to the horse and saying, “Well, have you got stress and tension here? “Okay. Well, let’s see if we can help you “Unwind a little bit of that.”

  7. The Masterson Method techniques are a wonderful way for you to help your horse relief tension and stress while you build a better relationship with your horse!? I strongly recommend the Masterson Method and the Weekend Seminar.? Try the Bladder Meridian technique described on the Masterson Method website.

I initially registered for a Weekend Seminar in February but I got sick with a bad cold a couple of days before the event.? The Masterson Method staff was very helpful in talking me through the process of shifting my reservation to a later seminar.? Thank you!

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Transcription of the Masterson Method Review Video

– Howdy, friends. My name is Paul Sherland from SaddleUpAgain.com and I’m with Becky Tenges, who’s an instructor for the…

– It’s the Beyond Horse Massage equine bodywork. It’s not really about the kind of deep-tissue massage or sports massage that people might think of, so it’s on the other side of that.

– Okay.

– You know, learning how to work with the horse to find and release tension.

– And it’s a weekend seminar, so it’s two days.

– Yep, we just finished a two-day. There’s a number of different education opportunities that we have, but it all begins with a two-day.

– Becky, could you just give me a little bit of your background with body work and massage, and horses.

– Yeah, sure. So with horses, I grew up, my dad was a farrier, and then my parents decided to have a horse ranch and they raised Arabian horses. So at the peak, there were 110 horses, and so I was part of the crew.

– That’s a lot of background.

– Yeah, yeah. And so I also rode. I was in 4-H for nine years in the Horse Project. So, I rode in 4-H and I rode at home, and my parents had a breeding farm, and so I had a lot of interaction with horses from a herd perspective, and then also from handling, horsemanship and handling. I did a lot of holding of horses for my dad while he was doing his farrier work. So that continued through high school, and then I went off to college and really didn’t have a lot of interaction with horses after that, because then I went off and became an investment banker, and, you know, life happens. So, from… there was a gap, about 35 years, between my active work with horses at home, and with my dad as a farrier, and when I got back involved with horses. I came back to horses actually for the therapeutic value. I might cry. That they can give to we humans who need some sort of help and guidance, and so one of my daughters, I thought, could really be helped by having an opportunity to interact with horses and ride horses. So that’s what brought me back. Then, the other sister was very much involved with Breyer horses and reading horses and very much involved and interested in horses, like a lot of little girls are, and when her sister got to do riding, that was not okay. So the younger sister started riding, too, and then for, I would say a couple of years, they did riding. It started out therapeutic riding, but then it became regular riding, and they were both in sort of the hunter land. And then the younger daughter continued on, and it gave me an opportunity to get back around horses again even though it was my daughters’ opportunity. So during that process, we actually… You know the way it goes. First they’re taking lessons one day a week, and then they’re taking lessons two day a week, and then the trainer says, “You should lease a horse,” and then you’re leasing a horse.

– Buy a horse.

– And then the trainer says, “You should buy a horse,” and so, you know, we went down that path, and we bought a horse. And about maybe a month after we had the horse, the trainer and I were like, “You know what? “That horse is lame.” And so we had a new farrier at that point, and he is a terrific farrier. Actually, his name is Scott Lampert, and he’s an amazing farrier, and so he helped us that day with our horse, sorting out, you know, was it in front or was it in back? Was it there? And after that particular horse then I was just hanging around. Because he kind of reminded me of my dad and watching him work. And I just was interested because he had a degree of tuning into the horse and inquiring, asking questions of the horses body, and then listening. That was foreign to me, it was new to me. And seeing things that, I had all those years of experience, but he saw things that I don’t even know how did he see it? And so, he finished with our horse and another horse walked into the barn and the horse was probably 30 feet away and he declared that the coronet band was swollen.

– Wow.

– And I was like “Well, how do you know that?” and he just said, “Well the hair is sticking up straight at us,” and I was like “Oh, right. Duh.” Once I knew where to look then I could see what there was to be seen the whole time. And so that horse walked up and he looked at its feet, and he was actually kind of funny, he’s like “Well that horse has feet from four different mothers.” And then he walked up and he touched the horse in a couple of different places and the horse flinched and reacted and he said, “Well, here’s the deal. I can help the horse’s feet, but unless somebody helps this horse’s body, it doesn’t matter what I do with his feet because it’s just going to go back to the same challenges because the horse has issues in its upper body.” And he said, “Do you guys have a good horse massage therapist around here?” I was like “What? What are you talking about?” Because I didn’t know such a thing existed.

– Right.

– With even all that time around horses. And so I went home that night and I looked and I researched and I didn’t have the luxury of going away to a massage school, because I had young kids and a husband, and I couldn’t go anywhere. And so, but I quickly found YouTube videos of this gentleman by the name of Jim Masterson, and there were certain techniques that he was doing and one of them is the first one you learned yesterday, The Bladder Meridian. And so I saw a YouTube video of him doing this very light-touch movement where he was searching and then he would wait for a little while, and he was explaining how it is. And we can talk more about that in a little bit. But, he was explaining what he did but he was really tuned in on watching the horse. And then, the horse would yawn or lick and chew or shake its head, or shake its whole body and I’m like “That. “What is that? That can’t be true.” But I looked at how to do that technique from his website and then I went to the barn the next day and I tried it. And it worked. And the the horse … I found places where the horse responded, how I taught you how to do it, yesterday, where the horse responded and then I saw evidence of release like chew, snort, snot, yawn. And I thought “Huh. That is incredible.” That would be something I’m interested in and it would be something that I could do, and I wouldn’t be like hawking over my daughter. While she’s there, riding, if I could learn this it would give me something I could do and it would be a way for me to have a relationship with the horses and help them. So I asked my daughter’s trainer “What do you think “If I go get training?” And she’s like, “Yes!” Yeah, so he was teaching a weekend course then. And then, at the next course in the process to becoming certified is a five-day advanced course and he had another one starting Monday.

– Wow.

– So I did the two-day and then I did the five-day.

– Wow.

– So that was the beginning of my journey and that started in 2011.

– One of the things that was really valuable to me, in this course, is learning things like you did with the Bladder Meridian from YouTube, but learning a whole bunch of different techniques that I can use on my horses and that I can use to help my horses and build a relationship with my horses. One of the things that I find so remarkable and so great about the Masterson Method is that you can go to this two-day weekend seminar and you’re equipped with the knowledge, or the information that you need, to go back and start working with your horses and …

– And be effective. Yep. It’s very learnable and you can be effective in a really relatively short period of time.

– And, you know, it’d be nice if the weather were perfect all the time and if I could ride every day but it’s not that way, anywhere. There are going to be rainy days, there are going to be, depending on where you live, snowy days, or days where you don’t really have time to ride. But you can, with Jim’s method, you can spend some time with your horse and it might be 30 minutes, it might be 15 minutes or maybe 2 hours, if you had it on a rainy day, and you can be building a better relationship with a happier horse.

– Absolutely. And so fundamentally, this Beyond Horse massage is that what Jim has developed is a program where we, I help you now learn, but we teach people to read the horse’s responses, the horse’s body’s responses, to our touch and presence of our hand. In key junctions of the horse’s body, which accumulate stress and tension, in order to find where their body has tension and restriction, and then help the horse’s body to let it go. And so, it’s a interactive process. It’s not something we do to the horse. It’s something we do with the horse. And so, you just have had an opportunity where we’re helping you to see and read the … This is really actually quite … It’s very light and it’s very straightforward to do, but for the horse’s body, it’s pretty deep central nervous system work. And so, we do this work in the same areas that we humans accumulate stress and tension. You know, some of us get it from our head to our neck. Others of us get it in our shoulders. And others get it in the low back. And the same is true of the horses. And so, when we learn to become more aware. Sort of like me, when Scott said, “Well, his coronary band is swollen.” I’m like, “Well, how do you know that?”. It’s because I didn’t know where to look. And so, this weekend course we teach people how to see what’s in front of them, but they didn’t know to look for it. And so, part of what we do is we help you to see what there is to be seen. From the smallest nuances of a little blink or a scrinch of the eye, to changes in the facial muscle tension, to things that are happening on the muzzle or nostrils. And so, we teach you how to see and to see the correlation between where your hand is and the question you’re asking, and the response in the horse’s body. So, that’s we search for a response and then we stay until we get a release. And we’re really using the nature of the horse as a herd and a prey animal, and their need to not feel… They have a survival need not to feel their pain, and so we now we teach you how to search and where to search, and then you to read the horse’s body, so now you have an ability to go, “Oh, good. Right there.” And then we work in such a way that we work with the nature of the horse. And so we work under their ability to brace against, we found this place where their body has stress and tension, and we work. The horse’s body will tell us if we have too much pressure or presence, then they’ll do what horses do. Their feet will move or they’ll brace. And so, when we do this work we have an opportunity to have the horse’s body tell us where they have tension and restriction because we know how to look for it. And then, how much pressure or presence to have, and we teach you the different levels of pressure to use. And the horse’s body will tell us. If it’s too much, they’ll just walk away. But, if we have the right calibration, and it’s a different amount depending on where we are on the horse’s body and what their stress and tension is that they have. So, they tell us where, they tell us how much, and then it’s very visual and results-oriented, so we can see because we just wait. We just stay softly and present in that place where they have tension and restriction, and then we get to see external evidence of the internal tension release. Because there’s this list of things that the body will do, and so they might lick or chew, or snort, or sneeze, or cough, or yawn, or shake their head, or shake their whole body like a dog does. There’s a whole list of things that they do. And so, it’s really fun to do because in essence, we’re giving a gift to the horse. A gift of presence. And they can get uncomfortable when we’re drawing their attention to this thing that they’re like “la-la-la-la-la. I got nothing. “I’m good.” And then we come along and we find, actually, it turns out you have some things and so I’m just going to be here and hold space while your body unwinds and works it out. And then we can see that they lick and chew and yawn, when we do those things. So it’s very results-oriented. We can see the results. But it’s also results-oriented, I mean, you just finished with your partner taking a horse from 2:15 to 4:15, and you had a horse that had stress and tension both in it’s demeanor and it’s conduct and it’s behavior. And physical. You could feel it because now we’ve taught you how to ask, sort of, movement questions and you could feel that it was stressed, that there was restriction, and yet, you were one of everybody who raised your hand when we said was the horse different at the end? And they are. And so, it’s because we’re working with the horse and we’re saying, “Have you got stress and tension here?” “Oh, good. Yeah, mm-hmm, I can see that “Because your body told me so.” And then we work through that process of helping the body to let it go. By definition, if I’m stressed and my shoulders are up, if I had to go swim and I had stress and tension, I’d look like a T-Rex, okay? If I had a lot of stress and tension. But if somebody helped me to relax and release, I’d have a much better stroke. It’s the same with the horses, and so, we can see the results because we see the releases. But, then we can see the results in actually how they move, and they will move in a more fluid way. And parts that were a little sticky are going to be less sticky. So, we always make an improvement.

– One of the things that also impressed me about the course was that I’ve learned to better read the horse as a part of this. And, that’s useful not only when you’re doing the Masterson Method. That’s useful whenever you’re around your horse. Whether you’re riding the horse or working with the horse in ground work, or doing anything, if you can better read the horse’s responses to what you’re doing, you’re both better ahead.

– Yep. And in the end, you’re safer.

– Yes.

– Yep. Because we as humans are real do-ey, and we’re real box-checky and we can kind of be demand-y and we can be purposeful, and we can have in our head the agenda for the day. And the agenda for the day is we’re going for a ride. And this is what we’re going to do. And it may be that there’s something about the horses. Maybe they slept wrong. Maybe they got cast. Maybe they got in a fight with their frenemy outside. And so, you have a wider prospective now having gone through this horse about how to see in the horse’s body those things we taught you to look for. To find where they have stress and tension, and it’s really the correlation, learning how to ask these questions and then learning how to see and interpret what the horse’s body is saying. It’s not Voodoo Hoodoo. It’s really just learning to be aware. In the same way that I now can see any horse that has what Scott taught me in a moment because I was there to look for it. And what you now have, and anyone who takes the weekend course, that’s the foundation, has an ability to sort of understand and interpret more what the physical body is doing and potentially even the behavior. Because really, they just want to be with their buddies, and we’re one of the buddies. Because when we enter, if it’s the horse and us, we’re a herd. They know how to communicate. They know how to read the nuances of the facial … The one that’s in charge can scatter the herd with very small demeanor behaviors.

– Right, right.

– And so, it’s useful to us to learn “horse”. And that’s a part of what we’re doing is helping you sort of increase your understanding of the body responses, and the physiologic indicators of stress and tension. And if we have stress and tension in our body, we will tend to have more stressful responses. We’ll tend to have behaviors that are a short fuse and might be explosive. But, if we all can physically relax, we might have a longer fuse when things are a little bit of an agitation. And horses are amazing. They’re so… generous.

– Right.

– Really. They’re so generous. To do what we say they’re going to do. Whatever that discipline is, whether it’s riding in a cart, pulling a cart, or any sort of Western discipline or English discipline, or Dressage discipline. They’re so kind and willing to do that. And because of the nature of the horse, as a herd animal and a prey animal, they have a survival need not to show when they’re uncomfortable. And so we now, if we expand our understanding about how to look for it, and read it and see it, then we can see what there is to be seen and understand it. And then, we also teach you how to help the body remove some of that stress and tension.

– Right. And one of the things that really impressed me this weekend was the variety of backgrounds of the folks taking the weekend seminar. I mean, you had people with maybe less than a year of horse experience–

– We did have one person who had six months’ horse experience.

– And then you had, there was a veterinarian in the group and some people with decades of horse experience. In order to take the weekend seminar you don’t need to have decades of–

– No, you don’t. I mean, you need to be able to have basic horse safety. You need to be able to confidently and physically pick up all four legs. You need to have the strength and stamina because it’s long days, at two full days, so there’s strength and stamina, and an openness and willingness to learn. A foundation of horsemanship, but it doesn’t need to be, I mean seriously, we had one it’s been six months and she’s a vet tech, so she’s getting exposed to horses a lot, but things are new for her and she doesn’t have sort of the rote behavior that I have, growing up on a farm. So, yeah, you need some basic horsemanship skills. Yep.

– And, you know, there’s one phrase that I want to close with. And I think you know what it is. But, before we went into a stall any time to work with a horse, you told us this. So, if you could repeat that.

-? Yeah. You need to leave your “stuff” at the door. Really. Because one of the big things about this weekend is helping you to see that the horses feel. And they feel your touch and they feel your expectation, and they feel your energy, and they feel your baggage and your anger. And it’s interesting to know that. And so, we want to really leave our “stuff” at the door. Check our “stuff” at the door and be present. And then focus on this process of having a conversation about the horse. Really, we’re ministering to the horse and saying, “Well, have you got stress and tension here? “Okay. Well, let’s see if we can help you “Unwind a little bit of that.”

– Right. Well, I really appreciate the weekend seminar. I’ve learned a lot.

– You did a great job.

– Well, thank you very much, that I’ll carry back with me. And, so I really appreciate what you’ve done.

– Yeah, you’re welcome. For people who might be interested in taking a weekend course, the way to get more information about the Masterson Method is go to Jim’s website. So, it’s MastersonMethod.com. And there’s lots of information about what we do, and then there’s a course listing. They’re offered all over the country. And if you think you want to travel, you could go to England or Australia or Germany or South Africa. There’s lots of places a person could go.

– Okay. Thank you very much. And I had to change my course because I was scheduled for one course and got sick, and I had to change it. And I can say that the folks who work for Jim are super people. And they were very willing to work with me to change the course. So, just great people.

– Well, Jim has a goal and that goal … I’ll cry. That goal is that every horse at least experiences the Bladder Meridian. And everybody on the team, and we have a really big education team and there’s the office team, everybody is committed to helping as many people as we can help to learn how to read the horse and learn how to give the gift.

– Well, I really appreciate it. I know that there are many, many people who appreciate what you’re doing.

– It’s really fun.

– Thank you very much, Becky.

– You’re welcome.

– Thank you.

– Yep.