Old Parelli vs. New Parelli

I don't personally have any experience with NH, other than reading articles about it, but I will share a story.

I used to ride at a dressage barn a few years ago, and a few months after I left it, they begin switching to Parelli. What started the switch was one of the teenage riders there bought a horse that was way beyond her skill level, so I suppose she was looking for alternate ways of training. The owner begin using it, as well as the boarders that were very loyal to her.

As time went on, they rode their horses less and less, and would sit in the indoor drinking beer while their horses wandered around them. That teenager that started it didn't ride her horse for about a year and half and then she would only ride it every few months. All the boarders that wanted to learn dressage were frustrated, since the owner refused to teach dressage anymore. At least half the boarders left, as well as most of the lesson students that had been riding there. Apparently lessons for new riders consisted of them sitting on their horses wandering aimlessly around the area.

This may have just been an extreme cause of them taking it too far, but it seemed like they were using NH as an excuse to be incredibly lazy. In my reading of NH, I thought that it was a technique to be used with your usual riding to make it better, but it doesn't seem like these people are doing much (if any) riding at all...

Not quite sure about old parelli but I can tell you about my experience with the new.

I just adopted a rescue horse about 3 months ago (after not having horses for a while) and moved to a new barn. They are pretty hard core parelli with a couple of Clinton Anderson's, which I wasn't all that thrilled at ( I considered myself pretty traditional, not nh) but the facility was so nice I picked it.

I signed up for training lessons with the owner/trainer right after I got her home. Well our first lessons were very typical parelli level 1 stuff and honestly I was kind of bummed because I wanted to RIDE! My horse was apparently rideable and I felt like we were falling into the nh groundwork trap.

After a few more lessons it all made perfect sense though. With how naughty my horse was on the ground, we would have never been able to even get the saddle on, let alone ride. She didn't tie, wouldn't budge when asked to move and wouldn't stand still when you wanted her not to budge! Working though the 7 games (although they have ridiculous names!) helped with all of those things. Riding would have meant nothing if I couldn't have been safe around her to prepare her to ride. We are riding now and things are great. The ground stuff IS transferring to in the saddle and she is getting better at both.

The thing I can say though is that an experienced trainer made all of the difference. She has trained horses for 30 years and only started parelli about 10 years ago so she's done both. I watched the dvd's and did my best but having lessons with her to watch and tell me everything I was doing wrong,lol, was the bridge that made it actually work. I see that with a lot of the girls at the barn doing the program but not utilizing a trainer. They are technically at way higher levels but are making the same mistakes that my trainer corrected for me at our second or third lesson. Maybe that is why some people have experienced "bad" parelli horses? Something just isn't translating from the DVD to life?

Even those girls definitely ride though!!! Lots! We all do. I think that alot of people who are afraid of their horses are driven to parelli as a fix to their problems (because the DVDs are still cheaper than professional training) and still end up afraid of their horses in the end because they really needed more hands on help. I definitely think the program works, I just think that maybe it doesn't look like it all the time because many of the people driven to it are because they have a problem in the first place. No amount of circle game is going to make you confident if you aren't in the first place and haven't sought professional help.

Just what I have noticed.
Posted via Mobile Device