What do you guys think of Linda Tellington-Jones TTouch method for training?

I'd prefer someone with firsthand experience with horses trained with the method or using it themselves since it is easy to pick apart any philosophy; I know I definitely have things I disagree with. She uses treats as rewards and in my experience that has always created a pushy horse who gets really mad if they don't get the treat they think they deserve. She thinks quite the opposite and it bugs me as I've had a filly literally try to bite my face off after I asked her to do anything with out a treat in hand or try to kick me if I didn't approach her with a bag of grain (something that was fixed and she is now a nice horse, makes ugly faces every once and a while but that is it). I'm reading a few of her books and enjoyed her personality assessment with the whorls, but am not so sure of its validity... I'm curious to try it out, but at the same time do not want to have to go through the trouble of fixing problems caused with the method that wouldn't be there with my original approach. I also dislike all the groundwork she does for everything, I believe in groundwork as a good foundation and anymore is simply fear of riding with the exception of a few cases. So what do you guys think of her methods?

I've only ever read one of her books, and, like about anything else, there are some pretty helpful and interesting things, and some things that just don't make complete sense (like the point about the treats). I do like the personality assessment, and 9 times out of 10 it's right on the money (granted, most of the horses I've 'assessed' I also know reasonably well, so I take that for what it's worth...). I also like the groundwork, personally. I don't have all of the bits and pieces to make all of the obstacles, but I do agree with the basic idea that groudwork translates into and can certainly affect under saddle work. I do find that if I hit a wall, or if my horses are just not focusing as well as I know they can, I step off and put them to work on the ground, step back on in a few minutes and get improvement. I've also put a few horses nearly to sleep with TTouch.

Like anything else, research it, try it, use what works. Obviously the method can get results, but not everything (or every aspect onf one thing) works on every horse.

I really like a lot of it, I don't really use her methods but I think if I was forced to follow a specific trainer, I'd choose her.
My favorite thing about her methods is that she doesn't try to sell you all these gadgets and stuff and tell you that your horse can't be fixed without those gadgets, yknow?
I also really like her ideas of body work and getting the horse more aware of it's own body. I used some of those techniques with Lacey when I first got her (she was CRAZY!!) and some of the exercises really helped her center herself. My favorites are the ones with ground poles but I just haven't really tried working with any of the other stuff.
I don't understand how to do the massage stuff but I'm sure if someone showed me I'd love those too. Haha

The Tellington-Jones bit, sidepull, she has a lot of gimmicks, and renames basic training aids. This disappointed me as I thought she worked with out them. Her sidepull isn't any different from a normal one, just marketed with her name, same with her bit and I'd rather not use her bit because I am quite against shank bits most beginners do not know how to use one correctly and to even suggest it would be determental to the horse.

Her ideas of massage for animals is good. Anything else....I just shake my head. There's way better stuff out there.

The idea of the whorls reminds me of when people were reading each other by the lumps on their heads. Gimme a break.

I don't have first hand experience with her stuff, but I've met people who have. They weren't any better of if they'd of never heard of her in the first place.

There's some funky videos with her applying her "methods" on youtube. Pretty funny stuff.

Yeah some of her stuff is a little weird. But I guess that's kinda like most famous trainers, most of them have their good stuff and their not so good stuff...

Yeah, true, but have you seen some of her stuff on youtube? It's nuts. It's a great way to get yourself hurt or get your horse hurt.

The big names I like don't use stud chains and they don't try and goad (beg) the horse like she has an assistant do in one of her videos with a horse and a tarp. There's no training, just begging. And the horse doesn't get over it. Stays tense.

There's another video where she swears if you put some kind of a banner type deal across your horse's butt while you ride, you can get forward movement.....like a butt rope idea.... what the hell is that?

I just think that there is plenty of real preparation training worth looking into to be sure that you and your horse stay safe...and her stuff doesn't look like it at all to me.

I did like the video where she's trying to tame a pissed off kitty cat with some massage. She's got the cat wrapped in a towel (like vets do) and the cat is hissing and really doesn't want to be touched...but Linda persists and through massage she gets the kitty to chill out. That was good.

So, her massage idea, sure, I've seen first hand the results of a good therapy massage on horses that had major problems (turned out not to be training issues but pain)....

And the whorls? Come on. That's phrenology for horses.:roll:

I've only read some of the books (written 5-10 years ago) that are out by people who are affiliated with her and never seen any videos or anything so I maybe completely uninformed. I just liked what I saw in the books. =P