New To The Whole Idea...

What is the difference between Natural and Regular Horsemanship?

I do have Parelli's book and am in the process of reading it but I'm more interested in first hand accounts of how it's different.

Post up your level and opinion on the subject! THanks

I have been using Clinton Anderson with this horse. What I notice is the degree of intensity of the cues..... I think CA gives four levels of a cue, where as regular riding seems to give two....... from what I can tell the four levels give the horse time to think and to predict the consquences of it's actions- such as if it does not do what is asked, the pressure will increase.

I will not comment on any trainer in particular, but I'm reasonably sure the "natural" word was an attempt to establish a form of training that doesn't involve excessive force or harm to the horse, but it's gone way past that and now is the lastest buzz word to get people to buy all sorts of marketing crap. If you ask 20 people where the line is between old school training and natural horsemanship, you'll get 20 different shades of gray for answers. Horsemanship is horsemanship. Learn from whatever trainer floats your boat and don't get hung up on labels.

^^ that. SO true. But would recommend getting dvd's of DIFFERENT NH type trainers. Don't stick to just one. I have found it earsier to take some tips from many. It really just gives you more tools in the toolbox to use. And, it is fun, IMO.
Clinton Anderson, Frank Bell, Chris Cox, John Lyons are some of the ones I would recommend watching......the more you watch, the more you learn.

The difference? Marketing.

Nothing we do with horses is natural.

If you work with horses using common sense and language they can understand, if you try to work with the horse instead of against it, if you listen to what they are telling you - Then you are using good horsemanship, as simple as that. It doesn't matter what method you follow.

Thanks for the reples. I fgured it was a marketing scheme partly but my employer gave me ths book to read so I don't gotta worry bout that reckon.

I was watching I think it was Monty Roberts (no, maybe not, I can't remember who it was now that I think about it) but they were saying the same thing. Riding a horse is the most UN- Natural thing you can do to them. I really wish I could remember who it was and I wish I could find the videooo.

Quick comment on the term "natural" in natural horsemanship. I think we sometimes use it incorrectly. My understanding is that the term is/should be used to indicate that with natural horsemanship we attempt to communicate with the horse in its "natural" language. In other words, the horse's language, not our own.

The big difference in natural versus general/traditional horsemanship, I think, is that with natural it's about learning the horse's language whereas with traditional it's more about teaching the horse to learn ours. Plus, natural horsemanship doesn't use force or fear to communicate.

Neither do traditional training methods. If you think 'traditional' means 'abusive', then you're flat out wrong.

It's not a case of us learning their language versus them learning ours, all good methods should involve a flow of information to and from both horse and human. In other words, the horse and human both learn each other's language.

The only 'natural' thing a human can do with a horse is eat it, since they're a prey species and we're a predator species.

NH is nothing more than traditional methods gussied up, given silly names, and marketed to the public as something new and majickal.

Oh, and according to the gurus, you can't do NH correctly unless you buy some name-brand, high dollar crap you could make yourself for pennies on the dollar.

I admire Parelli and his ilk as marketing geniuses, but I wouldn't let any of them near a horse of mine.

What SR said. I just got a very glossy catalog from Clinton Anderson...not sure why as I'm not part of the Down Under club, the Savvy club or any other club. But it was packed full of overpriced gear which apparently is critical to success.