The NH monster business model

Today was my first day of the Horse and Soul Tour and my REAL exposure to the Parelli business model. I have a lovely young woman that comes out to my barn every week and has helped me learn how to be a better, more in tune, more educated, responsive, and intelligent horse owner with her ground work teachings. Now, all of this being said, I come from about 20 years of the idea that: when a horse "acts up" you just simply tie his head to his chest and work him until he's frothing. So when I bought my second horse, whom had YEARS of unpleasant issues that he'd acquired, I decided that there had to be something better than hiring someone to beat my horse in to submission.
I was truly in awe of how amazing the Natural Horsemanship methods worked for me and my horse. He is a different horse because of the help i've had of the trainers around me. So with great excitement I decided to attend the Horse and Soul Tour. So far, I feel a little betrayed. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but I can tell you for sure, I wasn't expecting hours of marketing, media, and intelligent ways of getting people to quickly part with their money. People explained to me that their schooling program with Pat, can be upwards of 20 grand. Is that a joke?!
I understand he is a business person, and he has to make a living, just as the rest of us do... and he's offering a service, and people are willing to pay... But a part of me feels like I was told I would meet the messiah of the horse world, only to find a corporate fat cat with a mustache and a cowboy hat. I would love other opinions here. As this is my very first experience outside of the comfort of my own personal trainers.

Welcome to the world of natural horsemanship. Good teachers are out there...but like 4 leaf clovers, ya gotta sift through a lot of duds.

Contrary to popular belief you can practice all the methods without buying the product....Though, I've never liked parelli. I don't follow any trainer religiously but I prefer Clinton Anderson to parelli any day.

Yep Mr 45 P's Parrelli, not my cup of tea Im afraid, In Nz there are a couple that I take advice from, but these days pretty much stick with CA

I appreciate the halter and lead line that I bought a few months ago from the Parelli online store. Although for the price I paid, i'm sure I could have bought 10 nylon halters with their matching lead lines.
I also feel a bit betrayed that Pat only talked for about an hour, at best. Then the rest of the day was his instructors or his wife.

Is that that handsome boy Glladdy, Madeline? Sorry, a bit off topic but I recognize the stud in the avatar!!

Thought he made a nice avatar. Where did you post pics of Sasha?

On the horse training forum.

There's nothing wrong with using whatever technique works for your animal, it's when people start buying into the hype where it starts to go terribly wrong. Like stuffing a treat into your horse's mouth when he offers to bite you, instead of correcting the unwanted behavior.

The sad thing is that NH methods will forever be tainted in peoples' minds because of the Pepperonis. The term natural horsemanship is also a misnomer, because to paraphrase Buck Brannaman, nothing we do with horses is 'natural'. We're working within their language to get them to accept some pretty strange concepts.

I went to the CA tour and there was a lot marketing too. Although CA did give away tons of free stuff.
I think it's just the nature of the business.
I didn't really care for Parelli until recently. We had one of his trainers come out for a clinic. The guy really knew his stuff, but that could also be because he's been working with horses for twenty some years. I still don't think you can learn much from just PP's videos.