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Natural Horsemanship??

6412 Views 60 Replies 24 Participants Last post by  Beling, 
jumper25
I don't really know very much about natural horsemanship other that it's riding without tack.... correct? But I do think it looks amazing when you see a horse and rider so in touch so I was wondering if someone could tell me more about natural horsemanship and what it's all about.
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kiwigirl
Yeah I like watching horses together in the paddock. It is so natural the way the lead mare saddles up the rest of the herd and rides them off to shows or sometimes it is just a quick bareback jaunt around the paddock. I also love the way the horses all take turns to free lunge each other around the paddock using their tails instead of carrot sticks - it is magical.

With natural horsemanship we TRULY emulate the way horses work with each other.
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kiwigirl
Hey Silverspear, I have seen the "free lunge" thing done as well. Though they don't actually use their tails as carrot sticks, you may not believe this but I made that bit up.LOL

I think that on some levels the term natural horsemanship can be dangerous. This is just my opinion OK. It seems though that packaged natural horsemanship attracts beginners and unconfident, inexperienced horse people. For all the right reasons. People want to be better with their horses and gain more knowledge in a way that is kind to their horses and I applaud that. But it is easy to be lead down the path of horse righteousness, "I do "natural horsemanship" everything I do TO my horse is right and good." WRONG! NOTHING we do with horses is natural.

I think that sometimes the way natural horsemanship is practiced is just as brutal and unyeilding as the old cowboy way of rope'em and ride'em. Horses made to dance around and around endlessly, back and forth so on and so on by people who don't understand what they are trying to achieve. I don't really approve of the term 'natural horsemanship', there are many types of horsemen, good, bad and inexperienced and not one thing that any of us do with/to our horses is natural. I would love to see the end of the term "natural horsemanship" because it can be a mask for some very unnatural behaviour.
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kiwigirl
"Pressure and Release" training.... yeah, I could be down with that term.
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kiwigirl
I wonder why so many people out there get the whole Parelli/NH ideas so wrong? Nrhareiner you have obviously come across some stinker NH horse handlers, what is the most prevalent problem that you have encountered? What would you consider to be the underlying foundation problems?

I also have a genuine question for Spirithorse, this is not intended to be antogonistic in any way. I admire your loyalty and dedication to the Parelli system you are obviously a person who can get a lot out of it. You made the statement about not wanting to be a mediocre horse person, I totally get that attitude. I want to know if you think that NOT using Parelli makes someone mediocre? Do you think that other people can (and do) achieve great levels of horsemanship using other avenues? Also do you think that as there seem to be some Truly mediocre Parelli trained horse people out there that it has more to do with the individual rather than the program chosen?
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