“I know it feels a bit off the wall to take riding lessons online”, Corey said…
“But I’m here to tell ya that I learned more of greatest lasting value from Jenny’s courses than I ever, EVER learned in many decades of live training and live clinics.”
ME: I completely understand why people would find it hard to get their head around, that an on line course to improve your horse riding skills could be so effective and so darned useful. I get that.
My best friend who is a British Horse Society trained Instructor, rolled her eyes at me when I told her what we had discovered, what we were doing and how brilliant it was. Actually she didn’t QUITE roll her eyes, but that’s what it felt like if you get my drift. And she loves me!
So I have been thinking of ways in which I can show you that it REALLY works.
I thought I would share with you three emails that current students sent to someone for me recently, who was unsure whether an on line course would fit her needs. The lady they were writing to had some issues with some aspects of natural horsemanship. I have removed the names because these are people I have enormous respect or admiration and even love for.
Corey Mindlin from New Zealand
I’ll bet by now you’ve heard from Narel and Kati, no doubt raving about Jenny’s online courses. So I really don’t want to bludgeon you with yet even more enthusiasm and praise and endorsement for Jenny’s teachings and methodology.
At this point I think there are enough people who, like myself, took an huge leap of faith from their initial hesitancy and scepticism of being able to actually learn something about riding and horsemanship online, who became convinced and converted and educated beyond any of their (and my!!) wildest dreams during the length of their courses.
Although Jenny does stop just barely short of spoon feeding all this to you, I do have to tell you that it does require a genuine commitment on your part to actually take each lesson in order and DO IT and try it and work with it until it’s “in your bones” before going on to the next one.
What worked brilliantly for me was to take on one lesson each week, and if there were any issues or questions or problems, I brought those up on the chat forum site: and SO many times the feedback from other participants was utterly brilliant and really enhanced the whole learning process.
And of course Jenny ALWAYS answers your concerns on your chat group site and/or during the live lesson calls. Jenny will turn herself into a pretzel to ENSURE that you get it, even if it takes personal telephone or Skyping to achieve your complete understanding and success.
I know it feels a bit off-the-wall to take riding lessons online, but I’m here to tell ya that I learned more of greatest lasting value from Jenny’s courses than I ever, EVER learned in many decades of live training and live clinics. YOU have to do the work though. YOU have to make the commitment to be consistent and constant and treat this in the same way you would if you had to show up for a live riding lesson in front of a live trainer each week or month or whatever you would normally do.
I’ve also taken the online offerings of ………. and ……………: I did gain some tools, but nothing, simply nothing anywhere NEAR the comprehensive total foundation that you will have by the end of Jenny’s course.
You mention …………: I think all of us who have been involved with horses over the last 30 – 50 years have gone through a slow (unfortunately for the horses!!) evolution of horsemanship/riding techniques. …………… and …………. had their legitimate and necessary place in that evolution. But the “new age” of horsemanship has truly passed them bye, and I know of no other “guru” better able to lead you into the new era of enlightened horsemanship and riding than Jenny. (Me: hey Corey “guru” is a bit rich? Laughing!)
I guarantee you that at some point during Jenny’s course you’re going to be wracked with guilt over all the traditional training you’ve made your horses suffer through. Being the magical, majestic creatures that they are, your horses, however, are simply going to sigh with relief that you’ve finally ended up in the right place.
Take the plunge Sheri. If you regret it you’ll be the first.
Narel Wilson from New South Wales, Australia:
I discovered Jenny almost two years ago. After being around horses all of my life, from a traditional background including pony clubbing and competitions, then going to natural horsemanship, I still felt like something was not right. I still felt that something was really missing in our connection and friendship.
Turned out that what was missing, I discovered through Jenny’s teachings.
Since doing two clinics with Jenny and completing From Your Horses Heart online (that’s now called Fast Track to Brilliant Riding) I have gone ahead with not only my horses but areas of my personal life in leaps and bounds with massive break throughs.
After having a serious riding accident, with this work I was finally able to release the “fright imprint” I had carried for some 6 years which has freed me mentally to move forward with my horses as well.
There is also much opportunity for our horses to release any negative baggage they may carry.
By us also working in our and our horses comfort zones the most amazing things happen regularly for us all on the courses.
When I first discovered Jenny I thought it seemed so subtle and gentle that it could not work – how wrong I was!
I also doubted how well we could learn horse “stuff” by distance – again I was very, very wrong.
It works, Jenny has nailed it in how she teaches; and the support is amazing via Jenny, the staff and also the most amazing group of people who can chat on the forum about where we are up to with our horses, our lives and our lessons.
I am now on Jenny’s staff and am a huge advocate of what can be changed by looking at our horses as a valid being with something important to say rather than something to just be dominated.
By looking at our horses and OURSELVES a very holistic way of working with them emerges.
I believe our herd position is elevated via respect and by proving we are here to listen to our horses and DO something about what it is we discover that needs to happen.
What I also adore about the way Jenny teaches, is that no teachers are put on pedestals – we are taught how to access our own inner wisdom as we already have all the answers… and we can learn to listen to our horses in a myriad of ways who are also such brilliant teachers when we decide to really listen.
I am happy to be emailed if you have any questions 🙂
Katie from Queensland, Australia, a recent starter on the course.
I have been doing Jenny’s course a few months now and thank Goodness it is NOTHING like …………… or any ‘natural horsemanship’ teaching I have ever done before.
It is way beyond that. In contrast now as I compare my past ………… training I used to do with my horse/s Jenny’s course guides you though a journey of personal growth not just the practical side of horsemanship although that is included of course but she presents it in very different and highly effective ways like no one else I have known in the NH world inc …………… , …………….. etc etc. Jenny has risen the horsemanship bar to a whole new (gentle and in tune) level!
I can honestly say the group who are studying Jenny’s course and those who have done it say it is life changing…. And it is for the horse and human.
I have met some of the most kind hearted and powerfully spiritual people on this course. You can not compare it to the caveman approach of ‘natural horsemanship’ as we know it to be.
I hope in time more people will discover and be open to this new and powerfully beautiful and gentle way of interacting with horses.
If you decide to join us studying Jenny’s course you will be in for an amazing and magical journey. That’s my experience thus far and its only been a few months. 🙂
YIF
Katie
Fast Track to Brilliant Riding
Jenny’s notes: This testimonial is an opportunity for you to have a peep into a distance lesson with me. Jan had sent me some video of a problem she was having with her riding, where her new horse was very resistant and heavy on the turns. Riding him was exhausting for her. And here’s part of my reply to Jan and her exchange back to me, that she has happily posted up here as a testimonial to the effectiveness of our distance horse work.
Jan’s arms were held up and out to get the turn, in the way that we were taught in the Parelli Level 1 course.
Here’s excerpts from my lesson on her video.
The Parelli style of using reins is the problem with Biscuit (new horse). Rocco (old horse) was used to listening and responding to your hands, he had learned to give it to you – I think Biscuit is looking for your body to tell him what to do and while your hands are up and out like that your body and your hands are giving conflicting signals and it’s often taking your seat off that lovely connected place. And I know, I know – that’s what Pat taught us to do and yes our horse will eventually understand what it is that we are asking and start giving it to us – eventually… But it’s not the easy way…
Have two reins, the one rein is doing you a disservice at this stage and not lending itself to an increase in communication.
Get your barrel horse and tie some reins on the fence or something. (Jenny here again: The thing that makes my riding teaching so successful, whether people are here in person or whether I am teaching by distance, is that I do the initial riding lessons without the horse. This gives people a chance to REALLY feel what it is that they are trying to achieve and then they take that achievement back onto their horse’s back and it happens MUCH more easily – it really is a fast track…)
Hold your hands with your elbows gently against your sides like you saw Michelle doing in those backing up lessons in the late sixties of FYHH and do FYHH Lesson 73, learning to ride with the feel of your whole body, with reins short enough to feel the connection. Move VERY slowly and FEEL for the blockage that Biscuit may well give you and melt off it and wait there, feeling inside yourself for the change and when it comes, enjoy it and thus anchor it.
When you are comfortable that you know what I am talking about and have felt the release on your barrel, then you can go and do the same thing on Biscuit. Whether you have long reins ort short reins or no reins, your body position and hand/arm position is exactly the same.
Explore the length of rein that he is used to at this stage, but as I said your hand and arm position at this stage is exactly the same. I know you like to ride with long reins but I am asking you to practise with short reins so that you can feel the effects of the whole body turning. Then you go to long reins when that’s clear for you.
I think what happened is that you thought because you didn’t want short reins that those later seat lessons in the short reins were not going to be useful to you.
It is a credit to the work that you did that you could find the connected seat so beautifully with your hands out like that all the time. You are going to LOVE the security and increase in seat connection when your hands are in a more useful position and you are riding with the feel of your whole body. And if Biscuit was western trained by a decent trainer, he will respond to that smoothness very softly and if he wasn’t and still has a block/resistance as you use your whole body to turn, then he will understand what you are asking better, dissolve the resistance and dissolve that back problem with it, I suspect.
It’s a pity that you don’t have an easy way to upload video to Youtube, because you and Biscuit would love this upcoming virtual clinic!
and then Jan wrote this . . .
Jenny I have read what you have said with tears. Not tears of upsetness or frustration, or any similar emotion, just tears of pure love for my dear Rocco who learned to be with me in the only way I knew how, and to do it so willingly and softly.
I think a great deal of the problem was that at fifty years old, I had never even learned the basics of riding, and most of the people who found Parelli, already knew how to ride and stay on a horse. I never found that Parelli actually ‘taught you to ride’ and the closest I might have come may have been a Mel Fleming clinic, but because I was so full of fear, and so far behind everyone else at the clinic, I ended up going home and not even being able to do the things I did before I went!!
I have learned so much more from you from a distance that I did in all of the whole ten years before . . . and not just about riding, or even horses, but everything and I cannot thank you enough. You are quite right, I AM going to love being with you for those days in January.
I will do as you suggest, and I know that if I do it on my barrel horse that I cannot ‘hurt my horse’ . . . I have a real thing about short tight reins, especially when horses are ridden with a bit, and whenever anyone ever rode Rocco, (traditional English riders) I was forever walking beside them and pulling the reins through their hands to give him more length!! So it really goes against my grain, but I trust you, so I will do it. No one has ever shown me how to hold reins, or where to put my arms, so with my Rocco, bless him, I was always just flying blind.
Thank you for helping me.
Doing seat work with people off their horse, like I have suggested here in this lesson with Jan, happened as a kind of happy coincidence because our lovely indoor here was taking forever to finish. And wow what a wonderful coincidence THAT turned out to be.
Being able to make changes to our riding seat that are just there on auto pilot when we get back on our horse, is a massive step forwards in teaching generally and is such a buzz for me as teacher personally.
I look forward to seeing the changes that you make with this Jan.