may newsletter
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May Newsletter from Dressage, Naturally with Karen RohlfTRANSCRIPT
Creating healthy biomechanics and stronger partnerships through combining
natural horsemanship principles with the art of dressage...
never underestimate the potential for harmony & lightness to improve in ways you cannot yet imagine
This Month• 10 week Intensive photos
• Q & A
Clinic schedule: CLICK HERE
Upcoming Clinics:
April 3 - June 1110 Week IntensiveFull!
July 19-21 Finding the Sweet SpotSanta Cruz, CAContact: Shelley [email protected]
July 22-25 One Spot Open!Upward Spiral (Smaller group format)Santa Cruz, CAContact: Shelley [email protected]
August 17-28 3 days Sweet Spot, 3 days Upward Spiral, 3 Days Advancing Private lessonsSomerset, UKContact: Stephanie Gauntemail: [email protected]
Sept. 16-17 Spots Open!2 days Focusing on Connection, Sept. 18-21 Spots Open!4 days Upward Spiral (smaller group, more private attention)Lindstrom, MNContact: Sally TaylorPhone: 612.616.2550email: [email protected]
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Welcome back to the Temenos...
Temenos is an ancient Greek word. It refers to a sacred space that has no limits, where special rules apply and extra-ordinary events are free to occur.
"Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing
that it is stupid."
Albert Einstein
Karen Rohlf
May 2011
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siveIn 10 It is hard to believe we are into week 7 of the 10 week Intensive! For me, the time is flying. I am so impressed with not only the ability, dedication and focus of this group, but also with their ability to take care of themselves while supporting each other and to have FUN at the same time. The progress with each human and horse is evident. Keeping true to principles of ʻisolate, separate and recombineʼ, our days are a mixture of self-awareness and reflection, theory, experimentation and play, freestyle, jumping and oh yes, some private dressage instruction! Any techniques we learn are only as good as the mental/emotional/physical well-being of the individual practicing them (horse & human), and so we have all taken great care with this. Last week we switched horses and everyone got a chance to feel an-other way of going. It was so fun to see how easily each person adapted to their new horse and rode beautifully. We also had a visit from Dessa Hockley, author of the book: Is Your Horse a Rock Star. We spent the day observing and doing our best to assess our horses. We set up a ʻstrange newʼ object in an arena and turned the horses loose to see what they did. Wisely I saved my group of geldings for last be-cause Ovation and Atomic (with some help from Claireʼs horse Equinox) soon tore it down! Marcel teaches us once a week in a range of exercises from breathing, & connection, to tai chi, to just play! Breanne Peters helps us function well as a group and assists in the learning processes of the students. All are making me quite proud as we take foundation forward with us to find the Sweet Spot of healthy biomechanics, and as we take that Sweet Spot forward into the Upward Spiral of successful gymnastics!
Karen & Bre with Dessa Hockley
Sally Thompson AUSTRALIA
Liesbeth Jorna NL
Ewa Angantyr SWEDEN
Michele Richardson UK
Sarah Grimm USA
Question from a Student: “Can too much Parelli ‘ruin’ the dressage?”
Q: I have a question, I've read a blog that said Parelli horseman-ship program could ruin the dres-sage, and at some point we have to choose if we want to do thedressage or Parelli.
Is this true? And if so, why is that?Thank you for taking the time,C
A: Hi. Wow, what a question! Ac-tually it is one that comes up often. The opposite also comes up: “Can too much dressage ruin the Par-elli?”
My answer will have to start with my favorite way to answer so many questions like this: “It depends.”
Some thoughts:
It makes some sense that if someone specializes in any one thing, it may make it
more difficult to do other things... BUT the goal of Parelli is to create a good foundation, and even more specifically, I see Parelli as a way to create a mentally and emotion-ally balanced, willing and commu-nicative horse... So even the ʻspe-cializationʼ of Parelli is to create a general result that can positively effect the horse no matter what specialization he does later.
On the same note, dressage is a way to create a physically bal-anced, biomechanically healthy horse, so even the specialization
of dressage is meant to create a general result that can positively effect the horse no matter what he does.
By definition foundation is the base that you should be able to build other things on. Dres-
sage riders consider the lower lev-els of dressage the foundation for all other things too! With dressage or Parelli, if you spend too much time only doing the basics then too many patterns are formed that will be hard to change. This is true within dressage and within Parelli. If a horse spends too much time (years and years and years) spe-cializing in Training and First Level Dressage, many patterns are formed that may make it harder to create the power and boldness you need for the more advanced work. If you only practice Level 1 or 2 Parelli for too long, your horse is going to have those patterns in-grained.
So much depends on what you picture when you pic-ture Parelli. For me Parelli
is the name of a school that teaches certain information: Part-nership, communication, trust. If you are western it will come out looking western, if you are dres-sage it will come out looking like dressage, if you jump you will have a jumper with these qualities.
I can use Parelli type exercises and concepts and practice them in a way that I can absolutely pre-pare a horse perfectly for dres-sage!!! That is what I do here with Dressage, Naturally! But I have a very clear picture of my end result and can play making choices to shape how they move and think within that exercise.
The problem is when people follow a certain ʻlookʼ or style of other people doing the exercises instead of the essence of the exercise... For example many pictures of fre-estyle riding have horses in flat postures on the forehand but it doesnʼt necessarily need to be that way. It just means that that person did not do it in a way that created better balance!
Partnership, communication and trust (the essence of what is being created through excellent Parelli exercises) can show up in any dis-cipline. Parelli is not really a disci-pline, although some people prac-tice it as such. IF students keep doing only foundational ʻParelliʼ exercises with no emphasis on biomechanics for many years, then it makes sense that perhaps patterns can form that would make a specific specialization more diffi-cult later, especially if the horse is not a natural talent at.
For example: The ʻParelliʼ exercise of having a horse jump and imme-diately turn and jump back on line is great for many reasons, but if you ONLY do that, then you may wonder years later why your horse does not jump boldly or with great form and if you wanted to special-ize in jumping with that horse, you would have to re-teach some things that a horse without that pattern would not have to do. Of course, that pattern also could have helped an overly emotional, impulsive jumper to be calm and balanced, and so if practiced well could be the key to unlocking the horseʼs potential as a jumper! It all depends!
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It all depends on how you use the exercises. It depends on your pic-ture of what you want to create and how well you understand the intention of any practice that you do.
I hope that helps in some way!Cheers,Karen
Q continued: Thank you for that quick reply... And I forgot to also ask you.. Is there something I should not be doing too much with my horses that you have seen other "Parelli" horses gotten prob-lems from in your dressage?
It's probably a hard question too answer, but I'm thinking in generalif there any exercises i should be careful to over do..Thanks again:)C
A continued: Hi,Yes... If I had to pick one thing that many students do that come through Parelli or any NH is that everything is ended with a disen-gagement. Don't automatically end EVERYTHING with a disen-gage. You want to have it, but you don't want it to be an assumption. We spend our whole lives in dres-sage trying to get them light on the inside shoulder. Disengages mean that the last thing they do before a nice rest is plop on the inside shoulder... Think about how you ask for it and what the horse must do in order to do it ʻwellʼ: In slow motion, the first thing that happens is that the weight shifts forward onto the inside shoulder, then the haunches are lightened so the in-
side hind leg can move to the out-side in a way that shuts down for-ward energy.
In dressage we want the reflex to be that if we talk to the inside hin-dleg, the shoulders ʻstand upʼ so the hindleg ends up en-gaging and coiling the energy.
You want to be able to have a dis-engage, all my horses have a good disengage, but once you have it, you don't have to use it all the time! My body language is very clear to separate a dis-engage from a hindquarter yield that be-comes en-gaging. (Results in Harmony DVD # 2 shows this really well)
Great questions, Cheers,Karen
Q: Hi Karen, I wonder if you could clear something up for me.When performing lateral move-ments I see you are moving your weight slightly with a feel and fo-cus into the direction of travel. All the top level dressage riders I have seen teach the horse to move into their weight shift like that. Why does Pat teach the op-posite by leaning out? Its interest-ing that you can achieve the same thing by completely different body mechanics, but in truth what are the differences either way may produce in the horses movement?
Many many thanks
Rebecca
A: Hi Rebecca,Great question.... In order to flow with quality of gait in lateral work
the rider needs to sit in the same direction as the horse...
But teaching people how to do that can be tricky, especially if they are also teaching the horse at the same time. The exaggerated posi-tions the Parellis teach do get the pelvis sort of going in the correct direction.... If you lean left, it points your seat bones to the right.... The trouble is it puts your weight to the left. I think of the Parelli position as an exaggeration to teach and for teaching I only need a step or two.... Once I get that then it is my responsibility to stack my body up over my pelvis.... My pelvis goes, the horse goes, then we all go to-gether!
The exaggerated position will not be useful when you want to sus-tain movement with a quality of gait.
Often in dressage-land when rid-ers are told to sit 'to the right' (or what ever the direction of travel is) they try to lean over to the right which can push the pelvis to the left!... So the exaggerated Parelli postiion at least helps get the seat sort of heading in the right direc-tion... but it needs to be refined very quickly if you do it. (Oh if only riding were easy!)
so if you know the intention then you can use it and know when to stop using it and refine it...
I hope this helps!!Karen
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Breanne began her horseman-ship journey with her first pony at the age of 4 and her passion for horses has never ceased. She began her natural horsemanship jour-ney with the horse she bought at age 12.
She trained in Western; Reining, Pleasure, Conformation and Barrels and Competitive Trail - doing light competing. Eventually she found Parelli; achieving her level 1 and 2 in 1 year. She was working on her ʻoldʼ level 3 when her horse was diagnosed with a serious illness. At this time she travelled to B.C. to work on a ranch for 7 months to gain more horsemanship experience. It was through working for the ranch that Breanne found Dressage Naturally.
Bre has continued at University to earn her credits towards becoming an Elementary School Teacher. Her focus is on communication and in addition to University she also studied the course: Crucial Conversa-tions.
In 2007 Breanne moved to Temenos Fields for 1 year to spend more time understanding Karen and her methods. Breanne has since re-turned for 6 months periods of time for the past 2 years to continue her Dressage, Naturally education. Breanne has trained her current horse to Second Level Dressage in one year and has aspirations of reaching higher levels with quality. She is eager to aid others in their horsemanship and Dressage, Naturally journey.
New Dressage, Naturally Endorsed Instructors!
I am proud to introduce Shelby Hume and Breanne Peters as the first new clinicians endorsed to teach the Finding The Sweet Spot of Healthy Biome-chanics 3-Day clinic. The curriculum is set by me in a tried and true format to learn the first and most important steps in finding physical harmony while preserving and enhancing the mental and emotional harmony.
I am so excited to add these two individuals to the Dressage, Naturally Team!
Shelby and Bre will be available for clinics beginning in August, 2011.
Shelby will be available within the United States and Bre will be available in Canada.
For information about clinics with Bre or Shelby, please contact Sally Taylor at: [email protected]
Breanne Peters
Shelby has loved horses from her first breath and started her work in 4-H where she rode and competed in a wide variety of events; con-sidering them all opportunities to be a more well rounded horse person. She was drawn to Dressage but her first experiences with Dressage did not match the picture of the "happy athlete" she was hoping for.
She pursued a BA degree in Business Administration and strength-ened her teaching skills in the equestrian world and in Tae Kwon Do. She has spent time in the world of Reining through showing and be-ing a NRHA judge. Shelby taught at a College Equestrian program and coached Intercollegiate Riding and Judging Teams through out her years of employment there. She studied and rode in Portugal, fell in love with the Lusitano horse and a version of Dressage that was closer to Shelby's ideal picture (but not quite there yet)!
Her first Lusitano stallion caused Shelby to pursue Natural Horse-manship because of the challenges he provided to her. Through this journey Shelby learned about Karen Rohlf. She has been thrilled to have the opportunity to study with Karen over the past several years and considers Karen to be her "true north". She looks forward to not only bringing her own horses along in the image of Dressage Natu-rally but she also looks forward to sharing her passion for this way with others.
Shelby Hume
Photos: Dawn Garner Photos: Dana Rasmussen
Breanne and Shelby will be joining me in July at the Finding the Sweet
Spot clinic in Santa Cruz, CA. Hope to see you there!
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The Web Shop
SiMoN the School Master Noodle Kit for learning lateral work
Includes Workbook, DVD and everything you need to turn a pool noodle into a tool for learn-ing lateral work. You may think it’s silly... but
wait until you try it!
This has been one of my most effective tools for teaching everything you need to know about
lateral work in a way you won’t find anywhere else.
D,N ReinsThe feel of a rope rein with the look of a dressage rein!The perfect choice for those
of us with a foot in both worlds!
The WebsiteIncludes archives of all newsletters
& articles by Karen
The D,N Classroom1 hour of new instruc-tional video each monthFull searchable archivesAccess to the D,N Forum
Open Clinic SpotsThere is one spot open in the Upward Spiral of Success clinic in Santa Cruz,
CA in July. Contact: [email protected]
Breanne and Shelby will be joining me at this clinic!
Also some spots are now open in the Lindstrom, MN clinic in September.
Contact Sally Taylor at: [email protected]
The NH clinic co-teaching with David Lichman is FULL
Final notes...
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This month is flying by, and I have been just a wee bit busy, so I am sorry this is a bit of a short newsletter! But I love to connect every month and share even just some photos and thoughts. I am just about done editing the videos for the June Classroom... for those of you following Duncanʼs progress I think you will see a big difference in this next video!!Pictured above is my 3 year old Andalusian filly, Natilla. She is amazing, when i saw this trot ʻliveʼ it looked just like an easy boring trot, then I see the photo and I can really see the effortless power she has... I canʼt wait until I get to ask her to really turn it on! (Patience Patience)To the right is a photo of Marcel with Monty. Marcel gave us a demo of mirroring a horse even when there is almost no movement happening... beautiful! And after-all: music IS the silence between the notes.Bottom right is a picture of me with a guest auditor, Linda Hoover. Linda is the founder and CEO of the US Refined Horsemanship Association . They support riders who are interested in partnership and refinement. Their competitions have a dressage test and an ʻobstacleʼ phase. Please check out the link above!Below is a photo taken at one of our ritual ʻcircle-upsʼ that we do everyday in the ten-week course. Here we connect as a group by individually contributing to the ʻpool of meaningʼ. We are all here to help each other and do our part to keep the group functioning well. I think Carlos likes the energy of the group! This is defi-nitely his vision of the world... all about Carlos all the time!