Thursday, May 26, 2011

Zen Horse


Training Tip of the Week:
You have to be willing to change.
By Clinton Anderson



If you want your horse to change, you must be willing to change yourself and put in the effort necessary to get a responsive, safe partner. When I was an apprentice for Ian Francis, he often said to me, “To change your life, you must first change your attitude.” Ian believes, as do I, that if you’re unhappy with the current state of your life, you need to change your attitude and perceive your life the way you’d like for it to be and in turn follow through with the action to make it happen.

I’ve incorporated that saying into training horses – “If you want to change your horse, you must first change the way you interact with him.” When you interact with your horse in a way that he understands, you’ll get results. But if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same results. If you want a different reaction from your horse and want to progress your horsemanship, you’ll have to change the way you work around him and start seeing things from his point of view.

Ultimately, it comes back to us. If you want your horse’s behavior to change, you have to be willing to change yourself first. A lot of people are unhappy with their horse’s performance, but they’re unwilling to change themselves and the way they interact with their horse. People come up to me all the time and ask, “Clinton, have you ever met a horse that couldn’t be trained?”

My answer is no, but I’ve met millions of owners who didn’t want to be trained. Every horse is trainable, but not every person is trainable because they don’t want to learn new ideas or change their habits. Your horsemanship dreams are attainable if you’re willing to put in the effort. But you have to be willing to work at it and have a burning desire to be the best horseman you can be

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