| Back to Back Issues Page |
 |
|
Joyeux Noel from HHT! December 25, 2017 |
Merry Christmas from HHT!
Here's a little summing up what's been happening at HHT this year :) Another horse-lover at HHT!My daughter Licia is now 17 months old now, and I'm happy to report that she adores the horses more and more as she grows up :) Now that she's walking it's a bit of a job to stop her toddling under their legs all the time(!) but the horses are so gentle and careful with her.
Licia's future steed Flicka (above) settled in in no time since she arrived at HHT last summer. Jasmine, my mum's horse, took her under her wing as if she were her own baby.
Jasmine and Flicka
She is officially part of Uno's herd now - he formed his own little band of mares since the Camille's part of the herd left last year. The good side of his separation from his full sister Totti, who he was very attached to, is that he's matured to the point of taking on a leader role.
Uno grooming with Vestale, one of his most loyal band-members!
It's lovely that in the herd there is space for smaller bands to form in this way. They go about their lives as they choose, and every horse finds their place. Some gravitate between groups, and others are very loyal to their chosen leaders.
Training at HHTI welcomed a very nice selection of visitors for teaching this summer, a mixture of lovely new encounters and good friends who come back to HHT regularly and are making super progress.It was great to be moving on to more advanced straightening work with quite a few of the riders. I'll go into more detail on that subject in another newsletter. I wasn't sure how having people for residential teaching courses would work out this year with Licia, as I follow the Continuum Concept method with her (or 'attachment parenting') so she was not used to being apart from me. But thanks to my Mum's amazing help it all went fine, and if Licia really needed me then I just carried her and taught at the same time (all good for the core muscles!).
Teaching Jacqui with baby on board!
Apart from teaching, I've been really enjoying riding again this year after my maternity break! Training the three schooling liveries - Lulu, Vestale and Habanero - has been so rewarding as they all made very good progress. Lulu has become posturally strong and connected, Vestale more supple and balanced, and Habanero has transformed into a calm, rideable horse. I am sorely missing having anyone on hand to take photos, so I've not much to show of this work unfortunately!
Jo working with Habi below: Mélanie and Lulu
Since having a bit more time in the autumn, I've got Djinnie, my Hanoverian youngster, back into regular work. She's been quite a handful at times, and it's been a great learning process to bring her towards more relaxation and acceptance in her training. My description of this ended up too long to put in a newsletter, so I described it in a page on the HHT website:
Tension in horses: To Listen or To Lead?
My beautiful Djinnie!
BecomeOne Rider CoachingIt's been immensely rewarding and fun working with my coaching clients this year since I launched this new way of teaching at a distance.I've been really pleased with how much I've been able to study people's technique from the videos they send me, and how well they've been able to put into practice my guidance. In my coaching packages I combine video assessment with coaching sessions over the phone, and it's been wonderful to discover how rich and valuable this exchange is towards overcoming obstacles and making progress. It's a beautifully flexible way of working with people who can be on the other side of the world!
Apologies...You may have noticed that I've been neglecting HHT newsletters and facebook somewhat this year... Despite my best intentions, and burning the midnight oil, motherhood and my other horsey commitments have left me with extremely little time for these matters!I have been using up this scarce time working on researching and putting together an in-depth study of the origins of the current downfall of modern dressage. There is just so much deep-rooted convention and tradition stopping well-meaning people from even considering a different way of sitting on the horse that I think a profound explanation is necessary to hopefully open more people up to change. Thanks to some dogged research, I have made fascinating discoveries concerning the history of the seat, and the reasons why dressage riding has, in my opinion, been barking up the wrong tree for the last 2-300 years. So, as long as I find the time(!!) I'm hoping to get this into written and hopefully video format sometime this coming year, along with a new guide for learning HHT's gymnastic riding approach.
Stay posted! And have a wonderful New Year full of potential and expansiveness! ~Gabrielle Dareau
Just Click here to go to the HHT group page, and then click on the 'join group' button at the top right of the page.
Sharing the Holistic Message
If you enjoy the Happy Horse Training website, and you find the information on it useful, please help us to share it by clicking on the Facebook 'like' and 'share' buttons that are on each page (you can also share this newsletter by clicking on the symbol above). Any other way you can pass the site on to friends and colleagues, for example via discussion forums, is also greatly appreciated. You can also sign up to our RSS feed (blog) to be kept up to date with new ideas, pages and other information that we post there. Just click on the box that says 'subscribe to this site' at the left of each page. The equestrian world is one dominated by traditionalist ideas and conventions, but we would like to help inform the growing minority of horse-owners who want to make their horses happier with progressive and holistic methods.
Happy Horse Training now has over 100 pages exploring many different areas of holistic equitation. Do have a look through our site plan to find the subjects and categories that interest you.
Available from HHT:
The Gymnastic Rider eBook 
Available exclusively from HHT, a unique and comprehensive guide to practical rider biomechanics. This professionally produced eBook takes the rider through the process of developing their body in the specific way that brings the horse's movement into harmony and balance, without force and constraint.
The information in this book, including over 55 000 words, represents what we would normally pass on in a minimum of 12 specialist lunge lessons, focusing on each part of the position and its influence on the horse, with a value of at least €450. The Gymnastic Rider is available for only €29.99. Click here for full details, and to download the 15-page introduction to the book for free.
How to Train a Horse Without Force
eBook With your purchase you will receive a free bonus supplement on Horse Trauma - cutting edge insights on this subject that up until now have mostly been applied only to human trauma. This supplement shows how to recognise, avoid and deal with horse trauma, which is much more common that we realise. These two e-books - How to Train a Horse Without Force and Horse Trauma comprise more than 75 thousand words and are richly illustrated. They are available for only 19.99 Euros (around $26). Click here for more details.
|
| Back to Back Issues Page |
