Mark Rashid Clinic

Betty and I watched/audited a Mark Rashid horsemanship clinic this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Santa Fe.  Mark is a trainer of people and horses who is home-based in Estes Park, Colorado.  He is also the author of several books.  His first book, "Considering the Horse" is the story of how he, as a young boy, came under the tutelage of "the old man" who taught him a lot about how to look at things from the horse's point of view.  That book was instrumental in Betty and I becoming interested in learning more about horses when we first started riding.

Mark travels around the country doing these kinds of clinics and he is supported by his wife Chrissy who is an excellent horse person in her own right and their dog, Ring.

Mark is very low key and his emotional energy level never changed at all through out the week.  He would gently encourage people to try something new with their horses and then find something to encourage them, even if they failed miserably at what they tried.  When you work with horses, it's the same way.  We look for the slightest try and reward them for that. That's how they learn.  Mark understands that we're no different than our horses.  We need to be rewarded for the slightest try so that we can learn -- even if what we learn is not to do that again.

One of Mark's quotes was, "Don't focus on what the horse is doing wrong.  Ignore that and focus on what you want him to do right."  Mistakes are going to happen and we can learn a lot from our mistakes so it's best not to focus on what we did wrong, but to stay focused on what we want to do right.  Not a bad way of living.

There was so much we took away from his clinic that we're trying with our horses -- Morgunn and Sugar.  One of Mark's big principles is softness.  Softness in a horse is when he is relaxed both inside and outside.  The same is true for us.  If we can be soft riders, relaxed both inside and out, we can better connect with our horses.  As Mark says, our horses can do everything we want them to do -- just watch them in the pasture and how relaxed we are.  They just have trouble when we're on their backs and we're all tight and tied up in our minds and bodies.  If we can match our horse's state of mind and body we can come closer to that harmony we all want when we ride.

One of the reasons Betty and I enjoy our horses so much is there is so much to learn about them and, in that learning process, we're learning so much more about ourselves.  It's a lifelong journey of learning that will never get old.