Steve Halfpenny Clinic Report

[glenatron]

Steve Halfpenny is an Australian trainer and clinician and one of the people who runs the Silversand Natural Horsemanship organisation. Many years ago he was a Parelli instructor but he has moved on from that in pretty much every respect and now his focus is on feel, softness and getting the horse really with you whenever you work together.

I was taking part this time so I have far fewer notes on what was going on and this will probably work out closer to a photo diary than my regular clinic reports ( collected here ) which may prove a mercy for anyone who has waded through those excessively wordy ponderings.

Tuesday

The week began, as Steve's clinics typically do, by meeting everyone and discussing what we wanted to achieve over the time we were there. The main themes were confidence, softness, control of the feet and clarity and accuracy of requests.

Having talked through our aims and what we wanted to achieve, it was time to get the ponies out to the field and start work. We had chosen to work in two groups, one in the morning and one in the afternoon- Zorro and I were in the morning group and Lou (sleepsy_mouse) and Small chose the afternoon one so we could see one another in action and get pictures.

The immediate focus for Zorro and I was getting a bit more control of his shoulders- if you ask him to move off, Zorro will typically do what you ask with his head, but keep his shoulders going wherever he wants to go rather than where you want him to. He's been better at this since the June clinic, but although he is now capable of moving his shoulders out the way he was tending to leave it very late and do it a bit grudgingly. Steve felt the easiest way to sort this out would be for him to have a quiet word with Zorro:

DO NOT WANT!

Do not want!

Do not want.

Whatever you say, sir!

The entire process took about two minutes and the explanation seemed sufficient to keep Zorro very attentive for the rest of the week, to Steve at least.

Other people were also having stuck shoulders and one of the really central things about Steve's approach is that he suggests you avoid pulling on your horse- if they aren't doing something find a way to push them to do it rather than pulling them. When we ride we do most of our asking with a push anyway and you don't want to have to be pulling on the rein so it's much easier to work the same way on the ground and you don't risk pulling the horse on top of you or confusing them so easily as a result.


Brandy needed to learn not to zone out his owner, which mean't she had to learn to be the kind of person that he could give his attention to, but mostly I've included this picture because he is so cute.

One of the big themes of the weekend as far as I was concerned was getting control of all four feet from the lead rope and really getting the feeling of using the indirect rein to control the outside hind foot, which is particularly useful with a horse that thinks about leaving a lot or that may be inclined to kick you. I was also having to unlearn a bunch of bad habits I had built up over the summer, which is really tricky.

There was also a lot of focus on giving yourself enough space to work safely and making sure that things are going right from the very first step when working on the ground- if you set off and leave your horse behind it's putting a lot of responsibility on them to catch up, which they may not be inclined to do. Much better to start as you mean to go on and make sure that the horse is leaving when you do. The point came up time and again that if you need the horse to move out of your space you've got to expect it to happen- if you ask them to move their shoulders but you don't think they will move their shoulders then nothing will come of it.


Small pony needed to move out onto a bigger circle, which Steve helped him to do by asking his shoulder out so he moved around and outwards.

Steve was keeping us asking ourselves how to set things up so we make it possible for the horse to find the thing we are asking for. Always work to a plan, but if it's not working as well as you had hoped then you need to be ready to come up with a new plan pretty quickly.

Small was showing his usual anxieties about the saddle and girth - although he is very well behaved he is clearly unhappy about having them put on and helping him come to terms with this was one of our objectives for the weekend. Steve got to work on showing him that things work the same with the saddle on without.

Small wasn't sure at first, but he did settle- Steve ended up going through much of his backing process, making sure that pony could tolerate movement and the general fumbling involved in mounting up badly without feeling the need to move off. As he observed, pony is close to being a restart.

Wednesday

We began by discussing what we felt we had learned from the previous day and what we needed to concentrate on now. It was very interesting that several of us (including me) had realised that we needed to be more assertive and able to project that and make it meaningful to the horse. We needed to learn to be the person the horse needed us to be. Often we had let the horses train us to do things in a particular way- Steve observed that when we ask for something we need to make sure we get it one way or another.

There was a bit of discussion of the riding work at the end of the afternoon as well- the way we are doing things isn't just a substitute for conventional riding technique it's a complete alternative that offers the possibility of true softness and willing partnership between the horse and the rider, but it won't win us any competitions- you can have the most perfect shape and movement on your horse, but if you're not doing it on a taut rein you'll get marked down in any Dressage test you perform because your horse is not forward going enough. Not that it matters- being able to connect with your horse this way is all the reward anyone could ask for - but it seems a shame that most riders are missing out on it.

We started out the morning working on more high energy work- Zorro and I did a lot of cantering from the ground, which was absolutely knackering but awesome fun and entailed a lot of flying feathers:


Once we had established that our horses were ready to listen to what we were asking we moved on to riding- what you get on the ground is what you will get in the saddle and one of the big revelations for me from the clinic was just how little difference there is between the two.

One of the things Steve recommends when you're getting started out is that you ride off the lead rope and the halter. I'd not really understood this and found that whenever I tried to do it we just ended up going round in circles but I decided this was my opportunity to learn to get it right. I was really glad that I did as well- working off the single rein really helps to draw the connection between working on the ground and riding and it has also made a big difference to my understanding of the rein and how I can use it. Effectively you are working of just an inside rein- if you have a tense outside rein that means the horse is leaning, at which point they're not really following your feel the best way that they can, so working off the single rope can really help in a whole lot of ways.

Interestingly Steve also had us working without using our legs for the standard transitions- he wanted us to be able to ride off energy and body position alone. One of the things I really like about the Silversand approach is that nothing is really considered too advanced to work on from the start. We also do a whole lot of stuff that your average manuals of horsemanship don't mention, although I'm sure it is mostly things that the authors of those manuals were doing themselves, consciously or otherwise.


Zorro stands like a show pony and is windblown like a proper hero horse, I look like I would photograph better with just the one chin.

We did a lot of work on getting in time with the feet and controlling the outside hind foot from an indirect rein. The feel we were aiming for ultimately was as though the horse's back feet were on ballbearings when we picked up on the indirect rein.

In the afternoon it was back to controlling the shoulder at first- this is very important and it's so easy to let it slip by. What you want is a horse that is not prepared to drop it's shoulder on you uninvited ( and by "drop it's shoulder" here I mean even taking a step or leaning in towards you when it hasn't been asked ) but once you have them there it makes an immense difference to the horse as well- they tend to do it as an emotional response and a sign they're not feeling confident at the moment. In all these things it's easiest to fix it when it begins so it never becomes a more serious problem.


Small pony yields his shoulder to move out from a circle into sideways movement.


Working with his saddle on, still a little anxious about it.


Steve gets Small working at a higher energy level and really moving.


Small really yielding off the circle now. He is a lot happier but his head carriage is still higher than it would be without the saddle there.


Chalk another one up for the Small Pony Fanclub.

Lyn and Namara were having problems because Namara seemed to be getting very frustrated with Lyn's work in the bridle. Working through with Steve they realised that part of the problem was that actually they had managed to take their communication to a new level.

Steve rides Namara

The problem they were running into was that Lyn hadn't realised just how subtle Namara now wanted her cues to be so she was effectively shouting the whole time. Once she got herself in tune with her increasingly sensitive horse they started to really get things moving.

Meanwhile Lou mounted up and they went off for a big circuit of the field, going past a wide selection of cross country jumps (Small has had some rough experiences jumping in the past so this was an achievement in itself) before slipping in to some very neat shoulder-in on the way back:

She seemed quite happy with the way things worked out there:

Thursday

Steve felt that it was time to get the two round pens we had put up into action by doing some liberty work. The first exercise we worked on was just asking the horse to circle the pen, cross the centre and change to the opposite rein on the other side, creating a serpentine. The important thing was to stay behind the drive line during this work- if you are behind the drive line, the horse doesn't have to listen to you if they don't want to, they can choose to head off around the pen rather than staying with you and following what you ask. It makes for a very interesting exercise in persuading the horse to work with you and keep their attention on you.


Small pony working at liberty.


Steve helps Lyn to get in the right position to work with Namara in the round pen.

For the people that got that working nicely the second exercise to work on was leading by offering the horse a feel around their head. This needs the horse to really be

Kerin works with her mare Lottie on leading from the nose, which is an extension of following a feel on the rope. I think she had her eyes shut because she was really focussing on her feel, but it may have been because she was blinking when I took the picture. Lottie was working a little heavily- when the exercise is working correctly it should feel like there is nothing in your hand at all.

Steve set up to work with Lottie and she was decidedly sceptical about him.

It took a while and a lot of fairly subtle work for Steve to get her trusting him enough to start coming back to him and staying with him rather than just running off and trying to zone him out.

Eventually they got things going very nicely together without her trying to take charge.

We mostly focussed on this work throughout the day- it was very interesting how much the same methods you use on a line can be utilised when you are working together in a free space- controlling the hind feet works exactly as you might use a direct rein except you have nothing to make contact with. One of the points of this groundwork is that you want to be able to draw the horse away from the fence so that you can do the exercises in any space you want to work in, once you've got the hang of them and still get accurate figures.

Zorro and I in the round pen.

One of the most brilliant things about this was being able to draw on Zorro and have him come over to me as I backed up. It's just such a bless thing for a horse to be doing. By the end of our second session in the round pen, at which point it was raining pretty hard sideways, Zorro actually wanted to hide his head in my coat to keep it out of the rain, which revealed his usually hidden snuggly side. I think that probably means I was doing something right by him.

Also, I worried a little that I was over-using my stick to push him forward during the first session ( a justified concern- I totally was relying on that rather than body position ) so

The weather was actually quite cold and windy all week, I guess if you go to a venue called "Coldblow Farm" you should be prepared for that really. Certainly it made staying in a tent rather eventful. Everyone else was staying in the bunkhouse on the site, so we were able to join them in their nice warm kitchen and use their nice warm showers, without which our stay would have been a whole lot less enjoyable.

Friday

The last day was dedicated to riding again and to trying to consolidate the work that we had been doing over the previous three days so we would be able to take it away and work on it.


By the last day Small was a lot more relaxed with his tack on.

He was also able to really soften and start thinking while being ridden.

Although Lou had the bridle on him as a bit of an emotional safety-net for both of them, she actually rode on the rope halter the whole week.


This is Sheik, he's one of the most beautiful and sweet natured horses I've ever met, which I think has a lot to do with his owner, Karen, who is one of the most amazing riders I have ever seen and a deeply competent handler. We're going to get her over to give us some lessons this winter.

To help with the consolidation Steve had us doing some activities with ropes that would give us and our horses a job to focus on using all the skills we had been working at.

Of course, first we had to make sure that the horses were alright with the rope. Lottie took a few steps at first but was quickly fine. When I tried this with Zorro he wanted to catch it out of the air.

They then went on to riding carrying the rope and letting it out so it would drag on the ground behind the horse. This is a great way to teach a horse to work in shoulder-in and even, in Zorro's case, to back up and grab the rope in his mouth.

The next step from this was having the rope between two riders and then having one of them leading and offering a feel for the other to follow. This proved very entertaining for everyone involved:

June and Camilla working on a rope, June trying to ride an accurate circle around Camilla.


Kerin and Lottie lead Lyn and Namara into backing up.


Running circles around each other.


Sometimes you just have to know when to drop the rope.


Tall warmblood Bachanar doesn't feel that Camilla is up to the job of holding onto the rope so he's going to have to do it himself.


Meanwhile Small pony was busy showing off for the cameras.


Photography through vegetation? Again? I'm such a one-trick pony of a photographer, but I do like poppies.

When we broke for lunch I got myself a Silversand cap and immediately did the obvious thing and put it on my pony:

He loved it!

I think he looks rather like an engine driver in this picture, although given how he feels about heavy machinery it may not be a job he is overly well suited for.


Zorro and I doing the rope-trailing work- as I understand it this is one of the preliminary exercises you would do with a future cow horse.

Yielding to the rope as a way of working at shoulder-in.

Next up we played chase-the-rope; one rider carried the rope, the other had to get their horse to step on it's trailing end. Little haflinger Brandy proved really good at this but I couldn't persuade Zorro to step on the rope, although he loved following it about:

I appear to be doing some kind of chicken impression with my arms here. I think I'm trying to give lots of different instructions at once. Brandy's owner came on so far over the week it was wonderful to see, both of them went home a lot more comfortable in one another's company than they arrived.

Because I couldn't get Zorro to step on the rope when we were playing the game Steve worked on setting things up so we would be able to do that, starting by having us follow the rope as he dragged it along and then cross it. Zorro's attention was absolutely fixed on the rope but he really didn't want to cross it so Steve had us making a tight circle every time I asked and he didn't cross so there was no release in doing that. The other thing I had to focus on was not losing forward at any point, making sure we kept moving. It was pretty challenging, but after a few attempts and a lot of advice from Steve we finally sprung across.

After a few more passes we managed to get it a calm and relaxed crossing that could have been turned into stepping on the rope had the need arisen.

After that our time was up and we packed our ponies back to their boxes and got together in the bunkhouse kitchen for closing remarks and a cup of tea. It was a really good end to a tremendous clinic- we even got certificates to show that we have some basic knowledge - I passed my Silversand Basic Skills 1&2, Lou completed Basic Skills 3 as well, meaning she has completed the Basic Skills course entirely. We even get mentioned on the 2007 Graduates page of the website.

Of course it's not about certificates, it's all about learning to be with our horses, to understand them and offer them the best feel we can so that they can be willing and happy in working with us. I think we all made great steps in that direction and I certainly learned a huge amount, as one might expect from an intense week of riding and watching really excellent horsemanship in action. It will take a long time for it all to fall into place in my mind- at the moment I feel like I've opened a new door in my horsemanship, but the room it opens into is much bigger than the one I knew before and it is unfamilliar and full of subtlety. Exploring it is going to be a great adventure but there is something very hunbling as I realise the extent of my ignorance and just how much more I need to learn.

Due to the complexities of transport we ended up staying on an extra night at the venue, which left us with a terrible sense of party comedown- we have been together with much the same group of people at Steve's clinics over the last couple of years and everyone is lovely (we get on so well with Kerin she was willing to lend me Zorro, which is one of the most awesome things ever) and really friendly- so being the only people in the place and having the only horses in the big guest barn suddenly felt very lonely.

Fortunately our lift arrived bright and early on Saturday morning and carried us safely home, where the boys went cantering happily off across their field (they hadn't much enjoyed being in boxes) and we found Joseph pony among the brambles in the corner of his paddock, blackberry picking.









x-posted with equestrian

Comments

[gemmabowles.livejournal.com]

i prefer clinic reports with pics :) its easier to picture- and has tempted me to give this natural horse clinic malarkey a go. the progress is definitly evident, especially with small pony and sleepsy_mouse! he did look more relaxed- but it cant be easy getting a horse to relax in an envrinonment he doesnt know in the first place.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I think Steve's first clinic of next year will be a two day introductory one- it might be worth going along to watch even if you don't want to participate, and if you do want to participate it may work out as the best possible chance. I'm sure we'll be along to audience for that one too.

Meantimes if you want to pop over and meet us and the ponies one time just drop me an email- my lj name at gmail.com should get to me...

[gemmabowles.livejournal.com]

ok, cool :) it might be more worthwhile doing that and experiencing a bit of it first than paying for the big thing.. altho knowing me il pay for the big thing anyway!

[penella22.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to me how much of what you learn seems to me to be reminiscent of Parelli concepts. I often wonder why so many great horsemen and women were 'at one time' Parelli students, and also why so many have chosen to go their separate ways. I want to study Tom Dorrence & Ray Hunt, etc. more thoroughly, since that is where Parelli stuff originates from. I also want to read more of Xenophon, the 'original' horsemanship manual.

For example, I've seen some of those rope exercises on Parelli shows - they do look like so much fun! Also, the whole "what you have on the ground is what you get in the saddle" philosophy is again something that I've picked up from Parelli.

The round pen exercises look interesting too. The little bit that I've done with the horse's drive line has been fascinating- mostly Monty Roberts stuff this spring...

Sounds like you all had an amazing time- Zorro looks quite dashing in his new cap. :-)

Now I am off to more thoroughly investigate the Silversands Website.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

The conceptual basis is quite similar- Steve was one of Pat's students for many years after all, but if he's kept the conceptual core, which derives from the teachings of the Dorrances and others down the years more than to Pat's additions, I would say he's shed a lot of the other stuff that goes alongside it and watching him work over a few years you can see him change from year to year as he gets more effect for less effort. What is brilliant about him is that he can still explain what he is doing- there seem to be a lot of great horsemen who aren't necessarily great teachers.

Having read Tom Dorrance's book I would suggest getting it out from the library - he had a lot of great stuff to say but it doesn't hold together as a book so well, it's kind of a set of essays, a chapter by Tom, some about Tom, one chapter of quotes (the best bit of the book- get someone to photocopy it for you) and a transcript of a conversation. It made for interesting reading, but maybe not reading you want to repeat too often. The Ray Hunt book I'm not sure about, again he's not always a great communicator, which is why the people that get the most from watching him are the people who already know what they are doing. He did a demonstration in this country a year or two back and by the accounts I've heard, pretty much all he said the whole way through was "it's all about the feet." I'd be interested to hear what you think of his book if you get hold of it.

Bill Dorrance, on the other hand, wrote (or maybe dictated) the single best book on horsemanship there is. I'm reading it again right now and there is so much there that I missed last time round. I rather feel that this will be the case every time I read it. Also it always makes me want to write everything in a drawl and describe how a fella might have something unexpected happen if he wasn't careful with that. I'm guessing you have that one already?

The other thing I'm planning to do soon is take out a subscription to Eclectic Horseman (http://www.eclectichorseman.com) as that has a great attitude and combination of disciplines and articles that I find regularly very interesting...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

What I mean't to say was Eclectic Horseman (http://eclectic-horseman.com).

[penella22.livejournal.com]

Oh! Right...Bill Dorrance's book is the one I mean, I think. Big huge book called "True Horsemanship Through Feel." THAT's the one I've been coveting...vet bills first though. :-(

And eclectic horseman is pretty neat isn't it! I like that site too...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I can't condone that book strongly enough. Absolutely brilliant.