Following is a discussion of Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling compared to traditional round pen work, a la Clinton Anderson, Natural Horsemanship, etc. 

The past few days I've either watched Klaus Hempfling videos or read more of the book (Dancing with Horses). There are many many videos of Klaus you can watch for free on Youtube.  Before you go there and watch any of them, I'll say this upfront:  they aren't necessarily instructional. They are more like teasers than anything else, but it gives you the idea of what is possible.  Many of the videos talk about your "inner self" and the spiritual side of things rather than the nuts and bolts of what he's doing with his body.  It's a bit frustrating and yes, Klaus's videos are heavily edited so we don't really know how long it takes him, but I don't think very long.  The horses aren't sweating or breathing really hard and when they pause, he pauses. The first video looks to be early in his career - and yes, I feel he is too close to the horse who is actively aggressive.  It looks like a dangerous position, but in the second one he is much further back.  

https://youtu.be/IBbtTGb8soM

https://youtu.be/NVdkHyocpF0


The video below I found of a trainer, Brendan Clark,  "round-penning" a horse.  I know how to do this very well.  I can do this with my eyes closed.  This particular trainer I think gives a lot of mixed messages, like flicking the whip AT the horse when she comes in.  He says that she is stopping by the gate "to get out of work".  My opinion of this attitude is that traditionally, horse trainers believed that you shouldn't be nice, "work" shouldn't be fun for the horse and they never enjoy it anyway, so you need to force them through any hesitation and make them do what you want. Please watch this video after watching Klaus.  In all honesty, I got bored watching this Brendon Clark and didn't watch the whole thing. 

https://youtu.be/bVp5k1YVV5U

Here are some questions to ask yourself while watching the above video:

-What is this trainer's attitude about the horse? Is it positive or negative?
- Does he ever expect the horse to do the right thing or is he always expecting the worst?
-Is he missing signals from the horse?  
- How is the trainer using his body and how much effort is he putting in to how he appears to the horse? 
- Do traditional training methods allow the horse to have a say?
- Compare the way the horse moves in each video - granted one is a stallion and one is a mare, but the more I watch the traditional video the more I think the mare is really confused.  So am I! 
- Whose horse appears more trusting, Hempfling's or Mr. Clark?  Which horse looks calmer, easier to handle?
- Which horse appears to have a real connection with the trainer?  
- Clark says, "I want the punishment to be work" when she whinnies and chases her away. Right here is the entire philosophy. It boils down to work=punishment.  The horse will never want to work in that case!  "Work" will end up being a negative thing all the time. There is no joy.  Your horse will be hard to catch, act sullen and repressed, become injured more easily, and yes - your horse will want to get out of work because you have made it WORK HELL.

At one point Clark says that the horse has not performed well, and although it's their first session he says she was "not good enough",  and "that's not acceptable around me".  He doesn't reward the horse much and when he does it doesn't seem to have a positive effect on her. He's not very inviting.  He misses signals and does things that scare her off.  This has happened to me, too, and from now on I'll be much more aware of myself (at one point he drops the halter and she runs away). Not all traditional trainers are this negative, but this one is fairly punishing. 

So, back to Hempfling.  His body language looked odd to me at first, but there's something else going on here. While we don't have a play-by-play like with most videos, I have gathered from the readings and from watching many of his videos that he believes one should not react to the horse's "bad behavior".  Remain calm, stay with him, stay strong.  It's what I was taught about kids - if you react to their naughtiness they have successfully "won" by unsettling you.   I was also taught that when round-penning a horse if they act up you pressure them.  You become aggressive back.  What does this prove, though?  It shows the horse that they are really more powerful than you are. 

Reacting, or losing your cool in any way, is a sign of weakness to EVERYONE: horses, dogs, children, adults. Leadership, that is, being the strongest mentally and bringing others up to your level, is magnetic.  Dominance for the sake of demanding action creates submission out of fear and is not meant to raise up the other but to put them down. Leadership is a trust-based relationship. Dominance is about physical and mental degradation and control.    

This is a TED talk on dog training by Ian Dunbar, which fits nicely into this post.  It's about using treats vs. punishment in dog training. 

https://www.ted.com/talks/ian_dunbar_on_dog_friendly_dog_training?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=tedspread


Hempfling also uses his body very carefully.  As I said earlier, I thought it was very strange at first, but what he's doing is powerful in many ways.  He's showing the horse that he should be the leader because he is mentally stronger.  He is also using his body to communicate what the horse should do with it's body.  This is called "mimicry".  Have you ever been told by any "natural horseman" that if you do something with your body the horse , of it's own will, copy it?  Wouldn't that make communication so much easier with the horse?

Hempfling isn't the only trainer to use this. It is becoming more prevalent in Europe and perhaps in the US as well, but we are very stuck here.  I think it's important to look at better ways to do things. Sometimes that means looking at a lot of different, new, innovative ways of doing things and making informed decisions about how to proceed.  It is necessary to delve in to their books and media to really understand their philosophy. There are hundreds of home-grown horse training "how-to" videos on the internet if you care to look. Most of them are FREE.  Most of them show the same things, done the same way and in most of them the person talks, and talks and talks while the horse stands bored to death behind them.  I think Hempfling doesn't talk during his videos because he is really focused on the horse. 

We don't have to accept the traditional, we don't have to follow everyone else like lemmings into the sea.  We can think for ourselves, we can do what feels right, and we can be kind, above all. I am a horse person because I craved horses.  Nothing would stop me from being around them and in a way it has always been a spiritual journey.  Although I don't understand everything Hempfling says, I get what he's saying on another level.  

Next time:  The Round Pen vs. The Picadero, or Square Pen.

I didn't even know what to call this post at first.  As I began pouring over blog posts and looked again at Intrinzen's website, and watched countless youtube videos, I felt empowered, excited, motivated, and...confused.  The problem with being exploratory is that you learn information that ultimately conflicts with other information.  Everything you know is constantly being challenged, re-hashed under new rules, looked at in new ways.  Generally this is a good thing. Applying all this knowledge is difficult.  What do I keep and what can be put aside? 

Here's the problem:  Enough time must be spent absorbing and learning about other methods and techniques so that you fully understand what the point is behind it.  Then you have to try it out. Does it work for me? For the horse?  Can I learn to do this by myself?  Does it require a lot of equipment?  
Does anything new negate everything else?  

Is there some horse trainer/method out there that embodies all of these things?  

1. Considers the horse a living being with thoughts and feelings.  May sound silly, but this has become important to me.  Must have buy-in from the horse or it won't work. 

2. Their method is teachable to others.  May seem obvious, but some people can't explain it and can't teach others.  So it would be observational only if it can't be taught.

3. Must be easy to learn from reading about it, watching videos and blogs, online classes. 

4. Must build the horse's strength, flexibility, athleticism to the end of being ridden. 

5. Can be incorporated and used with other methods. 

I'm looking for a system, a thought process, whatever you want to call it. I love clicker training, and yet it can become mechanical it seems.  So I really like the idea of the clicker being used to teach the horse that it's okay to play.  I like the mimicry where you show your horse the movement (need to understand that more), I like how easy it is to learn the clicker and how versatile.  I like the idea of training without tack. I like Straightness Training as it brings back the reason for the exercises and how to use them to build a training plan to make your horse stronger. 

I began watching Klaus Hempfling to learn more about mimicry and I'm frustrated again.  He is using his body to communicate with the horse, but the videos are cryptic, the instruction vague.  I have his book, Dancing with Horses I think it is.  I have had it for years and only got so far.  

I've read the HorseIdeology blog posts on Hempfling and she makes the point that it's very spiritually based and it's not a step-by-step thing.  I was sitting here thinking about why that frustrates me.  What do I really want with my horses?  A relationship.  The goal isn't to win medals or compete, the goal is to be closer to them and help us both be the best we can be. (That's not on my list of things I want in the training plan!!) "I want it NOW!", I think.  And, as Pema Chodron always says,  (paraphrasing) "this is where we get our speed, and speed destroys our purpose."  Slow down, Cari. Slow down and enjoy the ride. 

Update. I've moved past Neil Davies.  Although I really like the idea that he trains his horses with positive head rubs, he is stuck and doesn't have enough of an open mind to study other training methods.  Here's what I've learned in the last few months.... 

I've been following a blog called "Horse Ideology" for awhile.  It was originally posted for the owner to record her trainings, medical treatment and therapy for her new horse.  In that sense, much of it was not of particular interest most of the time. However, she is very disciplined and does all her training on her own, through research much like I do.  I admire her because of the discipline and organized approach she takes.  I tend to find a new inspiring trainer, read their book and get all enthusiastic.  I try out the basic parts of the method, and usually run up against something that really bothers me and throw most of it away or get sidetracked by life.  This woman, however, keeps the parts she likes in use.  

I mention this blog, though, because it has inspired me to become more disciplined in my training schedule.  I would really like to implement the things I like into a plan and also learn new techniques and be more organized.  I've written a lot about Empowered horses.   I really like it and have learned there are people who have applied it in training.  I've long complained about Spilker's (Empowered Horses) lack of structure.  Sure, I'd love to work this way but I don't know what to do!  This blog is the first instance where someone has found the bridge, the way to begin.  I shouldn't say that she discovered the bridge herself, she found others that have.

If you have an older horse, and no constant supply of young prospects, you have to work with what you have.  Somehow you have to change the conversation and prove to the horse that you will begin to listen to them.  How?  

There is also the question of time.  Learning something new takes time, becoming proficient takes time, getting the horse finished takes time.  One thing I never got to understand is how to build a horse's muscles.  I know what a muscular horse looks like, but in dressage the specific exercises are used to accomplish this.  How does one use the exercises and in which order?  From this blog I've learned about straightness training, which is a good start.  I'm working out how to put it all together and make training plans for each horse.  The exercises are ones I either know or know of, and the next step is to learn to teach the horse how to do them with the clicker.  I've found some videos on line but they are somewhat vague about the entire process.  

Still, all of these new things and old things coming together are exciting.  The clicker speeds things up immensely as the horse can be communicated to directly and accurately.  This is so important - other methods of training are approximations of saying "no" over and over again.   

It's like the game of "hot and cold", where someone goes looking for something and you say "hot" if they're near it and "cold" if they aren't. Most traditional horse training is like using the word "cold" exclusively, over and over - "nope, nope, nope!"  Is what the horse mainly gets.  Don't do that! What they need to know is what TO do.  

I was using this method in Rifle quite a bit and then we moved, the horses were far away and my contact came down to grooming them once a month for an hour, and maybe a short ride. It was awful!  But they had a nice pasture and lots of friends, so I didn't worry about their mental health.  Once they got moved over here I began riding them more and at least seeing them more often, but my training plan has been non-existent.  I have been afraid to use clicker training in front of other people, but my new-found connections support it whole-heartedly and I feel much more confident. 

Now we are down to brass tacks, which means it's time to get to work.  I'm writing a short training plan for each horse and as soon as I can I'm committing myself as much as I can.  Maybe I could stop on the way home each morning?  Or when I wake up until the days get short?  That said, I'm still conflicted about the empowerment of the horse issue.  Here's my take:  if your training is fun, and makes the horse feel good, they will want to participate.  If they are bored I'll know it by their behavior.  In the meantime it's necessary for them to trust me enough to participate.  The fact that they gather around me when I go into the pen says a lot, I think!  My gut also tells me that their reaction when I go out to them is one of happiness to see me.  I feel guilty for not being there enough. In that sense they seek having contact.  

In my next post I'll include links to the new websites I've learned about and detail my training plan.  To keep me honest... 

So this is, as my husband likes to jokingly say, "A new beginning".  Maybe not complete empowerment, but teaching based on positive reinforcement and joy.  That makes me feel very good!