Enjoy the Ride

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.