Klaus Hempfling VS. Traditional Round Pen Work, a Comparison

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.