On Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 03:52:33PM -0700, Judy Ryder wrote: > Let's take a look at the pros and cons of Parelli > Natural Horsmanship and icelandic style training and > riding. > > Anyone want to start?
do we have anyone here qualified to discuss this? seems to me the list is full of people who post a whole lot about pnh, and few if any seem to be able to say how icelandic methods might cause, say, stjarni to turn out he did. i can say that i rode a gorgeous, pnh-trained (to go bridle-less, even) young (six) gelding the same weekend i tried stjarni. it happened that week that i had a miserable sinus infection (i actually hallucinated the night i stayed over at gudmar's, since i had taken two doses of cough suppressant -- very strange....) stjarni looked after me, tried to figure out what i *meant* with my balance and legs and reins, and gave me several safe, comfortable, and enjoyably responsive rides. the pnh-trained gelding nearly had me off several times, as he sidepassed, backed up VERY VERY QUICKLY, wrung his tail, and generally seemed miserable to have me on his back. (i lasted a good three minutes before saying, "look, i'm sick, i'm clearly just confusing your horse, i don't think this is a good match." his trainer, a surpassingly nice person, brought me some vitamin-c powder.) he was lovely to watch under his usual rider, though (the pnh trainer's nineteen-year-old son). anyway, i don't think i can look at stjarni with a sufficiently unbiased eye to make claims that he's not just a smarter, kinder horse. i do know that i couldn't ride, let alone teach on, the pnh gelding; he was a bundle of nerves and reactions. i do have some people at my barn (one my adult student, the others younger girls) who do seem to enjoy the whole parelli thing, which i recognize by the rope halters and "carrot sticks". one of the horses (an older, spooky ottb mare) particularly seems to hate these "games"; she rolls her eyes and tries to get away pretty much every single time. for my student, i have assigned lots of massage and groundwork (not the "games", just "walk, whoa, turn", a few little obstacles (groundpole courses), and more massage. (the horse basically turns from a neck of concrete to butter in your hands with fifteen minutes of therapeutic petting. i've never seen her look happier after a "game".) i realize that i am neither a trained parelli person nor an icelander; this is a method i learned from my american apprenticeship, which was big on massage as both pain relief and creating bonds of comfort and trust. my thought is that pnh may work better on younger horses who are more interested in people to begin with, but this is an uneducated guess. --vicka
