Satori Center

Recently I became reacquainted with the philosophy of Jim McCall.   It was explained to me 'in 10 words or less' and I tried it and it worked!  And then about a month later I realized, dear woman that she was, my riding instructor had already given me that information maybe eight years earlier - but the spaghetti fell off the wall back then!  Thankfully she didn't mind repeating herself.  This information is golden.

So what information is it?

Let me give you the sales pitch: Jim McCall developed a class for college students in which, after one semester, they could start a horse.

Impressed?

So what information is it?  Very simply, bigger things move smaller things.

To make a horse go, you get behind it.  To make a horse stop, you get in front of it.  

Are you thinking 'Duh!'  (right?!) or 'Ok, newsflash?  Hellooo???'

Seriously, that's it.  And it's amazing what you can do with it.

The tricky part is how to do it in the saddle, on the horse's back.  And the answer is to put your center in front of or behind the horses.  Not your body per se, but your center.  You leave your body on the balance point.  (if that didn't make sense, come see me for a lesson!)

Lucky for me, after my re-introduction, I found Jim's book Influencing Horse Behavior at the local Half Price book store - yay!  I'd seen it before but wasn't sure about getting it, but after my success at the clinic, I hopped on it.  It's philosophy folks!  It's good.  It's about what it takes to train a horse.  It's not a cookbook manual, it's more than that.  It explains why you do what you do with horses.  If you want a step by step manual, skip this book.  If you want to go deeper and understand, get it.

The info from Practical Horseman is where the college syllabus is laid out.  With that, he expects when you know what you're doing, you should have a solid conversational 'green broke' horse in about three days.  (Yeah -- he was doing this in the 1970's folks!)  He uses a round pen, but very differently than some of the more marketed approaches available today.  The horse is 'bare,' also.  No bit, no reins, no saddle.  And you're supposed to be up there by virtue of balance.  so, caveat, IMO, the one dicey thing is that when you first canter, he wants no gripping with the legs.  He wants you up there by balance only.  But in thirty days (a semester) he was successfully teaching folks who'd never ridden how to start a horse. 

Retroactively, All of my girls have benefited from this approach.  It is providing the balance and self-carriage that was missing in the (current) USDF approach.  Also responsiveness.  I think I make more sense to them.  And mind you, the reason I did Centered Riding is that it makes more sense to horses than other stuff, so when I say Jim McCall's approach makes more sense than that, I'm really recommending this a lot.  

If you find the Practical Horseman info, it's money well spent and information well used!

For myself, I have now incorporated it into my teaching program for both horses and riders.

If you want to try it out, call me and let's set up a lesson, or maybe you can find the info online and try it out at home.  Either way, let me know how it goes for you!  I think it's a winner.

L