I have little to no experience with horses. An opportunity arose to attend a "Horse and Heart" workshop at a nearby ranch. I had no idea what I would be in for. I knew we weren't going to be riding them, so I wasn't exactly sure what the point was, all I knew is that I wanted to experience the horses.
The workshop started with a grooming activity. We were taught the basics of grooming and where to stand, and then we paired up and spent about 5 minutes grooming a horse. Simple enough. The facilitator then called us back over, under a tree, where we sat and discussed how that felt. I blurted out, "Good!" Of course that wasn't enough of an explanation. I said that I had felt the horse enjoyed it, and therefore was enjoying me, and I liked that! Others expressed fear of not knowing if they were doing it right, or a bit of anxiety over the size of the horse they were working with.
We then did a 5 minute meditation to get us more grounded and to connect with nature around us. I could tell that some of the participants weren't big into meditation and kind of resisted the process. After the meditation, we went back to groom the horses. It was amazing to see that because WE were more grounded, the horses were more attentive to us. Pretty cool!
What I didn't realize is that the whole class was based on the idea of "Natural Leadership". This short video explains what our "goal" was. The horse would only be able to trust, if we were genuine with ourselves.
Stay tuned for Part Two, to see what happened when I experienced the Round Pen!
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