Hempfling - Different approach to being with horses

[Benv]

@strangewings

Couple things:
First of all, It is impossible for us to validate that these horses are untouched or dangerous or that he is handling them for the first time. Any horse can be dangerous in the right situation, so we should all learn and practice good handling skills

There is very little content in each video so it is difficult to see what is being proposed as unique or different. It looks overall very much within the realm of normal/usual skills, generally speaking. What exactly is it in these videos that you find is different?

I wonder if you are conflating the setting being “different” (e.g. handling a horse for the first time or handling a breeding stallion - which by the way is a very everyday occurrence) with the technique being different? If he has a unique approach/technique, that has not at all been articulated, other than the ethical question of prerequisites one should have before handling horses.

The ethical question could be an interesting discussion on this board, considering the diversity and depth of experience here. His position seems extreme, but maybe based on personal successes? It sounds like maybe he was a talented adult beginner when he started handling horses and attributes that to his prior activities? I think a thread titled “What did you do before/between horses and how did that help you be a better handler/rider?” (With "between " to include the reriders) would be well received here.**

The fact that he can’t seem to explain what he is doing and relies on generic words like “holistic” and “energy” really makes it seem like he doesn’t actually know what he is doing. Is any of it unique? It is really on him to explain that by directly contrasting with the principles and theory of things like dressage and natural horsemanship, rather than just disparaging tools used like roundpens.

Thank you for the comment. I appreciate the from and the content.

Valid point for the title – I would give it a better thought in future.

I am not really the right person to explain the contrast with the other disciplines – but I would try my best to express how I see it. I may come up with a better way to put it into words but something in this direction:

The person should bring himself to a high enough level of character, charisma and personal development that the horse submits happily under the character. You bring yourself up and with this you develop the horse, rather than bringing the horse down to your level. It is a bit difficult for me to express the difference in the technical details since it is a completely different approach – and as one example chasing the horse in roundpen cannot be part of it. The horse scans the person in the second they see them – and what they see should be a person that they would accept immediately as their leader.

[Benv]

Some are commenting on the horses being too active and saying that good horsemanship is very quiet. When Hempfling is working with horses they are calm when the situation is suitable for that or active when it is needed/ fitting. It is the intelligence of the horse and the body. A horse in a city will be calm, it understands the situation. And when it is the right time for the stallion or any horse to express themselves then he will allow that and never take this expression away from the horse – it is the very essence of the horse being alive and allowed to be horse. It is like a child would behave well when he is a restaurant for example – but if the child is playing outside then it can shout and run, if it wants, when it is the right, coherent and authentic behavior.

You can see an example here how the horse is changing his behavior with Hempfling in comparison to the lady just a few minutes before

Instant Stallion Behavior Correction

[Benv]

@Jealoushe

I shared it early in the thread.

Check out featherlight horsemanship. Google it. She does exactly this and she is truly an amazing horsewoman.

Are you seriously comparing this to what I have shared? I was watching some and I was sure that the beginning is the client struggling with the horse – but it turned out to be the trainer. And then you can see the end where the horse is behaving/performing – but what is going on in between is dressage, looking for buttons to press and kill the soul of the horse. Running in circles until it gives up and you end up with a very quiet, “well-behaved” and DEAD horse. How can you say that it is anyhow comparable? Look at the video I just shared in my previos post – it takes 30 second to solve the problem, the horse is free and happy. There is nothing in common between your example and what I share and it is absurd to claim something like this.

[eightpondfarm]

LOL…except i’m a veteran of COTH and tend to expect things to degenerate into the-personal. I try to stay away from doing the same, but not perfect lol. And, for what it’s worth… what some random stranger on the internet thinks of me is not a big deal. I mean, seriously, they’re just strangers and not a part of my life.

[Alterration]

Have you read It’s Not I Who Seek the Horse?

He very much still uses training techniques. What you are describing as the “charisma” bit is something many experienced horsemen and women have.

The problem is, and I’ve always struggled with it too, it can be a disservice to the horse who must get along in the human world. A horse who cannot or will not behave well for people who have not developed themselves to a very high level is in danger when they are in less skilled hands. It is a disservice to them to not be able to teach them to be more forgiving of poor body language or imprecise cues.

I wrestle with this notion too. Yes, people should be better. But if only the truly talented and skilled people were permitted to work with horses, well quite frankly they would go extinct.

So, I follow a middle way that involves both teaching the humans to be more aware and the horses to be more forgiving. It sounds like Klaus does too, now that I’ve read more of his book.

I wish the dramatic hyperbole wasn’t a part of the conversation - then maybe we could focus on these ethical dilemmas, which is perhaps a worthy discussion.

[findeight]

@Benv

kill the soul of the horse.

[Montanas_Girl]

@Benv

@eightpondfarm shared an opinion and approach to working with horses different than yours, encouraged by the ongoing conversation. And also a reasonable critics to something you, as it seems, would consider right. And look what you are doing. Is it really fair? Just putting out there a point to think about.

I wasn’t the one who called people who use a common, effective means of communication “stupid”. So, yeah, I think pointing out the ridiculousness of her all-or-nothing claims is more than fair.

[Bluey]

@Benv

Are you seriously comparing this to what I have shared? I was watching some and I was sure that the beginning is the client struggling with the horse – but it turned out to be the trainer. And then you can see the end where the horse is behaving/performing – but what is going on in between is dressage, looking for buttons to press and kill the soul of the horse. Running in circles until it gives up and you end up with a very quiet, “well-behaved” and DEAD horse. How can you say that it is anyhow comparable? Look at the video I just shared in my previos post – it takes 30 second to solve the problem, the horse is free and happy. There is nothing in common between your example and what I share and it is absurd to claim something like this.

To the ones that have learned how to correctly longe, it is an art developed over centuries now, longing properly is not at all about:
“Running in circles until it gives up and you end up with a very quiet, “well-behaved” and DEAD horse”, what a silly idea that is.

When you are longing a horse you are communicating directly thru the longe line, as you may thru lead ropes or reins. Is one more way we talk with horses.

The important difference between longing and riding is that we can see the whole horse move better than only feel how a horse goes when riding it.
Since our goal is to eventually ride and do this and that with horses, not everyone wants only yard ornaments to admire (and not sure that is that natural a purpose for horses either) longing serves an important purpose.

You can see the horse standing there and running around without a longe line and that has value also, but why ignore one more perfectly appropriate way to communicate with horses?

Longing, as an extension of a lead rope, you can evaluate so, so much that the horse is feeling and how he is moving and help the horse learn to move in a way that it will be doing whatever it is learning to do, better and more “naturally”, since that seems to matter to some, that is “natural”, as if there is that much “natural” that we do with horses.

What to look for when longing and how to teach a horse thru longing, well, centuries of that have taught us all kinds of ways. No need to reinvent the wheel, we are in the information age, there is NO excuse for anyone today not to keep learning and becoming better at all we do, what we do with horses also.
Made up and closed minds won’t benefit the human OR our horses either, just think about that.

[BrownDerby]

Well stated Bluey. But this thread to me is not about learning, it’s about soliciting clicks. IOW human greed and vanity.

[Montanas_Girl]

Very well said, @Bluey.

[eightpondfarm]

fwiw: My personal equine journey has taken me to somewhere beyond longlines and longwhips. I do not need them. I don’t have any problem with other people following their own path and using these tools.
**Though i do think those flags are dumb.

[Bluey]

@eightpondfarm

fwiw: My personal equine journey has taken me to somewhere beyond longlines and longwhips. I do not need them. I don’t have any problem with other people following their own path and using these tools.
**Though i do think those flags are dumb.

Well, of course some times, is not the tools themselves, is how they are used and/or misused that we should examine, debate and then include in what we do, or not, if it doesn’t fit our knowledge or our goals.

[Jealoushe]

This post just proves you understand nothing about horse behaviour or emotions.

[Montanas_Girl]

If there’s one thing decades of experience with multiple breeds and types of horses will teach you, it’s is that there is no single best training method.

Anyone who claims otherwise is just demonstrating their own ignorance for the world to see.

[strangewings]

I think about this topic a lot in the context of “schools of dressage”, though I use that term very loosely. Suppose there are many different approaches to achieving result X (say, a fancier trot or a walk pirouette). Some may be more effective faster, then we have to ask what is the biomechanical danger or trade-off, since tendons develop more slowly than muscles. Others may be effective and quickly produce correct outcomes in very skilled hands, but are very hard for less skilled riders to correctly replicate - these cases, I ask myself whether we should be teaching people different approaches that are more sure to produce correct outcomes, even if they are slower because they are harder to do incorrectly.

[Jealoushe]

@Benv

it is absurd to claim something like this.

For real.

Just stop already.

Also Featherlight horsemanship doesn’t run horses in circles. She uses their own movement and energy and language to help understand what they want and need to help guide them.

You could actually learn something on this board if you took your head out of your masters you know what.

[Arlomine]

So…my problem with this information is that it is presented under the “cult of personality“.

It is presented as if this person has single-handedly invented this way of relating to Horses, and the level of “me=Yoda, you=must undergo thorough personal emotional inventory before you will even understand an iota of how to watch what I do, let alone touch a horse”. Yuck. Off-Putting. And not how people learn.

Real horse people don’t present themselves as the inventor of horsemanship. Regardless of this man’s skill level, he did not invent this work. I have much more respect for somebody who refers to their teachers, refers to their sources, refers to all the ways that they were brought to their level of awareness and skill.

This isn’t just about being humble, it’s about making information accessible. They were not gifted by some horse God with this magical talent. They had to seek it out, they learned from different sources…and that means you can do it also. For instance Warwick Schiller comes to mind. The man is constantly seeking new information, and his videos are extremely simple and accessible… And he pretty much talks all the time about emotional connection. No soundtrack needed for atmospheric glitter.

Setting this whole thing to music, trying to make it seem otherworldly… It has just the opposite effect on me. It makes me want to turn the page. Of course there is a tremendous amount of emotional connection/interactions/self-control involved with horses. And that is clear. I just don’t appreciate having the Woo Factor overshadow the base of real information. You don’t need fluffy music to imply an emotional connection to the horse. Quite the opposite. It’s not a Disney movie.

[Alterration]

“If possible, always lead your horse with a whip (diagram 1). Even if the horse clearly moves his head or hindquarters away from you (diagrams 3 and 4), theleader can shake the end of the whip near the quarters to ‘align’ the horse again.”

“Whenever we want to give a horse a stimulus to move forwards, sideways or backwards, we start with a tiny signal with the end of the whip, given loosely from the wrist (diagram 2). We do not leave the relaxed posture as we do so (diagram 1). The acoustic signal was given about a second before, e.g. ‘ter-rot’. Even if I know that, during the first encounter, this horse won’t trot on, I still give this minimal signal.”

It’s Not Me Who Seeks the Horse direct quotes.

It’s just basic horsemanship.

[Scribbler]

I don’t agree with running a scared horse into the ground, and I expect no one on this thread does either. We don’t usually subscribe to that kind of “natural horsemanship.”

There are however many modalities of work on the ground. As needed, I longe with a line, free longe, do ground manners and ground tie both in halter and at liberty, dressage work in hand and at liberty (lots of lateral), obstacle work in hand and at liberty, and clicker training. It depends on the horse and the facilities you have access to. On days we have to share a space with other horses obviously I’m not going to have my horse running loose.

The Permanent Project Mare will free longe walk trot canter around me even in a big arena, doing gait transitions on voice and hand signals. Including whoa. She will boot it out and scoot into a gallop if she’s feeling good but she is never running out of fear. When a rider goes past our longe area I call her into the center of the arena to stand quietly so she doesn’t spook their horse. I can do all this on a longeline too of course.

My experience has been that horses really enjoy learning a variety of skills on the ground

Permanent Project Mare has a natural bent for obstacles and will head over trot poles or around the barrel just for fun. My Good Paint Mare is also interested in obstacles, excellent on the trails, can do some lower level dressage lateral and trot lengthening when she’s got her head in the game, and just loves loves loves all her clicker tricks. Sometimes we perform for children. Some days she rolls her big exercise ball from the runout into the stall and looks at me expecting praise and treat. She does that on days she’s well fed, relaxed, and wants to engage with me.

So my experience is that a repetoire of shared skills and cues over time results in horse and handler being able to communicate on multiple levels. It’s not the rote behavior OP thinks it is. The horses and I develop mutual sets of cues and skills over time. Paint Mare is so thrilled when she meets another human that understands trick cues. Her face just lights up.

I don’t think OP or indeed The Master understand what it’s like to have a personal horse for 5 or 10 or more years that you try out all the things, and develop a rapport. I mean Paint Mare even has a routine to help me put on her hoof boots. She basically bridles herself if you hold the bridle up. She will tilt her head to make it easier to do up her halter when she really wants to come in or out. She will graze loose beside the horse trailer at the trail head and not run off. These are all things she developed herself that I recognize and work with but you can’t teach. And you can’t get from one session in front of an audience.

And yes she self loads beautifully except sometimes coming home from a ride with good grazing she will hesitate for a moment to let me know she really wants to stay out there

[eightpondfarm]

That’s the bond that comes from working with eachother…knowing eachother and being willing to engage in 2-way communication.