I must admit I have skipped through a lot on this thread. What comes to mind is running a stable for beginners who are athletes and dancers now wanting to learn to ride. You bring out your available heard and these beginners are now trying to play with rearing horses.
I picture a catastrophe, ambulances and lawsuits.
I once owned âDancing with Horses.â I must have bought it from a horsey book store back in the day when most people bought books at book stores. However, I have just searched my flat and cannot find it, which makes me think it got lost on one of many house/flat-moves over the years. So obviously very useful.
I hazily remember that it had nice pictures. I donât remember it being life-changing or the most helpful horse training booked I ever picked up. It talked a lot about body language and the drive and draw, but thatâs not new. Pretty standard stuff for liberty work, and other people explain it as well if not better. Now I wish I knew where that book was.
Actually a world in which gymnasts and dancers do a fast apprenticeship with rearing horses actually exists. It is called the circus, and an exemplary example is the Cavallia horse extravaganza performances by the Cirque du Soleil organization.
Cavallia does an excellent performance if you like the super produced Cirque du Soleil experience. They travel with a large selection of geldings and stallions, they do circus riding, some piaffe/passage, and a lot of high speed liberty work. They hire horse trainers but also gymnasts as for the regular Cirque conglomerate. Apparently it is easier to teach a gymnast to do the Roman Ride than an equestrian 
just like itâs little girls with gymnastics backgrounds who excel at horse vaulting.
I enjoyed Cavallia and could understand how they did things, but I wasnât over awed.
So actually the idea that the best horsemen are already trained in dance, martial arts, gymnastics, puts the Hempfling concept even more obviously in the circus performance camp.
Since it has been repeatedly mentioned, I must say that I donât fully understand the theory that this post is intended to sell or advertise something â I wouldnât know what it could be. I assure you that the potential clients for this person are not here. I hope this clarifies the matter and we can stop discussing this aspect.
From my perspective, I did see some members commenting on the question I was interested in â you can find the summary of the original article and what I consider its main part in one of my previous posts. I want to thank those who commented on the content â it was interesting for me to hear your thoughts.
I would like to mention once again that I am surprised by the level of the conversation â it may stem from some previous experience youâve had, which I am not aware of. However, I cannot relate to the choice of vocabulary used by some of the individuals responding here. It is perfectly fine to have criticism, but there is a way to express it in a respectful manner, especially when you are merely expressing your opinion without knowing the person you are talking to or about.
Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling is a master in working with horses, and his main field is coaching and consulting not directly related to horses. He has a worldwide-known name. His approach to being with horses is significantly different from what is commonly accepted â and this is also evident in your responses â and that is perfectly fine. However, the discussion and comments being expressed here are, for some reason, becoming insulting, and there is no justification for this. I want to express that I find this unacceptable, and if I had known that this was the level of conversation, I would have never posted here.
Once again, I appreciate those who referred to the actual content.
Nope. His ideas about how we interact with horses are things every experienced horse person knows.
His ideas that you need to prepare extensively away from horses is however ludicrous and we all reject it. Therefore we arenât interested in him as a coach.
He also appears to have no master students who have reached high levels of competence. Thatâs a key thing for a evaluating a coach.
My impression is he is a skilled liberty and trick trainer, but of most interest to armchair horse lovers and those who like coffee table books or their online equivalence.
Itâs telling that in all this discussion you OP donât have anything to say about your own horse experience or training or desires for the future.
By and large I also evaluate the skills of the person who is doing the recommendation. In this case I can only assume you donât have any. Thatâs fine. You can be a newbie, or just someone that likes to look at horse pictures. But unless you can tell me what actual horse skills you learned from a given trainer, Iâm going to assume you learned nothing.
Iâm not sure how Hempfling having a primary income source in consulting and coaching non horse stuff is meant to boost our appreciation of his horse hobby, as you are now framing it.
Many of us on this board have a primary income source from teaching or consulting or working in all kinds of fields, including academia, law, veterenarian, engineering etc. And many of us are or have been horse professionals.
Now the primary professional income is what funds many amateurs horse hobbies, and indeed many part time horse professionals as well. Horse pro is a hard field to make a decent living. But I would never reference someoneâs non horse day job as evidence of their riding and training skills!
I can tell you one reason why your posts are seen as advertising or google leads, it is your repeated use of his full name. Marketing 101.
Regarding the actual content, his style is not to my taste. While I see no harm in preaching the value of a deep spiritual connection with horses, as a pragmatist I see more value in teaching solid horsemanship technique along the lines of Littauer and Paul Cronin.
Thank you for the input. I surely didnât write the full name for this reason - but will know it for the future.
Thank you for tthe responce.
Evalaution of his skill is not in question.I have not recommended him as coach/trainer - my question was about the idea of preparing yourself before you approach the horses. Which I see you donât consider your way of thinking - and that fine.
My skills with horses are indeed limited, and have not claimed anything else - so I see no issue here.
Thanks again.
Ok. So perhaps you can see that those of us who have some fairly good horse skills, may not be as impressed with Hempfling or find his advice that useful?
Iâd go so far as to say his advice isnât useful to you either as a novice because itâs taking you farther away from horses.
I donât know what your goals are. If you want to be around horses go make that happen and learn. There is a lot of good advice on this channel, but also find a good encouragimg coach iRL.
If you are just an armchair aficionado who doesnât really want to be active with horses at this point, thatâs also fine. But donât insist somehow youâve discovered a guru who us actual horse trainers and riders should admire blindly. Because you donât have a clue what we know or do.
Exactly. I feel like I am reading copy/paste from Wikipedia with some slight tweaks from post to post which is giving it the ChatGPT vibe.
I feel like itâs Yankee Duchess on meds.
There is a Wikipedia article on him
Hmm. He started with horses at age 29, after a background including theater work.
He currently does personal development human potential type workshops. Always a big red flag to me, being from the West Coast home of almost every human potential cult under the sun in the 1970s.
Heâs also âself taughtâ with horses. This is another red flag to me. There is so much you can learn from apprenticeship with knowledgeable people in any field. When people claim to be self taught originary geniuses they often over exaggerate the very basic things everyone actually knows. They also sometimes set up a âstraw manâ fallacy whereby they portray everyone else in their field as incompetent and only themselves as possessing true knowledge. Because they have no idea what other practitioners think or do. This is a hallmark of many marginal health fraud or snake oil type healers.
Such practitioners are very attractive to people with no education or experience in a given field because they play into the idea that first, hereâs a master to guide you. And second, you donât need to know anything yourself.
Grew up in So Cal tooâŠdoes remind me of assorted Gurus and borderline cult leaders representing themselves as Masters you need to follow and buy their offerings. Blast from the past there. Especially his formative years âliving alone in the woods estranged from familyâ.
ETA, see he has assigned 26 â personality typesâ to horsesâ. Thought the proper term, according to another Guru, was âHorsenailityâ.
Gosh, I havenât come across âhorsenalitiesâ for over a decade. So many fond memories of heated diacussions on internet message boards (knowing no one in Real Life who bothered with this). Aye, those discussions were pure belters.
No
So does Kim Kardashian but is she a beacon of talent to admire?
No
BAHAHAH 
Gold
And the old
âHeâs the only one doing itâ
âHe has 80 million followers!â
Etc etc. Trying to convince us of this guys mastery without letting us figure it out for ourselves.
The weirdest thing to me is that itâs a first post? Why CoTH? I would think you would have to be lurker to know about this board and post here. Itâs random.
Hmm, that sounds like another âMasterâ we know who also had a predilection for teaching horses to rear.
If I were a novice with little first-hand experience, I definitely wouldnât choose to argue with a group of mostly very experienced horse people. Apparently, everyoneâs mileage may vary.
(I will admit that my first thought upon reading the OP was to childishly say âHi, Klaus.â But I restrained myself. Now Iâm thinking that first reaction may have been closest to the truth).
The reason I brought up the second language comment @Benv was not to be critical, but to attempt to interpret your slightly strange phrases as quirks of non-native speech. Definitely not critical! Just to understand. This probably has some influence on how you are being received because it does read as advertisement a bit.
I do not believe that one must be adept at martial arts before interacting with horses, no. I do think itâs complementary, as many types of sports and practices are, that refine balance, provide focus etc. Spiritual practices like meditation, breathwork or prayer can be helpful in interacting with horses as well.
However, horses are perfectly capable of teaching us those things. This more esoteric side of horsemanship has been covered by many teachers. Hempfling is not alone in this regard.
Again, the melodrama and theater of it are difficult to get through. Usually when thereâs that much smoke and flash, there is a charlatan about.
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