Not really, though yes, really LOL For the green person, yes, it is largely about the human. But as you the human gain more experience, it is very valid to use the Levels to train a horse, because it’s still just good training concepts - yield to pressure, do it quickly but calmly, and in whatever direction I ask. When I ride you, go forward from my leg, come back from my hand and seat, stay at a gait and direction I put you on until I ask you to do otherwise. Start to learn how to carry yourself without me holding you up. Sounds like basic dressage work 
There are some suggested patterns to ride to help a lazy horse go forward, or to help a hot horse slow down, and some work for some horses, some don’t, and that’s where you as a rider get to use judgement in learning what works for what type of horse on what day. Sounds like generic good, basic training
A “level xyz Parelli trained horse” doesn’t mean anything, because there are no horse levels.
Agreed, but mostly because IME it’s much more likely that a PNH-wannabe who has no idea what they are doing THINK they have a Level 2 horse, and that usually means they didn’t know what they were doing and the horse is pretty screwed up. If Pat himself told me a 2yo filly was at Level 2 groundwork, I would KNOW what that filly knows, which is a pretty darn good amount of ground work and it would be correct work.
When a friend hosted a PP clinic, that is a clinic given by a PP certified instructor, they needed a few extra warm bodies, so a friend and I went.
At that time, they said the best to learn the PP basics was to come with the nicest, olderst horse we could find, because it was about the people, not horse and the less problems a horse may have, the better it was already trained, the better the students would be able to practice what the clinic was teaching.
Agreed - if you want to learn the PNH principles as your training, the saner and more cooperative the horse, the better, but he doesn’t have to be a saint who doesn’t offer any resistance. Part of teaching the human is being able to fix things that don’t go exactly as planned, and for that to happen, the horse has to do things “wrong” here and there. Nobody every really learns to ride or handle a horse until they learn to correct issues.
Since many people don’t have other than young or hard to handle horses, because that is what many beginners somehow end up with, or well trained horses in beginner’s hands without help end up untrained, that is why so many PP clinics have less than ideal horse/handler pairs working.
I think that is why they had to adjust to that reality and make it all so simple and repetitive.
Agreed. Idealism is not often reality when it comes to horses. And face it, good training all boils down to simple, repetitive aids and tasks. They may end up merging together into a complicated aid and task, but everything breaks down to small parts that were exercised over and over until it was ingrained in the horse. The number of reps may be 5 times for something for one horse, and 27 times for the same thing for the next horse, but that is all because horses do not learn the same way or at the same rate. That goes for every single training method in every discipline out there.
