I got a ton from auditing a Brannaman clinic.
IMO, you need to watch all three days if you can. He has a whole system. If you pay attention and wait long enough, he’ll put all of the pieces in the puzzle. But he might not do that in some kind of orderly way! Be patient. If then, by the end of the last day, you have a question or two, by all means ask it.
What I saw, too, was him teaching a lot of exercises one can use. That will be your visual. Watch him-- his timing, when he moves and what part, when his horses move (usually a foot), and when he quits.
Pick out some other riders you like. But be warned: You’ll also watch a lot of wrong among a large group or riders, too. Mainly, you’ll see riders not giving soon enough and the horse getting a little more dull and the riders using more aids, not less, over time.
In addition to the visual, however, you have to listen for Brannaman’s explanation about how and when to use the exercise he’s teaching.
I’m no one and I make up my own horses, so take the next two opinions with a grain of salt:
- The really big deal about all of Brannaman’s stuff is about choosing the exercise for the job. None are meant to be done “just because” or in some prescribed order. They are applied to fix a problem you feel in your horse. They are surgical: Get the improvement you want for the moment and go do something else. Come back to the exercise (or really, the dull part or the physically weak part of your horse) later.
That can be hard to see in a clinic situation where he’s teaching the execution and use of each exercise. But take the exercises home and try them on your own horses. If you are listening and know some of the light, symmetrical feel you are aiming for, you’ll develop that sense of how to pick the right tool for the job from the Brannaman tool box.
- Fold what Brannaman does into your own education. Don’t think of one of his clinics (or anyone else’s for that matter) as a cult thing where you sign your brain and experience over to the church. For example, Brannaman and Dressagists have different ways of talking about how to engage the inside hind leg. My bet, however, is that they want the same thing from the horse in the end. Do what you understand and what works for you. You can study more and change more later. But the cotton pickin’ worst for a horse is a teacher/leader who doesn’t know what she’s aiming toward. That makes “getting it right” just hopeless for the horse.
Some words of warning: Let Brannaman decide how much translation he’ll do between his approach and dressage. If you ask, I think it makes him a tad defensive. He might see you as disrespectful since one can hear that dressage comparison as some absolute standard. It’s not so.
Also, don’t ask about the dangers of people over-doing things, say, over-bending the neck because so much of his system involves talk about using your hand. He’ll get pissed. He has a point: He’s not developing a system that’s fool-proof, as in “any clueless wannabe can do it and not hurt a horse.” He’s teaching a system that a great horseman can spend the rest of his life using and perfecting. There are no safety nets, even though he is teaching to people of all levels in the practice of his clinics.
I hope you enjoy auditing one of these clinics as much as I did. I know it has improved the way I am riding and teaching the horses around me.
I’m going to look at your blog from the clinic tomorrow when it’s not so close to my bedtime. Glad to hear you recommend the 7 Clinics DVDs - I ordered them today.
I did a calendar blooper this year. All along, I thought Buck was the last weekend in Sept, in which case I’d have to miss it anyway due to my girls having an IHSA show that weekend. I committed to taking my dog to his first agility trial this coming weekend, and then checked the calendar and realized it was the actual weekend for the Buck clinic in SC. Alas, by that time, my whole agility class had decided to do our first show together at the dog show, so I didn’t feel I could back out. (I wasn’t planning to ride; both of mine are older and in good places in their work, so more to be gotten from auditing)
