I was channel surfing and came across RFTV and half hour Parelli Natural Horsemanship info-mercial. Was only there few minutes, when I heard Pat’s voice saying:
“Remember, the more you use your reins, the less they use their brains.”
Seriously?!! Really!!? Is this the crap he is teaching? Can he honestly defend that statement with a straight face?
No wonder his students have no clue how to actually ride.
No Parelli fan here. But - meh. Not knowing the context I can’t get all excited about that quote.
I think a common fault of beginner riders (certainly was one of mine! 
) is being too fiddly with the hands, so the horse learns to tune out the meaningless noise.
Or he may be trying to say some variation on “ask him once and when he does it, leave him alone” IOW, release of pressure is the reward for doing as you ask. Again, it takes some riders a while to get the timing right.
Of course, he had to make it rhyme, which is annoying and kind of clouds the meaning.
I’m way more worried about his advice to have some great honking brass turnbuckle under the horse’s chin so one can easily bash the poor thing in the chops and he can’t see it coming.
Kinda agree with the above. It’s a good (but annoying) way to get a basic lesson across. How many times have we heard “more leg, less hand!”?
Weeeeellll, as a dressage rider I can say that one strives to use their body (seat, core, thighs, calves, weight, etc.) to signal the horse before the reins. I agree, alot of people do get “handsy” and use their hands to turn and stop much more than their body. Perhaps this is a folksy way of telling the person to stop using their hands.
Does it occur to anyone that Pat has built an empire on sticks and flags and ropes and arm waving and gestures, everything you can think of, to avoid actually using or teaching anyone how to properly use their hands and reins, while telling them that the reins are not important?
The only thing he uses the reins for is correction, as in “give him a speeding ticket”.
So basically, the reins are for punishment.
You mean to tell me to ignore hundreds of years of great horsemanship, developed on a connection to the horses mind and body,through the reins, among other things? His whole horsemanship is based around the idea that using the reins is cheating. That you are not really working with the horse’s mind when you use the reins, because you’re just pulling him around. It’s “mechanics and fear” versus “love language leaderhsip” Puke. So its no reins or bad reins? That’s our choice?
Is it possible that Pat has never really figured out what the reins are for, and how to use them? Meanwhile, thousands of people are mis-educated and very confused by a mustacheod bozo!.
end of rant.
Reins are not important. Horsenalities are very important. And jumping over cow barrels. And prancing next to your pony. All very important. Reins not so much. Ask any Pepperoni.
I don’t totally disagree OP. I think he’s nuts. But, all in all, how awful is this one thing? Can’t be any worse than what he’s said in the past…
Is it awful? Yes. Is it harmless? I don’t think so.
It is not horsemanship. It’s circus. It’s Amway.
It is enormous content, with very little context and substance. The substance that is there is entirely frabircated, and not even sound when examined in depth.
It is a very logical, progressive teaching system.
Beautifully done graphics and texts full of easy to read, step by step written material with dvd visuals. Glitzy presentations. Sing-song, easy to remember slogans. You can move up to higher and higher levels. it is interactive over the internet. It is hands on. It uses social media in an unprecedented way, to reach out to its members. It has the in depth highly organized and well thought out structure of a university program. It’s ingenious and extremely profitable.
And the only place to actually apply any of it is in other Parelli programs, by becoming a certified instructor, so that you can perpetuate the techniques, and demonstrations at horse expos, and perform the circus acts, to other people to create other Parelli-ites practicing Parelli.
Its like a snake swallowing it own tail.
It is not furthering classical horsemanship. It is not educating riders. It is hardly the cadre noir. But it is cloaked in language that it is high horsemanship, and attaches itself to almost any well known rider or discipline it can to give itself credence via association. But the emperor has no clothes.
The people who have gone through the program practically need a 12 step program to recover if they get out.
Personally, I think it is a mental disorder.
If reins are so important then why did a dressage master, his name escapes me now, often ride with reins made of a single strand of silk. He did this to prove one could right properly with the lightest contact.
Also Pat Parelli is a rides western where the horse responds to body, leg and neck aids on a very loose rein.
CTS - consider the source.
double post
Do I like parelli? No. In fact, you probably won’t find many on these boards that do.
However, is this one thing he said really that wrong? No. Most people ARE too hands-y when they ride. May be a different way of saying it, but if it gets the point across.
From the sounds of it, you only brought up this one thing to flip out about so that you could make a topic ranting about him.
That’s fine, if you want, but then choose things he says that are actually totally off the wall/bad. Very few people could do worse by having a lighter rein.
Saw an older woman get runaway with her horse. She had just returned from a 3 ay weekend of Parellii kool ade and was way into him. Horse ran into the indoor ring and she was flying around at a rate of knots and I was really afraid they would make a turn into the barn aisle which would have resulted in a major wreck. I ran up to see if I could help her and told her to pull on the reins to stop the horse but she kept saying she couldn’t. Horse finally runs out of gas and stops and I asked the lady why she couldn’t use the reins and she told me Parellii said you mustn’t use your reins! Really???
Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
The quote on it’s own is not incorrect. In the Grand context of Parrelli, however…
[QUOTE=fooler;7630701]
If reins are so important then why did a dressage master, his name escapes me now, often ride with reins made of a single strand of silk. He did this to prove one could right properly with the lightest contact.
Also Pat Parelli is a rides western where the horse responds to body, leg and neck aids on a very loose rein.
CTS - consider the source.[/QUOTE]
he didn’t do it on a less than finished horse…
[QUOTE=GypsyQ;7630868]
Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
The quote on it’s own is not incorrect. In the Grand context of Parrelli, however…[/QUOTE]
Exactly.
[QUOTE=copper1;7630781]
Saw an older woman get runaway with her horse. She had just returned from a 3 ay weekend of Parellii kool ade and was way into him. Horse ran into the indoor ring and she was flying around at a rate of knots and I was really afraid they would make a turn into the barn aisle which would have resulted in a major wreck. I ran up to see if I could help her and told her to pull on the reins to stop the horse but she kept saying she couldn’t. Horse finally runs out of gas and stops and I asked the lady why she couldn’t use the reins and she told me Parellii said you mustn’t use your reins! Really???[/QUOTE]
That must have been scary for that woman… Do you know a REAL instructor that you can point her to? That is just horrifying; she could have really gotten hurt!
Well, for me, the actions speak louder than the words. I caught the end of one of his shows on RFD-TV where he was sitting in an arena on his horse seeming to wrap up the session. The horse was standing still but Pat was nevertheless, as he talked, picking up those reins to ‘stop’ the horse about every 15 seconds or so, as though he expected him to move off. I was not impressed.
[QUOTE=ElisLove;7630707]
Do I like parelli? No. In fact, you probably won’t find many on these boards that do.
However, is this one thing he said really that wrong? No. Most people ARE too hands-y when they ride. May be a different way of saying it, but if it gets the point across.
From the sounds of it, you only brought up this one thing to flip out about so that you could make a topic ranting about him.
That’s fine, if you want, but then choose things he says that are actually totally off the wall/bad. Very few people could do worse by having a lighter rein.[/QUOTE]
Yes it is wrong. The statement is patently false. It is misleading and indefensible. It has caused uneducated riders to believe that if you are using you reins, you are cheating, and your horse isn’t thinking. he is an education system that is full of things like this that fill peoples heads with sayings and slogans that do not ask them to think.
The idea of communicating an idea in a very delicate and refined way through the reins is not examined. Instead, since reins are bad, it is suggested that its best to remove it from the equation of training, except to tell the horse he made a mistake.
How does this help someone use their reins better? You have poor hands, so just stop using them. This is education?
You learn what you hear - (as in the older lady being run away with) as a little kid in Pony Club we changed horses in a lesson. The one I got ran away with me in a polo field. My Dad had read Black Beauty to me and his mouth hurt from the bit, so I was afraid to pull on the reins… instructor was yelling at me to pull on the reins and lean back.
I’m not a fan of Parelli under any circumstances. You can search Parelli on the boards and will find plenty of threads trashing him, his wife, and pretty much everything Parelli or “natural horsemanship” seven ways to Sunday.
The threads almost always deteriorate into train wrecks.
Maybe everyone is out of popcorn and wine today. Or I just need to wait a little longer.
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