"Self Carriage is more than the physical state, it's also the horse's emotional and mental state.
The horse carries himself in the best and most appropriate manner for the movement he is creating and his emotional state." ~Karen Jones
Through experience and experimentation with my horses, and those of my students, I find self carriage feeling like -
'Self' is the horse as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness of their 'primal movement'. 'Carriage' is the manner of carrying their head and body through 'space, energy and movements' and the manner of carrying their 'heart .'
One element of Motivational Horsemanship develops FUNctional movement training, such as autonomous self carriage. The exercises I teach horses and humans are based on the most current findings of 'movement science' and how it's applied to horse's autonomous and natural movement.
Following evidence based learning concepts, I use reward based training for the management of horse's welfare and care. I train and teach these concepts to motivate and inspire humans to help their horses find the proud movements they were born with.
The horse's proprioceptive sense of the relative position of their body and the strength of effort it takes to produce movements, is 'reawakened' through my FUNctional movement exercises.
This 'reawakening' brings the horse into the emotional 'seeking state' of recognition and realization, coming into their own awareness of their body and movements. It takes them back to birth and their early development years. This wasthe time of their 'primal state of movement'.
Their birth is when their authentic 'self carriage' began.
My horses have not only found FUN in their own movements, they are consistently refining their balance, coordination, strength and self carriage in each moment and with autonomy. They have gained immense confidence and power and have become puzzle solvers 'extraordinaire' with the use of reward-based training.
On our journey of discovery of the relationship with our horses, FUNctional movement training takes the horse to the place of autonomy that promises the horse we will be 'free of force'.
The resulting promise is a horse that begins to show us, through their 'owned' movement, what they were born to be...proud, confident, balanced and agile !
Let me show you a few of the possibilities....
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