CLINIC REPORT FROM TEXAS CLINIC - 11/98
(posted to Internet Natural Horsemanship Discussion ListServ)

Hi everyone,

I arrived home Sunday night after having attended the four-day Mark Rashid clinic in Greenville, Texas. The clinic was sponsored by Jaki (Koda) Cast, from this list, and her husband Sheldon, and was the most meaningful clinic I have ever attended. Jaki and I both brought horses, as did Jodi Denning, also of this list (great report, Jo!), and three other women. Mark takes a maximum of six horse/human pairs at his clinics, and works with each team individually according to what is wanted and needed. Even in our small group we had a wide array of horses---a chargey ex-barrel horse, a one-eyed jumper, one for flying lead-change improvement, two (mine and Jaki's) for colt-starting, and one spooky three-year-old for refinements under saddle. At least, those were the declared "goals" at the outset...but a Mark Rashid clinic is an amorphous thing, and we all ended up, by our own choices, working on other issues.

This is not going to be a "nuts and bolts" clinic report, because it was not a nuts and bolts clinic for me. I definitely DID get a lot of helpful details pertaining to my horsemanship---when my timing was off, or my requests were too big, or even rude, for examples, Mark was right there in the moment to flag them for me. I have come away with a lot to think about and work on---for sure---but the things I want to emphasize about this clinic are the "bigger picture" things, because my Mark Rashid clinic experience will be different from yours, and yours will be different from the next person's. There is no cookie-cutter format to these clinics---they are highly personalized.

The constant thread of course, is Mark. If I had to choose one word to describe Mark's special brand of horsemanship, it would have to be "quiet." Running a close second would be the word "considerate." This guy has the softest feel I've ever seen in action. He notices *tiny* details and he reads the "inner horse" to a degree that astounds me. Also, while many other clinicians seem to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on the horse respecting us, one of the most striking things about Mark is the way he respects the horse. His horsemanship is very polite. There were several instances in which he pointed out to us that we were asking for responses somewhat rudely. In one of these instances, I had been leading my mare and when I stopped, she continued to walk forward, crowding me. Old habit took over and I immediately began shaking my index fingers at her face like little pistols. She automatically raised her head and backed up, as I had spent time teaching her, but then Mark said something incredibly logical like "you don't have to be so aggressive, just ask." He approached my mare and politely asked her to back up by using very light fingertip pressure on her chest and instant release. I have to emphasize it was really light---his fingers just barely indented the muscle---and she backed up just as nice as you please, and without raising her head. Suddenly it did just seem so much more polite, that I couldn't believe I had ever spent time shaking fingers at her or pinching her facial nerves. (As for that latter technique, it came back to haunt me when we driving her with two 30' cotton lines and a web halter: each time Mark or I asked her to back from the lines, she would do so willingly, but with her head elevated. It only occurred to me while watching Jaki's Dancer perform the same exercise that *I* had actually installed my mare's head-raising response myself, by having used pressure on her facial nerves to teach her to back. Dancer, untainted by such techniques but feather light due to all the excellent groundwork Jaki had done with him, backed up beautifully at the most "barely there" ask---and without any inclination to raise his head. You know, it's bad enough to discover that you've missed a spot in bringing your horse along, but it's a humbling feeling to realize that the responses that you now need to undo and make right with your horse, are actually results of stuff you spent time and effort trying to train in! Arghh!) Anyway, now all I have to do is lay one hand so lightly on Mescalita's chest that my fingertips barely graze her coat, and think "back up", and back she goes.

Mark is not at all interested in being the "alpha" horse---he suspects that horses know that even the most competent humans are still *not* horses. You can read a much better assessment of his feelings on the whole "alpha horse" thing at his website, so I won't discuss it here. He *is* interested in having a relationship with a horse that is based on trust and friendship, and in this environment, many "disrespectful" behaviors seem to melt away. There were no disrespectful horses at this clinic, anyway. Mark approaches horses with a very positive attitude, and it's funny how signs of something like "disrespect" almost seem to increase or decrease in proportion to the amount of time a person spends looking for them...(?) Mark offers horses the benefit of doubt at all times. Of all the other clinicians I've either ridden with, or seen work either in person or on video, Mark Rashid is, IMO, the most cognizant and respectful of both the horses' inherent dignity, and their right as creatures with whom we share this world to be treated with as much consideration (call it "courtesy" if you want) as we would (hopefully) offer the humans in our lives. A horse will leave one of Mark's clinics with his spirit still intact. These are *my* words---not Mark's---but after four days of observation and conversation with him, I feel they reflect his approach to horses accurately. After all, as Mark frequently reminded us, "(the horse) didn't ask to be here..."

Here are a few things that you will NOT likely see at a Mark Rashid clinic:

1. LOTS OF HIGH-SPEED ROUNDPEN WORK. The majority of the sessions did take place in the very nice 50+ foot round pen that a local feed-dealer had supplied, but on only a handful of occasions was any horse ever moved into anything faster than a medium-speed trot. In each instance, it was a pent-up horse needing to blow off a little steam at the beginning of the session, which Mark would quietly invite them to do. The three clinic participants who were working on issues under saddle spent probably the majority of their four sessions at a walk. Horses worked at liberty in the pen were worked mainly at a walk and trot. On the first day, in what had to be near-freezing wind-chill temperatures (no walls) and an unfamiliar environment for all, Mark got my four-year-old filly hooked on to him without ever pushing her out of a walk. His is the "round pen" as a method, distilled down to its most elemental and beautiful form.

2. OUT-OF-BREATH, SWEAT-SOAKED HORSES. See #1. Mark is very careful about wanting to create and preserve the soft eye, and toward this end, he is not particularly interested in stressing horses, either mentally or physically. He's about as "low impact" as it gets. As easy as it is to misapply the round pen, it is simply a joy to watch someone use it with such extreme softness and finesse. He is a master at recognizing a "good place" and stopping there for the day, preferring to err on the side of making fewer steps in a session rather than risking that one extra step that may undo the good that has been accomplished and thus force a longer session in order to get back to a good place. As a result, all the horses pretty much improved incrementally, rather than moving from crisis to dramatic change, as the clinic progressed.

3. EMPHASIS ON BEING THE ALPHA HORSE. You won't hear a lot of this type of stuff at a Mark Rashid clinic. The alpha horse does, of course, exist in nature and as such is certainly a viable model. It just depends on which type of relationship you wish to have with your horse. As stated earlier, Mark is more interested in having a relationship that is based on trust, friendship, and consistency, rather than dominance. Everything Mark does seems to impart a certain message of "we're in this together" to the horse. For example, when longeing a horse, Mark prefers to walk along with him in the spirit of letting him know that he won't be asked to do something that Mark isn't willing to do as well. I have for so long bought into the "alpha horse is the one not moving her feet" thing that when my turn came to enter the pen and try this, I actually had some trouble getting it all coordinated! For one thing, I kept passing my mare's midline and causing her to stop. Funny thing is, this is exactly how I used to longe horses years ago--- I had to learn how to do it all over again! There's a different feel through the line when you're walking with your horse, and I like respect that this shows for him. I was at a clinic once where someone was sitting in a lawnchair while her horse circled her endlessly, in perfect cadence, and at the time I was somewhat impressed. These days it would hold no appeal for me at all.

4. HANDLING OF THE HORSES DICTATED BY TIME CONSTRAINTS. The two things I most appreciate about Mark's horsemanship are his respect for the horses and the fact that his methods do not change from one venue to the next. In other words, Mark will do nothing in a clinic setting that he would not do were he at home with unlimited time. He has a great deal of integrity. As many times as time constraints have been cited on this list as justification for stressful or questionable techniques (used at clinics), I can't tell you what a breath of fresh air this is, to me anyway. You are about as likely to see a horse choked down or hit with a stick at a Rashid clinic as you are to wake up one morning with antlers.

As a result of this, a Mark Rashid clinic is more a highly detailed, four-day snapshot of where you are in your journey, than a goal-oriented thing. For example, Jaki and I both brought four-year-olds to start, with the notion that we would be riding them around before the thing was over, but...we didn't get them ridden. And still the clinic could not have been a bigger success for either of us. Now some of you might say, What, FOUR DAYS at a clinic and you didn't get the darn things ridden?! What kinda natural horsemanship is that?! Ol' So-and-So coulda ridden them things in a hour!! Well, the thing is, we could have ridden them things on the first day, and we would have in most anyone else's clinic, but with a lot more stress on them. I have no doubt whatsoever that Mark could be up on any youngster, however troubled, on the first day, but as I mentioned earlier, Mark doesn't seem interested in putting horses through a lot of mental or physical stress. In fact, on the second day of the clinic, I was, by Mark's estimation, only three minutes away from being in the saddle when my mare got troubled. I had been standing in one stirrup leaning over her when she got a little concerned and started walking off. She carried me about ten feet, and as soon as she stopped, I stepped down. At that point she came apart, bucking around the pen harder than she had on her first day of saddling months ago, the only other time she had ever bucked. We had found a hole, and it required backing up and getting her comfortable and confident again, which we spent the remaining two days on. We could have definitely put her through more stress and effort and gotten her ridden before the end of the clinic... but why? I'm going to have her for the rest of her life, so why rush through what is undoubtedly the most crucial time in her development as my future trail partner?

5. EMPHASIS ON HAVING TO HAVE SPECIAL EQUIPMENT. Mark doesn't sell any tack, and a phrase I heard him say often during the clinic was "if it works for you, you should use it." He happens to use regular ol' web halters, because "it's what I grew up using", and he gets wonderful results. In fact, during this clinic I made the personal decision to go back to web halters (if I still even have any), when I noticed how my mare's expression went slightly sour each time I went to put the rope halter on her. I finally noticed that the weight of the bullsnap on my lead does put some pressure on the halter knots even when the rope is slack---and I think Mes had been subtly trying to tell me this for a year. Don't get me wrong---Mark Rashid would be the last person on the planet to tell you not to use your rope halter, but in the Rashid-inspired spirit of noticing the tiny things, it was a conclusion I came to myself.

The handful of Rashid clinic reports that have come through this list have all mentioned it in terms of being an emotional experience, and there were indeed some emotional moments and soul-searching going on for several, maybe all, of us. Jaki was joking when she commented one day that this clinic was "like psychotherapy", but in some ways she wasn't too far off. The woman who had brought the spooky three-year-old for refinement under saddle came to the realization after only the first day that the reason her little mare was so frightened and hot was because she hadn't had a very considerate start. Her owner decided right then and there that, though they'd been riding her for a while, she wanted to just start the mare all over and make it up to her. By the last day, the mare's eyes stayed big and soft while her owner rode her at a calm walk around the pen.

There was other soul-searching going on at this clinic. As I mentioned earlier, Jodi Denning was in attendance with her big, black gelding, Spanky. I won't go on too much about Jodi, because she has already posted a wonderful report of her experience, but I did want to laud her for her efforts at this clinic. In short, for those of you who don't know it, Jodi is quite a talented trainer / horsewoman, and whether or not she considers Spanky to be her best "work" (I don't know), I do know that even pre-Rashid clinic he'd be the envy of 99% of the horse-owners I've ever met, and probably most of the folks on this list. Jodi has worked hard with Spanky, and he has just about every conceivable factory-installed option that you can put on a big black horse. And while I definitely admire her ability to have trained him to such a degree, what I admire more is how hard she worked to get back that which had been lost. That seems to me anyway to be the sign of a true a Horsewoman. As the clinic progressed, she seemed well on her way and some beautiful things were going on, once again, between her and her horse.

Jaki's Dancer sparked some emotional moments as well. Dancer is a big, stout, extremely handsome black tobiano (for those of you keeping score) and he arrived at the clinic with a whole lot of excellent groundwork done by Jaki, (this horse is LIGHT!) but with an incapacitating phobia of having a saddle strapped to him, which had been caused by a single deeply-traumatic incident with a "trainer." I doubt there was a dry eye in the house when, on the last day, Mark finally tightened the cinch on a calm, attentive Dancer and stepped away. When Dancer took his first step, and then stood chewing thoughtfully with big, interested eyes, the human tears flowed. I also hope that Jaki will post about her experience.

As for me, my emotional peak occurred on the evening of the day my mare got so troubled. When my mare had blown up and bucked across the pen, only minutes before I ostensibly would have put my leg over her, all I initially thought was "darn it, it was going so well" followed immediately by "Yikes, I might have been all the way on her!!" You see, I had brought my mare for "colt-starting", but I had also brought *me* to this clinic to try and regain some long-lost confidence that has been keeping me off of green colts for a number of years. My initial tentative goal for the clinic was to wrestle through that and culminate the experience by putting one of Mescalita's first rides on her. (At the time I signed up for the clinic, I had actually assumed Mark would put at least the very first ride on her, but I apparently assumed wrong. Oops! ) So, standing there on a cold morning in front of an audience, watching my little yellow mare bound around the pen like a frog when I had been only minutes from being aboard didn't do a lot for my confidence. In the words of Cormac McCarthy, "there were things (I'd) rather have seen..."

But the majority of that was worry about how badly I might get killed when I did eventually get on (Would my rubber-soled boots hang up? How high up is that ceiling fan? What if she just starts running full-tilt in here at a 45 degree angle--will I stay on? etc) My interior monologue was very dire for a few minutes, and I was missing a *really* big thing. I did notice that the saddle had slipped forward during the bucking spree and I worried that it would bruise Mes' shoulders and frighten her more, but a whole lot of my concern at this point was still on my own well-being.

We spent the remainder of the time that morning easing Mescalita back nearly to the point where she was before she blew, and called it a day. My session that day lasted two and a half hours (The sessions are loosely planned to last 60 to 90 min, but Mark will leave no horse or rider in a bad place.) By this time, things seemed less dire and I had begun to feel really bad that Mes had become frightened. She also had seemed stressed and edgy in general, though she was trying hard to cooperate. I spent the rest of the day hanging out with her, walking around and grazing, letting her wander wherever she wanted, in hopes of getting her bright, happy expression back. After an hour or so of wandering and ten minutes of splashing and snuffling through fetlock-deep puddles (she loves water---my boots got soaked through), the big, bright eyes came back. But even after all that time for reflection, I still hadn't realized the big thing.

It wasn't until later that night, sitting around Jaki's dining-room table talking with Mark (we were both staying with Jaki and Sheldon), that it was pointed out to me. We were talking about horse / rider relationships and the various forms those things take, when Mark mentioned what he thought was the "coolest thing" he had seen that day. It had to do with my mare's bucking spell. Mark began to explain that even though my mare had been very gradually wadding up and apparently trying to tell us (so politely!) that she just couldn't quite handle me being up over her in that stirrup, (Mark described her dialogue as something like "Uh, excuse me, but, uh, I *really* think I need to buck here...uh, you guys? I really, *really* need to buck..." etc), the fact is, she had waited until I was down to come unwound. She had carried me ten feet wanting badly to buck, but had waited until I was on the ground with my foot out of the stirrup to begin. Neither had she kicked out when she did, though her rump was only feet from me. Mark was painting the whole scene again and I nodded like I had of course been aware of the significance at the time, but in reality I had been so concerned with all the horrific "what ifs, that I had completely missed it: My little mare, even through her own fear, had made an enormous effort to keep me safe.

At that realization, suddenly knocked home by Mark, both my relationship with and love for my mare seemed instantly to become deeper and wider. I had raised Mescalita---I have both her sire and her dam---and I didn't think I could know her better or love her more, but it was as if I had been looking at a photograph that had suddenly switched to 3D. Mark is fond of saying that the horse will make every effort to be dependable for you, but that you must first be dependable for the horse---and here it was. I owe her one and I'll spend the rest of our time together trying to make sure she can always depend on me.

These are the kinds of things that seem to be discovered at a Mark Rashid clinic.

Now before you starting thinking that Mark is some kind of a mystical being who walks around with the hum of the Universe as a soundtrack, I have to stress that he's a very easy-going, personable, regular guy. He eats pizza, plays a hell-on-wheels guitar, and speaks to dogs. Ask him to state a preference and he's as likely to say "whatever..." as anything else. He also possesses a wit so dry that auditors have been known to take down his wry comments as notes. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed having this opportunity to learn from him (thanks again, Jaki and Sheldon for the best-run clinic I've ever attended), and I certainly hope to have more chances to do so in the future!

Amy C-M
acofmart@cherokeetel.com

Dancer is a horse that has been very few places in his life. The only time he spent any time away from his pasture was a trip to a barn a year ago....that's the place where the saddle problem started. Anyhow, Dancer had probably only been hauled a total of 5 times before this clinic came up. And, when he was hauled, he was loose in a pretty roomy stock trailer - but never tied in an enclosed slant load trailer. And, Dancer sure hasn't had any exposure to indoor arenas, PA systems, heavy traffic nearby, or jets taking off across the road (the clinic was held across the road from an aviation plant).....he's lived a pretty quiet life in a pretty quiet pasture since he moved here a year and a half ago. The most adventure he got was me hand walking him on the dirt roads around here....I love those times.

Anyhow, Dancer hauled 3 days of the clinic tied in a slant load trailer, he was asked to stay in a 12 X 12 stall each day, and on Sat I even asked him to allow me to hose him down coz he had a pretty fun horsey time in the mud at home the night before......hosed down with pretty cold water on a pretty drizzly cold morning in a place he'd never been bathed before. Dancer met horses he'd never seen before, he saw and heard and smelled things that weren't a regular part of his world, and he was petted and surrounded by folks all the time.

Now, I've done lots of stuff at home in the way of exposing Dancer to different things......flags, umbrellas, radios, slickers, guitars, mowers, bubbles, etc. But, ya never really know until you're in a new environment how things will go. Well, things went pretty dad-gum well! Dancer just seemed like he'd been doing this clinic thang all his life.....there were a couple of spook moments, but we stayed together and I actually got a bit of a chuckle out of Dancer a few times coz he seemed so curious about stuff around him.

And, then there was Friday.....Mark showed me how to lunge Dancer on a long line - then he showed me how to drive Dancer with lines.....okay, well, so I wasn't so good with those two ropes :o) But, the point is that I saw that all my hours of working and asking for that "soft feel" from Dancer just really shined! He is absolutely a horse that will yield with a thought......and, I've had everything to do with that......Dancer & I have done that together and it felt pretty good to see that my horse was so light and soft in an environment where he'd never been before.

So, I guess I just wanted ya'll to know that this clinic wasn't only about what we haven't accomplished with our horses.....it was just as much about what we HAD done along the way to prepare our horses for different aspects of their life with us. Mark's clinics are as much about attitude & acceptance as anything. "When mules fly......."

Peace to You & Yours-
Jaki Cast - Texas, USA