Dressage, Naturally with Karen Rohlf

Creating healthy biomechanics and stronger partnerships through combining natural horsemanship principles with the art of dressage...

photo: Dana Rasmussen

never underestimate the potential for harmony & lightness to improve in ways you cannot yet imagine

Welcome back to the Temenos...Temenos is an ancient Greek word. It refers to a sacred space that has no limits, where special rules apply and extra-ordinary events are free to occur.

This Month:• I learned a new trick on my computer!

CLICK HERE to listen to a Podcast about collection

• Spring at Temenos Fields: a time for new growth...

• Question from the Natural Dressage Fo-rum, Answer from Karen

• A thought for spring...

Spring time at Temenos Fields!

All photos in this issue by Dana Rasmussen/Photon Studio

Clinic schedule: CLICK HERE

Upcoming Clinics: June 5-8 Poland contact: Beata@400.pl

June 10-12 The Netherlands contact: Parelli Horseman’s Retreat

~ M A Y 2 0 0 8 ~

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claire & tiffany very, very serious stuff going on here :-) Claire & Josh

For almost a year, Claire Devisse has been a work-ing student here, with Tiffany Mitchell following close behind her. While here she attended college, finishing up with excellent grades as she pursues her accounting degree (smart girl... a great skill to have... I hope she comes back and teaches me about it someday!) Now she is on her way to go to school in Binghamton, NY. I am a little afraid of how she will survive the winters after being a Florida girl, but somehow I know she will manage.

While here she made great progress with her Gaited horse, Flyboy (the chestnut pictured above, in yes, a beautiful CANTER). I finally rode him before she left (my first ride on a gaited horse....Very strange, I must admit.) but he felt so lovely, alert, calm, ener-getic and responsive. She did a great job with a somewhat emotional horse. We did a lot to improve his mental, emotional & physical balance and it paid off. From her first few days here, when he got com-pletely anxious if she took him away from his mare, to seeing them canter and jump bareback and bridle-less with balance and calmness was so fun! She has passed the majority of her Level 3 assess-ment and I know the rest will follow soon!

Sometimes even I remember to have some fun. I especially will remember Claire’s part in the Teme-nos Fields Team Demolition Kayak Derby at Juni-

per Springs. Somehow a nice quiet paddle turned into a mad race of tackle-kayak! The home team was Tiffany in the bow, me in the stern and Claire in the middle grabbing other people’s paddles as we passed them (these were other friends, not just strangers, by the way!) . She was pretty good at pushing other kayaks into low hanging trees, too.

Later when she was in the stern and I was in the middle, I must say her steering skills were only about ‘Pre-Level 2’, but after a couple near decapita-tions, she got the hang of it!

I will also never be able to forget Claire’s campaign to ‘Save the Pickle’. She is acutely aware of all the cucumbers who have died in vain, I invite you to join her cause... if you do not plan on eating the pickle that is served with your sandwich... please remember to tell your server ‘no pickle, please’ ;-)

Another thing I will remember Claire for is the excellent job she did with one of my client’s horses, Josh. The horse and the owner were having some... ‘relationship issues’. Both horse and human are talented and capable, but lack of confidence was turning into fear, anxiety and rearing into palm trees and electric fences! Time to change things up! I chose Claire to help because of her calm, patient demeanor, but ability to be a clear leader. With no emotional investment in the horse it was easier for her to break the cycle. It was a bit of a ‘journey’...

Balancing laying down some very clear boundaries with giving the horse plenty of freedom. Together they also learned to jump and through that process Claire learned how to find her athletic balance and Josh found a purpose and learned that it can be fun to move! By the time Claire left they had success-fully competed in 2 schooling shows over fences (in the halter!) .

The owner of the horse had begun to play with and ride him again and it was going really well. But now she had a decision to make: sell Josh to a human who enjoys doing the things that he loves to do (big spaces and jump instead of a dressage focus) or, keep him and become the human that Josh needs.

She decided to keep him. She has other horses to do dressage with and perhaps it is Josh’s gift to her to remind her to get out of the regular patterns and be free... and to give the horse a more obvious purpose.

What is important, is to be aware that either choice could be perfect, if she decided to sell him it wouldn’t have been because he was ‘bad’ or she was ‘inadequate’. And just because she likes dressage, keeping him doesn’t mean that he is now assigned to that profession. It is about consciously choosing and creating the situation that is best for the team of horse and rider, adapting accordingly and knowing that ‘the best’ can change over time.

Good Luck, Claire!!

2 Copyright 2008 Temenos Fields, Inc May

Onward, Upward...more than just plants & birds are growing up and moving on

From the Natural Dressage Forum:

Q: We muddled over our question this month for awhile, but everything we came up with we ended up finding the book once we started looking!

So we'd like to ask a question of a slightly different nature this month. We want to know about 'day in the life of Karen' s horses.' We realize you teach people and probably train other horses, but what do you do with your horses? How do you find time to balances the different skills of on-line, liberty, freestyle finesse? Many of us find once we have played with liberty, for example, there is no time or energy left for freestyle.Maybe we should ask about a Day In the Life of Ovation!  Since where you are with him is probably closer to where most of our members are with our horses, we thought he would be a good horse with whom many of us could relate.  How old was he when she got him and what was his training background? What kind of stuff did you do first? How was a typical day with him the first 30 days? Did you

formally bring him through L1-3 first, at least in the areas of online, liberty and freestyle? Did you mix that with your early exercises or alignment and balance?We'd like to focus not necessarily on a how to, rather inspiration and ideas on how to creatively balance all we are trying to achieve. Thanks Karen, and we're loving the book/DVD!-Members of the Natural Dressage Forum

A: Wow, this needs a long answer! How about I give a sort of generalized answer first... (By the way, I am so happy to hear you are finding answers to lots of your questions in my book!)

Currently I have 3 horses personal horses that i am playing with. I also have set up my life so there is almost no pressure on them... no owners looking over my shoul-der for a result, no competition to enter... no schedule beyond my own obsession. After so many years of having a lot of those pressures, it has been really inter-esting to see how things are going, and

how much progress I still make even though it rarely feels like I am working. (Take this in the context of I am a highly motivated, focused rider, so my version of ‘not working’ may be different than an-other’s).

I guess with each horse I want to keep a really keen awareness of where they are... what is the range of communication, partnership, skills and talents.

Then I want to have a good visualization of what I would like them to be like... in the end, but also at the next stage from where they are now. The I keep the awareness of what they as individuals, like to do and what causes them stress. I also try to think of the general theme with the horse... what is the underlying gener-alization about the horse (is he confident, but uncoordinated (Ovation), or athletic, smart and sensitive, but with fear that manifests as aggression (Atomic), or ath-letic and smart but emotional if he thinks he isn’t perfect (Monty)... because these

copyright 2008 Temenos Fields, Inc May

are the themes I need to take care of in everything I do.

I can afford to leave Atomic a little dull one day in order to calm him because athleticism is easy to get back on him, I can afford to challenge Ovation in order to increase his coordination because he doesn’t brood about it. He recovers really well, emotionally. I can afford to not prac-tice the difficult stuff everyday with Monty, because it is his regained confidence that will carry him through the hard stuff.

But... leave Monty feeling like a failure and I lose everything with him. Leave Atomic in reaction and I’ve got an dan-gerous horse, and leave Ovation standing around uninspired/challenged to try new things and I’ve got a very pretty blob that just sits around eating stuff!

So I know I just listed a lot of things that are swimming around in my conscious-ness... But I do my best to trust that if they are there, they will help me make the decisions in the moment that are best. These themes apply whether I am doing liberty, online, freestyle or dressage!

Do I go through every savvy every day with every horse? NO! Sometimes I do, but not necessarily. Beyond just the idea of: “we need to practice this skill” I think of what can be gained from each savvy... if I want to really help Ovation get excited about moving on his own... would liberty perhaps be the best way to do it? If I want to really impress Monty about how much I trust him and how perfect he is... would bridle-less be the best was? If I want to leave Atomic feel-ing really confident would On-line games be the best? Or maybe my leadership would be better in a different savvy.... Maybe concentrated precise riding will give Monty confidence, maybe doing suppling and alignment exercises would free up Ovation, and maybe Liberty will be best for Atomic, because he will not feel trapped.

If you and your horse are just learning the skills, then you need to practice them all, and allow a certain amount of time for each so you improve.. Then when you have this skill, this tool, and can make decisions about when to use it; what the cause and effect is for this particular horse. The notice also things

like: ‘hmmm, I did a bunch of liberty this week and now I notice my finesse got better (or worse)”... more pieces of the puzzle start to arise.

Pay attention to your horse, put out your radar and see if you are on course to-wards making you and your horse the best you can be as a team... enjoy the things that are going well, and investigate the missing pieces.

It is all about keeping the balance in gen-eral, but on any given day, perhaps you do all liberty, or just some freestyle, or even you get on and do finesse the whole time, and that can be totally OK... but when you look back on the past couple weeks, or month... I hope it feels more balanced than that. Especially if there are missing pieces... many times those miss-ing pieces can be solved in a less direct way, i.e.: some issues that show up in finesses can actually be best solved fre-estyle, or liberty or on-line.

to review, remember to notice:

• where your horse is now

• where you want to go

• what is the next stage to go through in getting there?

• what does your horse enjoy?

• what is the general theme with the horse?

• Cause and effect of your playing

• What do you have already that you don’t need to drill, but you can enjoy?

I think this will help you a lot in deciding how to spend your time.

I do have plans to start some projects where you will see me play with some specific subjects with specific horses... but for now I hope this will do!

~Karen

One more thing... I actually now have one more horse. The horse, Jedi who I was trying to sell for a customer never sold, so I decided to keep him! I feel bad for all the people who he would have been per-fect for, but I am happy because he is just a wonderful horse to have around. He and Tiffany are learning dressage to-gether and are doing great!

(Tiffany & Jedi)

4 Copyright 2008 Temenos Fields, Inc May

From Student, Anja Weiler....

Hi Karen:-)

just wanted you to see my lovely mare:-)

I absolutely LOVE your book and dvd!!!!!

I have played with Alina (pic) and Lucas with the string around the neck instead of the halter. Alina would do this thing where she turned her head in, but with the head in the air and avoided every-thing. the string helps a lot to help her understand how to move her shoulder.

The picture is the result:-) can't wait to ride this horse:-)

Lucas is doing all kind of weird stuff with his head... he will stretch the head out tip the neck to one of the sides and lick and chew a lot after. I can ride him with a string around his neck and have really good control over his shoulders! he even cantered relaxed yester-day!!! so excited:-)

Again I can't thank you enough!!! you are the one who made me put my dots together:-)

Hugs Anja

"Be not afraid of going slowly. Be afraid of standing still." ~ Japanese Proverb

S T U D E N T

Nullam arcu leo, facilisis ut 5

My favorite Springtime ‘To Do’ list!

T H O U G H T S F O R S P R I N G

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The master in the art of livingmakes little distinction between

his work and his play,his labor and his leisure,his mind and his body,

his education and his recreation,his love and his religion.

He hardly knows which is which.He simply pursues his vision of excellence

in whatever he does,leaving others to decide

where he is working or playing.To him, he is always doing both.

~Zen Buddhist Quote