Ethological horse riding lessons

We have started a five week course of lessons covering 'ethological horse riding techniques'. This is pretty much the stuff we have been doing in our other lessons, but we have done quite a few new things, and it is interesting doing it with a number of other people - there are perhaps 10 people and horses on the course.
We have bought rope head collars for Daisy and Owen and some longer lead/longe reins. I will leave you to read about the theories (look up Natural Horsmanship, Parelli, Monty Roberts). The generally idea is that you try to communicate with the horse, using body language, in a way that it understands based on the herd nature of horses. I would say there are three main concepts I have taken from the lessons 1) The idea of comfort vs discomfort - horses want an easy and comfortable life so you use it as a reward and make it more effort to disobey than it is to do what you ask 2) Whoever moves the others feet is the boss - so there are lots of excersizes where you remain still and the horse moves 3) you are looking for a partnership where both sides respect and care for the other, but with a definate leader and a follower. There are various different theories and people can get quite religious about one or another thing being the only right way. 

It is very interesting and amazing to see how effectively it is working - particularly on Daisy who 'has a lot of ideas' as the riding instructor says. ie she wants to be in charge and comes up with many cunning ways to get you to do what she wants or to avoid doing what you want. Owen generally is more obliging, but he can have his moments and the poor chap can be a bit grumpy with his itchy skin - which is a lot better, particularly considering how wet it has been recently.

What a grubby leg he has! It is all the rain...