09/02/2026
Yes, horsemanship and groundwork lessons are very important. Just recently we had a parent say I don’t understand the purpose of these horsemanship lessons. They didn’t even want to hear our explanation. Sigh 😔
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Following up on our "teaching" post this week.....do we give students time to FAIL?
Students need time to experiment. Learning what feel "isn't" is just as important as learning what feel is. We can easily start this from the ground with a horse in- hand. How does our position and posture change the outcome? Go from one extreme to the other with experiments like human walking stride (shuffling to long and powerful), energy levels (1-10), hand position (forward and up or down and "dangling"), etc.
We can discuss the results in relation to mounted work, provide opportunities to "fail', and protect our horses. We DON'T need to allow failure that hurts the horses with yanking, large kicking, etc.
Failure is learning. Yes, with kids and thousand pound animals we need to bubble wrap a little (and maybe have a couple good ponies), but when we build a culture of groundwork we can create a learning environment where failure is simply part of the process.
