What are some things to do with Traditional Horsemanship?

Question

Thanks heaps!

Answer 1

I'm not sure what you mean by things. Traditional techniques would be those that were used by past generations and influenced what is still used. Non-traditional techniques would be any that have not been used in the past.  If you go back throughout history, traditions were often combined with non-traditional techniques, or those of one culture were combined with those of another. What we see today is rarely a pure tradition from the past, but a combination of traditions and new techniques that created new traditions.  After all, humans have a 6,000 year history with horses.   It depends on how far back in history you want to go to define traditional.

The most obvious "things" having to do with traditional horsemanship would be the riding styles we see.  Start with western and english riding and saddle styles, and then look at the divisions within those categories, such as dressage and huntseat, or neck reining and direct reining.  The ways horses are trained stem from traditions that developed over centuries, and were passed on and adapted by varieties of cultures as horses were introduced from one place to the next.  So, I think you need to be more specific in your question if you have something specific you want addressed.

For example, in my lifetime, what had become the traditional methods are now changing as the "natural horsemanship" methods have become more and more popular.  And natural horsemanship methods come from old traditions that had been abandoned by many or most trainers for other, quicker methods that could get horses broke and working as fast as possible.

Answer 2

Please ask a more specific question.  By "to do with" you meant what?  What things are related to it, or how to do what exactly, in a traditional style?  This is a very broad question.  Dressage is a traditional style of horsemanship.  But not in some places.  Tradition can vary enormously by breed of horse and by location.  Sorry I can't give a better answer without much more info!

Answer 3

Yes -and please define "traditional horsemanship" - do you mean "natural" horsemanship?

Also - what point are you at in your work with your horse and what's your goal?

If so, the basic idea is to fully understand the horse's manner of communication and how he interprets your communication to him via use of body language and tools such as bits, spurs or whips.

The outcome of this understanding should be to enable you to control your horses feet- put them where they should go when you want them to be there and stay there- in a nutshell.

So practicing making every activity you partake of with your horse be as "light" as possible - meaning the least amount of effort for the quickest result.

For example, I was reading a Western Horseman article last night that talked about "wither stopping" your horse - it's basically dropping the reins to the wither, squeezing softly to obtain a stop.  You can train a horse (be purpose or by accident) to stop at any given cue - you can train a horse to anything at any given cue, actually - but you should train your horse to respond to the same cues routinely used.  For example, we typically train horses to go against their nature and move AWAY from pressure rather than through it.   So if we bump or push with the left leg, the horse is to move to the right.  I once knew a trainer who trained horses to do the opposite - bump or push with the left caused the horse to move to the left, wanna talk about massive problems went that horse went back to its owner with years of "typical" experience....but I digress.

Whatever cues you are working on with your horse - moving the hind or forequarters via use of pressure from the ground or mounted for example, should be practiced until the horse does these things with the slighted movement.  If you're working from the ground, how hard must you apply pressure to a shoulder to get the horse to pivot on his hind and step across with his forefeet?  If it's 10 lbs of pressure, work on getting that down to 5, then 1 then none - movement with "personal space" - this makes this movement lighter and lighter.

I read some other good stuff last night that I'm going to try.  The Texas mounted police have a 40 hours training program in which they work on desensitizing their mounts to scary things - fast movements etc.  They play 3 games - broom polo (with brooms and basketballs); exercise ball soccer (where the horses bat around one of those big exercise balls popular with women now - I particularly liked this one as I can do it on my own) and nerf football.  These activities get the horses used to items flying or rolling around, the rider changing weight - all sorts of things.

So work on this - getting a horse to wither stop would take a bit of time and focus.  and I don't think you could come up with any activity - no matter how weird - that doesn't teach the horse something.  Working on pulling a gunny sack full of straw towards you and the horse and pulling it behind you, taking a raincoat out of a mailbox and putting it on, opening and closeing gates from horseback - all things valuable to learn -

But I'll stress that you must understand how your horse perceives what you do with it to do these things without causing a decrease in confidence of your horse.  Small steps with watching and analyzing the horse's response along the way are necessary.

Good luck!

Answer 4

Traditional Horsemanship  is knowledge that is passed down or taught by very experienced people that have gained their knowledge the same way.  but is NOT necessarily out of date.  after all the aids we give our horse can vary as does the technique taught to us.  so tradition to me  means being taught as well as the proven and tried methods of years ago.

the reins and legs aids are still given no matter what we need to do.

if someone had been involved with horses for one year and someone else had been involved with horses for tweny years.   i would go to the person with the longest experience.

none of us will ever know everything to know about horses.

but we can always carry on trying to.

a saying which was said to me.

Answer 5

Traditional horsemanship is just reffering to having a specific, sequential and correct way of doing things. it is just a way of not strayng away from the way to train and take care of horses. It is simply a specific way of horsemanship.