Internal struggle

The buckeye leaves are starting to emerge. What an amazing sight.

In a comment to the last post June wrote: I've taken your advice and signed up to register at Nevzorov's school, as I need all the help I can get. I find his website very pretentious, which is off-putting. Obviously when you visited, you must have liked the setup - what's up with the apparent pretentiousness?
Thanks.

I think my reply warrants its own post.

Pretentious

1 : characterized by pretension: as a : making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) b : expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature language> houses>

I started a reply to this earlier today and the post seemed to grow longer and longer, taking more and more of my time. One of my requirements for doing this blog was to keep things very simple.

The simple answer is this. Look at Alexander's relationship with his horses as shown in the photos, and videos. If that is attractive to you, listen to me when I tell you that I met him and his horses and his "real life" students and their horses and that what they have achieved is absolutely real. There was no harm, no force, and no coercion in anything that they did. The horses were always absolutely free to choose whether to participate or not. I am working towards this relationship with my own horses and you can see here in this blog the steps we're taking. The rest of what a person might interpret as pretentiousness, arrogance, or misrepresentation will only keep the person farther away from understanding what he freely offers.

In a way, I think it is fortunate that Alexander can be perceived as pretentious or even confrontational. It's an effective way to weed out people who are looking for surface results. There are words and there are actions and results of those actions. I have found that basing my assessment of any trainer or person on their actions and results of their actions leads me along a path that goes much deeper than anybody who might know the "right" words to say. There will always be a struggle to re-examine old concepts. A seeker's best friend is this internal struggle. It signals the growth of something new, like the leaves bursting out of the bud, or a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.

And on to the rest of my day...

I think this video shows very well the pause between my calling Patrik and him coming. Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling talks extensively about the pause in his clinics. It is a fascinating thing for me to observe and try to find my place within.

Tomorrow we might have guests in the pasture so I wanted to clean up the horses. I noticed once again that whenever I come into the pasture with an agenda, I have much less fun than when I come with no idea of what we're going to do. I think I'm going to have to let go of my old concept of what a well-cared for horse looks like and come up with some new ideas.

I did get a little brushing done on Sofi's mane. I just noticed how odd my finger looks! I'm double jointed in my fingers so they tend to bend in surprising ways. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt.

I rode Patrik quite a bit today but gave up trying to split my focus between riding and taking pictures or videos. If we do have guests tomorrow I'll recruit some new picture-takers.

Here are the neighbor horses Versano and Ebony...still looking for a home. Maybe yours?